Checking out the lower end of the electric car range… Introducing the Coda


Active E and Coda parked side by side 1

 

Active E and Coda parked side by side 4

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking the Century City Shopping Center –


View Larger Map

And ran across the Coda Experience Center… Having only driven my ActiveE, I wanted to have a frame of reference on what makes the ActiveE a fun electric car versus other electric cars. Granted this is like comparing a 328i with a Honda Civic…  But I thought what the heck.  I’d like to check it out.

Before I did the behind the wheel test.  One of the things that I noticed at Coda was the price – $37,500 USD without any incentives.  The other was the included battery pack – 31 KwH…  That’s 4 more than the ActiveE’s usable charge, this means a longer range…  They claim 125 miles on the current model whereas a previous model was 150 miles… Lastly, trunk space – it has it!

IMGP6062

IMGP6063

So, I went out on a test drive with one of the Coda Associates and it drives ok.  The regenerative braking felt non-existent.  My Civic Hybrid felt stronger on the regen.  The power was akin to a Civic and it definitely does not fall into the “fun to drive” category that the ActiveE and other BMWs fall into.

Seeing that this vehicle really wasn’t targeted to the BMW or Tesla pricepoints, it took time to have to keep my biases from clouding my test.  One of the positives that was touted for this car was that it charges at 6.6kWh not 3.3kWh as the Leaf.  Of course, the AE goes at least as fast as this car, if not faster to charge, but the pricepoint is also much cheaper for the Coda.

The picture below shows why this car charges at twice the speed as the Leaf, it has two of these things vs 1 on the Leaf

IMGP6069One shortcoming of the demonstration vehicles that I tested was the GPS/Battery management system on the vehicles were non-functioning, and thus had to rely on testing it at the “experience center”.  Looks nice below, but couldn’t tell while I was driving the demo.

Needless to say, I wasn’t overly impressed.  The car has an old stlying, perhaps in the 80s, so as not to be so old as to be classic a la re-tooled Thunderbird or Mustang.  I like the range in the vehicle and the faster L2 charging than the Leaf, but it is just too plain for me to want.

IMGP6055

During my test drive, my sales associate mentioned that the batteries are a different chemical composition than other electric car manufacturers and that the company sells the cars with a 10 year warranty on the batteries.  This is impressive, but I can’t really see myself wanting to drive this car for 10 years, whereas the 2 year lease on my ActiveE just seems TOO SHORT.

The Coda seems very smart to target a more “affordable” electric car segment than Tesla or Fisker, so in that manner I feel that they are smart to target that segment.  However, the equivalent trim in an ICE vehicle would probably be less than half the $38k that Coda is asking for, so I don’t know how many folks would cough up the $38k for a utilitarian vehicle like the Coda.  Frankly if they styled the car to be less utilitarian and more stylish, folks might like it better.

Just my opinion.

If you find yourself near the Century City Shopping Mall and have the time to take your own test drive, I suggest you do.  It was definitely useful in reinforcing my love of my ActiveE and my continuing quest to figure out what my “next” electric will be.

For more pictures, click on the link to the Flickr photostream.

Link to Coda’s corporate website

Second napkin math for those that use an SUV…


In the vein of my earlier post comparing our ActiveE with our 328i.  Since it was time to fill up our 2001 X5 I figured it would be the time to compare the math vs. the math previously computed for the ActiveE.

Here’s the back of the napkin math. The fill up was for super unleaded at $4.239 per gallon (price of gas is dropping from the time I did the 328i comparison) and I filled up with 20.070 gallons for a total of $85.08. The range says 430 miles, since I zero out the odometer after each fill up, I know I did 358.4 miles since the last fill up. This is about 10 gallons of gas more than the last fill up (9.761 gallons previously).

So, I figure that my cost per mile (using Super Unleaded) is approx $0.2374 per mile.

As with the original calculations on the ActiveE, I’m heavily subsidized… I fill up at many locations where the electricity AND parking is free, the only place it costs to fill up is at home. I do about 35 miles each way to/from work and I charge for free 3/4 of a mile from the office, assuming 10 kWh of energy at home that I fill up and pay for on the average (some fill ups more, some less) to get me to full. I have yet to pay my Time of Use Tariff, so I’m defaulting to last month’s Domestic Tariff for Electricity, which tops off at $0.31 per kWh, so that’s $3.10 per day of fill up, 10kWh is about 1 day in 70 miles roundtrip…

So my electric cost per mile last month is approximately $0.0443 per mile.

So, 430 miles would run $21.71 vs. $102.07 on the X5… or 1/5th the cost of energy for the X5.  However, the X5 can fit a LOT of stuff vs. the ActiveE, so, it really is not a fair comparison.  Additionally, I use the two cars quite differently from the other.  However, I’ve found that shopping trips to Costco on the ActiveE is A LOT CHEAPER than with the X5 as it lowers the likelihood of impulse purchases of larger (both size and ticket) items.

Side note, Still waiting on the Time of Use bill, so I’ll update later when that comes up. But as I noted previously, I’m guessing that this new tariff drops my cost per kWh to between $0.10 to $0.16 per kWh (depending on Tier 1 or Tier 2 of usage). So, the next month’s cost will probably be closer to $0.0222 per mile.

Updated LAX Parking Lot 6… Woohoo


Arrived at LAX Parking Lot 6 this evening and was excited to see that half the chargers were swapped out with J1772 L2 chargers…  Looks like some folks were using them already…

LAX Parking Lot 6 upgraded J1772 1

 

LAX Parking Lot 6 upgraded J1772 2

 

Remember, if these chargers are all full and you need a charge, Lot 1 also has chargers and near to LAX, there’s a single Chargepoint charger south of the airport at the Walgreens in El Segundo (on Sepulveda Blvd) or a ton of Blink chargers on the Loyola Marymount campus (north of LAX)…

Loyola pictured here –

IMG_0660

Sirius radio tips… or… things to make the commute easier…


Hi all.

Been traveling this week, so I’ve been away from my ActiveE. I did take a few hours on Wednesday, in between flights to take the car out of “free” parking at LAX lot 6.  So far, saved $68 for parking at LAX (1 $3 stay and the second a $65 stay.)

For those that don’t know. One of the side benefits to driving a fully electric car is LAX offers parking in two lots at the airport at no cost (Lot 1 and Lot 6). Additionally, charging is free. As of Wednesday, April 18, 2012. They were still the old style L2 chargers, BUT as I was leaving on my flight out that day, workmen were replacing a good number of these pictured to new Clipper Creek L2 chargers. (Lot 6 is pictured, ’cause I fly mainly United and American).

IMG_0676

I’ll post an update later with pics of the new chargers if their upgraded when I get back to LAX tonight… (writing this blog entry in the air between NYC and LA).

As cool as those benefits are, I started writing this post to demonstrate some cool Sirius tips.

Tip 1 – Timeshifting of Sirius Radio –

Take a look at the video below –

It’s kinda cool. I use this feature when I listen to talk radio and I miss what was said…

Or, if you have music that you want to keep playing over and over.

Tip 2 – Favorites lists…

One of the nice things about Satellite radio is you can keep favorites lists so that if something you like is playing, it’ll pop up for you. I like to listen to NBA games while I drive home, so… I made a favorite for it. Additionally, I keep track of home teams, so I added the LA Kings as well. Just in case.

Of course… You have to start in Satellite Radio…

IMG_0627

If you’re not on a channel that has your favorites on it, move the iDrive control to the left and then select favorites, and the items that are tagged with your favorites will pop up.

IMG_0628

These icons on the left pop up, when you move to the left.

IMG_0629

Once you select the favorites menu, then all these that match your favorites will pop up

IMG_0630

You can then listen to whatever game or program you’re interested in…

Now, to STORE your favorites, you get that by going deeper into the program selected…

Here is what it looks like when you expand the selection –

IMG_0631

You could select to store the channel (as indicated in the top portion) or select the various categories that are provided (as indicated in the second portion).

I selected and stored the NBA below.

IMG_0632

Now, I repeated the process to store the LA Kings…

IMG_0633

IMG_0634

So, now that we’ve stored the NBA and LA Kings as favorites, the choices look like the following:

IMG_0635

Needless to say. The included one year of satellite radio provides us with very good entertainment options during long commute home. Especially when traffic forces us to drive more “efficiently”…

Hello fellow ActiveE driver (Electronaut in BMW Parlance)

It’s always a thrill spotting another ActiveE on the road…

After dropping off the better half at her office, I was heading to Glendale, and lo and behold another ActiveE in front of me at Venice and National waiting for the light to change.

I got their attention and did a friendly wave…Not quite the recommended one on the BMW forums – How to greet fellow ActiveE Electronauts… proposed, South Park Style

Needless to say, our small community of BMW drivers are not quite the A**H#&$ BMW drivers that are out there.

They rode with me on the 10 Freeway toward downtown until they exited somewhere before the 10-110 interchange…  It was nice riding with you SM License Frame AE driver and passenger!

BMW ActiveE features – MAP access and Text to Voice Email

A quick how-to video on accessing the Text to Speech functions on the BMW ActiveE.  This uses the Bluetooth MAP (Message Access Profile (had to look this one up, I thought it was Protocol) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile#Message_Access_Profile_.28MAP.29

My wife’s BlackBerry Pearl 8100 does not support MAP, so no access to text to speech functions.

Via Flickr:This is a How-to video on how to access the text-to-speech functions of the 2011 BMW ActiveE.  It was run between my BlackBerry Bold 9900 and my BMW ActiveE

[Update September 9, 2012 – for Apple iPhone users, iOS 6.0 supports MAP integration now, check to see if you can use it by upgrading and enabling it.  I will post this once I upgrade my wife’s iPhone 4 to iOS 6.0.  Here is my update on this.]

Back of the napkin math of last night’s fill-up of 328i vs. cost of ActiveE


After having read yesterday’s post.

One of my cousins asked me how much it would cost to fill up the new car and go 407 miles… (of course going this far would require at LEAST 4-5 charges of the car since the range is 100 miles…  Though, as aggresively as I drive, I’m closer to 80 miles)

Here’s the back of the napkin math. The fill up yesterday was super unleaded at $4.279 per gallon, filled up with 14.022 gallons for a total of $60.00. The range says 407 miles, since I zero out the odometer after each fill up, I know I did 322.6 miles since the last fill up. This is about 1 gallon of gas more than the last fill up (13.077 gallons previously).

So, I figure that my cost per mile (using Super Unleaded) is approx $0.1860 per mile.

On the ActiveE, I’m heavily subsidized… I fill up at many locations where the electricity AND parking is free, the only place it costs to fill up is at home. I do about 35 miles each way to/from work and I charge for free 3/4 of a mile from the office, assuming 10 kWh of energy at home that I fill up and pay for on the average (some fill ups more, some less) to get me to full. Last month I was on the Domestic Tariff for Electricity, which tops off at $0.31 per kWh, so that’s $3.10 per day of fill up, 10kWh is about 1 day in 70 miles roundtrip…

So my electric cost per mile last month is approximately $0.0443 per mile.

So, 407 miles would run $18.03 vs. $60.00 on the 328i… or 1/3rd the cost of a smaller recent 3 series BMW… Numbers look even better versus an X5, but that’s just ridiculous.

The other question he emailed me was to compare it versus a Hybrid. Luckily, I have one of those too. (again, not an environmentalist, it gave me MANY years of carpool access until the privilege was repealed July 1, 2011).  My cost per gallon on my civic right now is $4.109 (educated guess, (not sure what it is right now, haven’t filled up the hybrid since I went electric)) per gallon, 407 miles would probably be 10 gallons (doing average 40-41 mpg), so at $4.109 per gallon That’s $41.09 for 10 gallons and for  407 miles,  that’s $0.1009 per mile, when gas prices go down, the difference between hybrid and electric gets lower and the convenience of gas stations really kicks the butt of having to find EVSE charging stations..

Side note (updated 5/11/12), I have migrated to a Time of Use tariff that drops my cost per kWh to between $0.10 to $0.16 per kWh (depending on Tier 1 or Tier 2 of usage). So, this month’s cost is $0.01412 per mile.

Costco Gas Line

Costco Gas line 2 by dennis_p
Costco Gas line 2, a photo by dennis_p on Flickr.

Spent 10 minutes at the Costco Gas line today. One would think that I would be espousing the convenience of home fueling, etc. as an EV convert during this rant. However, that’s not the purpose of today’s post. It’s really looking at the fact that even with the inconvenience of a long wait to fill up, it’s still more convenient than my EVSE at home and the one 3/4 of a mile away from my work.

Considering that I got a a full tank of 407 miles of range. Gas cars are STILL so much more convenient.

On Easter Sunday, I did a drive that required me to stop at a Level 2 EVSE along the way between two of my destinations and it took 30 minutes at L2 to get enough charge for me to feel comfortable to continue on.  Luckily Stop 2 had L2 EVSE’s 0.7 miles away that I could use to get enough charge to get home… eventually.

L2 is a nice to have (for now), but really, a standard charger that can get a car full in 3-5 minutes should be the goal.  Even the upcoming “Fast” chargers at 30 minutes are still too long.

ICE – EV Parking counterattack

After 45 days of entering the world of EV drivers, folks have been discussing the challenges of finding EV Parking spots by public chargers.ICE or Internal Combustion Engine cars are often found by others in the EV spots taking up valuable space to get the charge needed to ensure that there is enough range to get to the next destination.

On Friday, at the Helms Bakery location in Culver City, I found this Leaf doing its best job assisting other EV Drivers use the EV only spot on the other side of the chargers. I like to propose that we follow his example of an ICE-EV Parking Counterattack.

There are enough ICE spots, by taking an adjacent ICE spot for EV charging, we can ensure that there is a counterbalance to the ICE problems that others have.

On a side note… I heard the funniest thing while I was sitting in my car reading and charging on this occasion… As I was getting a top up at Helms Bakery, A young guy asked me “Excuse me sir, do you happen to know where the nearest gas station is?” Needless to say, I was a little dumbfounded, but recovered quick enough to respond that I was probably the wrong person to ask and offered to look it up on the Navigation system for him.

Blog Day One, ActiveE Day 43


Finally decided to bite the bullet and jump in and start blogging about the ActiveE lifestyle..

I guess the biggest thing that I found out after 6 weeks of living with an All Electric ActiveE BMW is that the range is really unlimited, as long as you have ACCESS to charge AND the TIME to charge.

So far

Needless to say, I’m not really environmental. More mental than anything else.
I’ll be posting more eventually, but really this might just end up like my other cobwebsite (http://www.pascual.com/)

Dennis