EV-Nation

I have been working for the past few days on a free I-Phone app to display all the public charging stations for Electric Vehicles.  I am working with www.EVChargerMaps.com and others to gather data for the app. Sadly the Mini-E can only use the standard outlets (marked Other Chargers) without a custom adapter.

Take a look at some of the In-Progress screens:

First full month of electric use stats are in.  Thankfully, they are right in line with expectations.  I was pretty confident but the "business manager" still had some lingering worries that our electric use would be scary.  We are averaging an additional 9.59 KWH per day for using the Mini-E.  That bumps us up a tier but even with the Summer rates, our per mile usage cost is around $.062 per mile.  This works out to be a bit less than we average in gasoline for the Prius at $3/gal at an average of 45 mpg.  Then I factor in the fact that my electricity is actually surplus from my solar system and we are still within our monthly generation.  The effective ongoing fuel cost for me is nothing.

Of course this discounts the premium we pay upfront for the batteries and technology in an EV as well as the up front cost of the solar system.  However, I firmly believe now more than ever that those up front costs will be driven down.  People like me are out on the road showing that not only can we get by with a limited range, daily self charged, clean car; we can have a ton of fun doing it.  Once the full public gets are real taste of this, the game will change for good.