Musta Got Lost, Somewhere Down the Line

A Cautionary Tale of a Range Anxiety Cause
“I think I’ve finally got some material for writing that guest blog post we talked about me writing”, she said.  “Actually you don’t have any material, but I do,” as I uncorked a bottle of wine.  So went the conversation when a certain someone returned from a shopping trip recently.

Five Hours Earlier

One of her friends was in town for the weekend, and they wanted to do some shopping.  She told me of their intended stops (four of them, including a necessary stop for dog food as we were going out of town the next day and it would be good if the dog sitter [aka Mom] had some food to give the dog) and asked if I thought she could make it.  Even without calculating exactly how many miles her trip was going to be I knew it would be close – not for your average ActiveE driver, just for her or Don Louv.  Overall our ActiveE is averaging about 3.5 miles/kWh, and someone is bringing that number down despite significantly less than 50% of total seat time.  Once I determined the miles I concluded that with her normal driving habits she’d have somewhere between 2 and 6 miles remaining when she got home.  After warnings about not driving with her normal vigor, they set off.

One Hour Earlier

The phone rings.  “Hi”, she says.  “I’m near your mother’s house and am wondering if I can make it home or if I need to stop by and charge up a bit.”  “What?  You’re where?  None of your stops were within 20 miles of her house.  How did you get there?”  “Long story”, she says – “we’re in Norwich and just want to know if we can make it home – the range indicator shows fewer miles than it is to get home.”  “Its notoriously inaccurate, we’ll need to calculate it ourselves.” I say.  How much battery do you have left an what is your average miles/kWh?”, I ask.  “Where do I check those?” she asks.  Frustration level rises.  While she and her passenger struggle to find the info, I begin plotting a route home from their location to determine how much range they will need.  Eventually they are able to find the information and I calculate that they should be able to make it home with a few miles to spare.  Warnings are again given about driving style and we hang up.  I then ponder how my afternoon may be disrupted by the need to jump in the ICE to head off to some as of yet unknown location to pick them up and wait on BMW to rescue a stranded ActiveE.

Now (OK – actually last Saturday)

Car pulls into driveway, big smile on her face.  “I made it 114 miles!” she says.  “We even had enough range to make a stop at the package store to pick up some wine and sangria!” Good thing, because I’m going to need a glass. “I think I’ve finally got some material for writing that guest blog post we talked about me writing”, she said.  “Actually you don’t have any material, but I do,” as I uncorked a bottle of wine.  Her infamous Beaker frowny face ensues.  “I hate to break it to you, but the trip odometer wasn’t reset before you left – you only went about 98 miles.  On the upside, that’s fairly impressive considering you normally average about 2.9 miles/kWh.  It’s good, but not exactly guest blogger material.”

“So, was your last stop at Kelley’s Pace the only one you didn’t get to make?” I ask.  Long pause.  “No, we only made it to the Westbrook outlets.”  “No Clinton Outlets, no dog food?  Why didn’t you stop for dog food?  It’s right off the highway on the way home.” I say confused.  “We used the GPS to navigate around some traffic on the interstate and for some reason it took us back roads all the way to Norwich.” she says.  “Guess you didn’t realize the GPS won’t bring you back to a highway once you try to route around it. Afraid you’d get lost if you deviated from the GPS directions, I take it?” “Yes, and by the time I recognized where we were, I wasn’t sure I could make it home” she responded.

So there it was – a little more than five months after a bout of inverse range anxiety, it took getting ‘lost’ for somebody to finally develop a case of actual range anxiety.  

Sunday Morning

Fortunately the dog sitter was more than willing to stop at the pet store and pick up dog food on the way to our house for the aforementioned dog sitting stint.  Of course that’s probably because Amelia is her only grandchild.

Learnings

With anything that doesn’t go as expected, it’s always good to look back and assess what you would do the same or differently so the next time things play out better.  Here are our (I really don’t mean ‘our’) learnings.

• Don’t proclaim “You know we can’t get gas in this like we can in a ‘normal’ car.  When we run out, we run out.” to your car mates who don’t have much EV experience.  Especially before having any idea as to whether you’re going to make it home.  “I could never own an electric vehicle” is the likely retort just before they decide to take an in car nap.
• Don’t ‘Count it as a Win’ when you thought you made it 114 miles (but didn’t) after an adventure like this shopping trip.  Good chance someone else views it as good blog fodder.
• When you are lost, be sure to understand the equation (remaining battery capacity x 27 x average miles/kWh) and compare the result to the distance the iDrive Navigation System indicates to get you to your destination.  The likelihood of this information being useful is 100%.
• Do stop at the package store – while not preventing a less than flattering blog post, a bottle of wine does make an excellent peace offering.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Almost everyone who was lucky enough to have received an ActiveE has opted to personalize it in some way.  Those personalizations have ranged from stripping the car of its circuit board styled vinyl stickers to adding EV related pin striping to the car.  Most have blogged about their personalizations, or at the very least, added a post or a photo to the BMW ActiveE Facebook Group page.  I’m a bit late to the party with showing off all of the things I’ve done to the car (although there have been photographic hints of a few things in this blog), mostly because it took FOREVER for my vanity plate to finally come in from the CT DMV – well, that and its summer so I’m not blogging as much as I might if it were the depths of winter.

After seeing some of the creative things that many others have done with their ActiveEs, I’ve come to the conclusion that my analytical nature stifles my creativity, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.  Not that I don’t like what I’ve done, it just amazes me the level of creativity some of the folks with ActiveE's possess.

In my case, I picked up a couple of ‘Powered’ badges from EVbadges.com, some chrome letters that spell ELECTRIC, a personalized license plate bracket and one vanity plate.  Not exactly creative genius type stuff.  Of all of these things I’ve done, the one I’m most happy about is where I opted to locate the ‘Powered’ badges.  By chance they fit perfectly inside some of the circuit graphics on the doors – I like them so much in that location that I find other ActiveE’s look naked to me because there’s just open space there.

Naked

The other modifications that I’ve made are all on the back of the car – that way anyone following me knows it’s an EV – which is important, because most folks I run across have no idea that BMW has produced an EV, albeit a limited edition field trial EV.  After peeling a few of the circuit board stickers, I added ‘ELECTRIC’ to the upper corner of the trunk lid, a license plate bracket directing people to this blog, and the pièce de résistance, my ‘Solar Power’ vanity plate.  Since CT only allows six characters on a license plate it actually came out SLR·PWR, but you get the point.   

If only it weren’t a lie.

You see, the car isn’t solar powered, at least not yet.  Living in a historic neighborhood threw a bit of a monkey wrench into getting a PV array.  In the end it wasn’t too difficult to get approval, but it did add two months to the process.  And once I got the approval, my roofer’s schedule was filled for most of the summer.  So here we are five and a half months after getting the ActiveE and six months after signing a contract for the solar install, wasting all this fabulous summer sunshine.  On the upside, at least my derriere is staying warm.

Things that go bump in the night (well, anytime really)

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray – Robert Burns

My ActiveE was back at the dealership recently for its first service appointment.  Like so many others before me, I was provided with an ICE loaner.  I was already working on a blog post comparing and contrasting a BMW EV to a BMW ICE that mirrored the content of a certain beer blog, when an EV guru beat me to the punch.  Throughout this blog I’ve striven (not entirely successfully) to make sure that my posts are unique, or at least don’t infringe too much on others that have blogged about their ActiveE or other EV before me.  But in this case I was stuck - not only was the content too similar, but it was written by a Rock Star (at least in the BMW EV community).  There was just no way to publish that post without looking like a chump.  I guess it could have been worse – I could have hit publish right around the same time as 'It's True, I've Become an EV Snob!' hit cyberspace and/or it could have been written by Ed Begley, Chelsea Sexton or Michael Thwaite (no offense Tom).  Anyway, enough about what could have been and on to what ‘is’.  And by 'is' I mean a post that ended up the complete opposite of the original plan...

From ghoulies and ghosties and wayyyyy too heavy EVs

And things that go bump in the night

Good Lord, deliver us!

It was with great anticipation that I drove to the dealership to drop off the ActiveE for its first service.  That anticipation was around what my loaner would be.  I had visions of a 6 series (serious optimism), a Z4, or a Mini.  Mostly though, I wanted a manual transmission.  My hopes were dashed, however, when I got to the transportation desk.  No manual transmissions in the Courtesy Vehicle fleet, and all they had left when I got there were 3 series.  Anticipation, meet ‘reality’.  Reality wouldn’t have been quite so bad if I didn’t have a 60 mile ride home (aka a $20 round trip fuel cost) to think about how I got stuck with the one vehicle I really didn't want.  On the upside, regardless of what vehicle I had gotten (other than a Mini) it provided me the opportunity to drive a current BMW ICE to see how it compared to the ActiveE. 

Still having some ICE in the driveway that gets driven occasionally, I was well aware of the short comings they have that are quickly highlighted when driving an EV for any length of time.  Vibrations, awkward automatic transmission gear changes, noise, tailpipe emissions, brake wear, oil changes - the list goes on and on.  What I was interested in were the differences when it was apples to apples rather than Audis or Ford Rangers to BMWs.

Oddly enough, when I subtracted out those things that are onerous about an ICE I learned something I really didn’t expect.  I learned that the ActiveE isn’t a BMW.  Sure, there's a Roundel and it looks, feels and smells like a 1 series (at least until you start it), but it’s not a BMW.  The conversion from ICE to EV stripped the car of its soul.  You may remember me saying that the ActiveE weighs as much as an Abrams tank.  While I’ve always found that weight very noticeable, I didn’t realize how bad it actually was compared to the rest of BMW's models.  I’m not sure if it’s just the weight or a combination of the weight and rigidity, but it’s immediately apparent when moving from it to a BMW ICE.

As noticeable as this issue was just driving around, I was really surprised when I got to work in the 328.  Employees here seem to love to speed on site, and with the amount of pedestrian traffic we have, the company was forced to install more speed bumps than are probably necessary to control speeds.  I go over at least 7 of them in the tenth of a mile that I drive on site, and in the ActiveE you essentially have to come to a stop to traverse them otherwise the shocks/struts can’t deal with it.  If you chose to go over those speed bumps any faster, it is at your, and the vehicle’s peril.  When I came to work in the 328 I wasn’t really paying attention and hit the first speed bump at speed (i.e. 15 mph).  And you know what?  You could barely tell that I went over a speed bump.  It is a physical impossibility to have the same experience in the ActiveE, and it doesn't even require a speed bump.  Typical bumps that are present in manys road can be filling rattlers in the ActiveE.

As I've said before, this is a field trial so it's not surprising that compromises  were made with the ActiveE, and we've known that weight was one of those compromises since the beginning.  Even if it were a permanent compromise, I'd still choose it over a BMW ICE because the pluses outweigh the minuses (at least to me).  I fully expect, however, that these issues won't translate into the i3 and that it will be a real BMW.

Until then, I'll continue to drive around in a 'long-leggedy beasty' that goes bump in the night.

Who are you? Who, who, who, who? 'Cause I really wanna know

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – my plan is for our household to always have an EV.  Of course, I have no idea which EV that will take up residence in our driveway when my ActiveE lease expires.  The reason being is that at the moment it doesn’t look like a single manufacturer will be building and selling the EV that I want by 2014.

Lamborghini 350 GTV

One thing’s clear about participating in this field trial, you quickly learn what you do and don’t want in a production EV (in fact, there’s even a Learnings for BMW i subforum in BMW’s ActiveE Forum so that Electronauts can publish their likes and dislikes for BMW to utilize for the i3 and future EVs).  Clearly this situation is that same for anyone who buys anything – you determine what you do and don’t like about your current product, and next time you’re in the market you look for one that best meets your needs.  In this case, for a product that is relatively new and for which manufacturer’s are still guessing what the consumer wants, it’s quite possible that nobody makes what you do want.  Since I’m not one of the Ferruccio Lamborghini's of the world, I don’t get to tell Carlos Ghosn how to build the Leaf, and then form my own EV company when he scoffs at me.  I pretty much have to settle for what’s out there if I want to continue driving electric. 

Me - when it comes to EVs

So when it comes to an EV, who am I?  Oddly enough, I’m a pretty simple creature.  Sure there are plenty of minor things I’d like to see improved upon from the ActiveE but would live without just to have an EV – ability to charge to a pre-specified battery percentage rather than just ‘filling up’, tweaks to the digital displays related to energy useage, adjustable regenerative braking, memory seats, etc.  Ultimately though, there are those things I want or need that I’m not [currently] willing to compromise on.  Some are technical aspects of the vehicle, while others are more about the ‘essence’ of the vehicle. 

Of the things I’m not willing to compromise on, all are currently included on at least one of the EVs that are already on the market, or planned to be marketed by 2014 - its just that none of them have everything I want.  Well, sort of.  From a technical aspect there are only three musts.  A 7.2 kW charger, minimum (to ensure minimal charging time), a large battery capacity (one that would be expected to deliver 140 miles of pure highway driving) and ability to charge from a DC Rapid Charger.  You might argue that the Chevy Volt and the upcoming BMW i3 have range extenders that would meet my range needs, and technically you would be correct.  In this case, however, my ‘must’ is battery capacity.  I have no interest in having to put gas in my EV.  Why?  Because infrequently used gas engines are a PITA.  How easy is it to get that snow blower running at the beginning of the winter, and how much maintenance does it need?  Thanks, but I’d rather have extra battery capacity in my EV than having to deal with that in my car.

From an ‘essence’ standpoint, I want a driver’s car that looks like a driver’s car – are you listening, Carlos?  I don’t want to be driving around in a bubble on wheels, even if it performs like a BMW.  Technically, the Telsa Model S meets all of these EV musts – but there’s one requirement that isn’t EV specific that it doesn’t meet – proven track record for the company.  I prefer not to buy the first model year of a vehicle, let alone the first of its kind vehicle from a company that to this point has hemorrhaged money. 

So where does that leave me?  I know who I am, but I’m pretty sure that today’s EV manufacturers don’t know me and are catering to a different audience.

Welcome to the Dead Zone

dead zone
Pronunciation: /ded zōn/
noun

1. Ecology. an area in a body of water, especially an ocean,  having oxygen levels that are not adequate to support life: e.g., shellfish threatened by an annual dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

2. an area where a mobile phone does not receive a signal

With this being a blog about the 100% Electric BMW ActiveE, odds are you’re wondering why I’ve started this post with a definition of oceanic and mobile phone dead zones.  Perhaps he’s lost his mind or forgotten which blog he’s posting in, you might be thinking.  Contrary to what others might tell you, nope, I still have all my faculties.  Assuming that’s the case, then why a dead zone definition?  Because I’d like to add a third option to this definition.

3. A geographical area, typically a less densely populated area, having no or few publically available EVSE that are not adequate to support appreciable travel outside 50% of the EVs range from the owner’s home (if this ever ends up in Webster's, I expect at least a footnote giving me credit).

Much like definition #2 has over the past decade, this should slowly get better with time.  EVSE infrastructure is increasing as we speak, but unfortunately for me (fortunately for those that live in SoCal or NNJR/NYC), most of the public EVSE installs are occurring in these and other metropolitan areas.  Clearly this makes sense, install the infrastructure where the need is.  This gives the EV drivers that live in these metropolitan areas the ability to venture outside their normal ‘range’, i.e., distances further from home than half the vehicles range.  In fact, in some areas there’s enough charging infrastructure that a Nissan Leaf owner is currently attempting to drive from Mexico to Canada.

Two Chargepoint EVSEs within range of my house

Here in Eastern Connecticut, however, there’s a dead zone.  To put it in perspective, there isn’t a single public EVSE within range of my ActiveE (other than the one at Cardi’s in West Warwick, RI – two big thumbs up to the folks at Cardi's) that is useful for my driving habits.  Sure, Norwich Public Utilities just installed four of them, but alas, they are too close to me to be of any use.  Further from home we have the EVSE at New Country BMW in Hartford where I got my ActiveE, but that location is generally only useful for when I have it in for service. 

I'm not complaining, however, just stating the facts.  I understood the situation when I signed up for the ActiveE - these are the early days and EV adoption and infrastructure installation will be slow.  Plus I knew the situation before deciding to participate in Phase 2 of Project i.  As a result, the lack of Eastern CT infrastructure hasn’t really impacted me.  I fully expected that unlike many of my fellow Electronauts, I would have to rely solely on charging at home – and so far it has worked out fine.

As we move into the future, this will be less and less of an issue.  More EVs will be sold, so more EVSEs will be installed at businesses, rest stops, and friends houses to accommodate the increasing numbers.  When that happens my EVs range will increase exponentially, and more and more people will be willing to consider an EV.

Until then, "can you hear me now?"

A chicken in every pot, and [an electric] car in every garage

While Herbert Hoover personally never made that famous promise, it’s hard to imagine that in the prosperity preceding the Great Depression that the premise of such a promise would need to exist.  Especially considering the world was in the throws the roaring 20’s – how could there not be a car in every garage yet (or ‘in every backyard’ as the Republican National Committee actually posited)?  Fast forward to today and most garages have not one, but two or more cars in them.  Chalk the need for two cars up to commercialism and increasing dependency in the US on individual transportation.  The fact that most garages have at least two cars in them nowadays is an extremely important point though as we move to the ‘Future of Mobility’.

 Two cars in every garage – why would that be important?  While price is still the primary sticking point, the second biggest *perceived* issue as to why an EV won’t work for people is driving range.  Most folks just can’t wrap their mind around a daily range of 35-100 miles that they feel is restrictive (unless of course you can afford a Tesla).  Even if these ranges cover their daily commute, people worry about those atypical days when they will need increased range – you know for things like picking up the kids at lacrosse practice after work.  This is where the second vehicle is so important – what are the odds in most families that both primary drivers in the family will need to exceed the EVs range on the same day?  In our case it hasn’t happened once in the three months we’ve had the ActiveE.  As Ed Begley said, "the electric vehicle is not for everybody.  Given the limited range it can only meet the needs of 90% of the population."  While that's likely a bit of an overstatement, it does beg the question of what percent of typical American households (rather than people) can have its needs met by an EV? 

This idea does require a fundamental change in the way many Americans think though.  In most households each person has ‘their’ car.  We were like that before the ActiveE.  I had an Audi A4 Quattro, and a certain someone had an Audi A6 Avant.  It was extremely rare for one of us to take the other’s vehicle unless I needed the cargo capacity of the Avant for something.  Today that dynamic has changed.  While the ActiveE replaced my A4, it’s not really ‘my’ car.  Having an EV and the benefits associated with its low cost per mile to drive has changed our behaviors.  If we both need to go somewhere at the same time, the person that has to go further (but still within the EVs range) takes the ActiveE.  In our case nothing has really changed (still two cars in the driveway), other than our perception of ‘his’ and ‘her’ cars.

In these early days of EVs before a charging infrastructure is built that reduces or eliminates the fear and anxiety associated with battery range, two cars in every driveway is huge.  As long as you can embrace the premise of ‘household cars’ that are selectively driven by whoever needs them each day. 

Sidebar – EVs are fun to drive (other than that lack of a manual transmission issue).  As a result you can expect to have debates about who gets it on days when you both have similar distances to drive.  Fortunately, the ActiveE replaced my A4 so those debates tend to be short in this household.

In the end, two cars in the driveway allows people the flexibility to do something they may not have otherwise done out of range fear – actually consider an EV.  When we signed on to get an ActiveE I’m not sure we actually understood there wouldn’t be ‘his’ and ‘her’ cars any longer.  Turns out that’s ok, though, and it’s one of the best decisions we’ve ever made - and that's why there will always be at least one electric car in our garage. 

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

After 2 ½ months and 2800 miles behind the wheel of the 100% Electric BMW ActiveE, one of the many questions that folks ask me related to the ActiveE isn’t even about the car itself.  It’s ‘how did I get one of the 700 ActiveEs’?  The short answer is ‘I got lucky’.  Prior to taking delivery, I’d been driving the same ’96 Audi A4 for 14 years.  It was still a dependable daily driver that rarely required fixing.  I had no car payment, few repair bills, minimal property taxes and cheap insurance as I didn’t have collision or comprehensive on the vehicle.  I also tend to think of myself as being ‘green’, and my Audi was the ‘ultimate’ green vehicle – it already existed, so I didn’t need to get a new car and put more demand on the earth’s resources.  My plan was to drive it until it needed to be towed to the scrap yard.

Not scrap heap worthy yet, so donated to the Yosemite Conservancy

With a 16 year old vehicle, even a dependable one, you never really know when the day is going to come when it needs to be scrapped.  As a result, I’d frequently contemplated what car I might get when that happened, but could never really put my finger on what would be next.  As previously documented, while the concept of a ‘green’ car excited me, none of the green vehicles I could afford did –I’m just not a Prius or Leaf type of guy.  So how did I get here – you know, being the guy that’s perfectly happy with his current daily driver that wasn’t yet ready for the scrap heap, to the guy with a shiny new EV and this blog?

It comes down to one thing – somehow I ended up on a BMW mailing list.  I’d never owned a BMW, but somehow my name and address ended up on a promotional mailer from BMW detailing the field trial, the ActiveE and asking me if I wanted to be one of the 700.  Prior to receiving that mailer, I was completely unaware of Project i, the Mini-E or the ActiveE, but my decision was made almost instantaneously – this was my next car, it was electric and had the looks and performance characteristics I desired.  Of course, it would only be my next car assuming I could clear all the hurdles BMW had lined up faster than all but 699 others.

So clearly I was able to clear those hurdles fast enough as I’ve got the car.  But why a blog?  I’d never even read a blog before, let alone written one.  In the end, starting this blog really came down to one thing – EVs are TOO IMPORTANT to the future of this country.  We can’t let them fail or be killed again – and as an early adopter and an Electronaut I’m effectively an ambassador for the EV movement.  It’s my responsibility to do everything I can to show people (friends, family, coworkers, strangers – at least the ones that approach me anyway) how well an EV can fit into their life.  If this blog helps convert one person from an ICE to an EV, then I’d like to think that I’ve lived up to my responsibility as a BMW Electronaut.

And that, my friends, is how only a mere six weeks after finding the BMW promo mailer in my mailbox I found myself blogging about my experiences behind the wheel of this [not so] large automobile.