Range Anxiety and Range Insanity…

Today was going to be a longer day… (i.e. at least 102 mile roundtrip) and I got to the car and noticed that the car did not charge last night.

First thing I check is the state of charge… Basically the screen that looks like this:

Untitled

Though, obviously, NOT the screen on the picture. It was registering close to 70% SOC or somewhere around a 65 mile range (based on what the guesstimator thinks I would do).

Now, when I first got the car, I would’ve been somewhat panicked at the lack of range for the ENTIRE roundtrip and would’ve taken one of our other ICE vehicles for the day and let the ActiveE sit at home. Today, it was a non-event. I figured my one way was about 51 miles and 60-65 mile on the guesstimator would get me there with 9-14 miles to spare, so I wasn’t worried. Additionally, we left earlier today, so I COULD stop for breakfast at La Dijonaise at Helms Bakery, so I could at least get a charge during breakfast. Which is what I opted to do…

Eggs Neptune at La Dijonaise

I had the Eggs Neptune, which was quite good, but I actually prefer either their Croque Madame or Salmon Omelette.

Which leads me to the idea of how far is too far. What is Range Anxiety and what is Range Insanity. I always assert that the range of the Active E is unlimited, if you have the time to wait for it to charge and the opportunity to get power. Active E users around the country are looking to meet up in a few weeks at a couple of locations. The Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York contingent are meeting at Tom Moloughney’s Nauna Bella Casa for this meet up and the Northern and Southern California Electronuts will be meeting at Morro Bay.

Morro Bay was chosen because it almost equidistant from LA and SF (around 205 miles from each city center.) Now for me it’s closer to 230 miles… Considering the fact that I’m not a very good hyper-miler (the product of a lead foot and impatient driver tendencies) and the following Monday is a work day, I think that I’ve discovered the upper bound of my tolerance to drive the Active E for a distance, and it’s not Morro Bay. I am considering driving one of two ICE vehicles that we have. If the weather is nice, we might drive that “top-down” in our 328iC or if I felt like being “funny”, we might get our LESS fuel economic X5 and drive that up there… Somehow, I’m sure I’d go with the more fuel efficient option between the two ICE vehicles, but not as energy efficient as the Active E to Morro Bay.

Two weeks and change to go before we have to make that determination.

To those who will brave that drive in their Active E, my hats off to them. Luckily there is a larger charging infrastructure NOW, but stopping and charging for at least 4 hours for three times in my Active E is 12 hours of waiting that I would rather not do.

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