My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental – Page 6

Was our line the slowest during Model 3 Release Day

It’s been exactly a week since we placed our reservation for a Tesla Model 3 (the wonders of scheduling the publication of a blog post.) Since we already drive Teslas, the long wait is bearable. The wait in line to reserve one, however… Let me share our experience and you can decide for yourself.

Before the stores were even open to take reservations, I tried to give Tesla our money…

I can’t wait another 18 hours … @TeslaMotors take my money NOW! #Model3

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) March 30, 2016

There were many who camped overnight, like the ones in Rocklin, CA.

Rocklin #Tesla update-some hardy souls in the night air, rest camping in cars – about 30 people #Model3 @TeslaMotors pic.twitter.com/264BrNmlEJ

— Bonnie Norman (@bonnienorman) March 31, 2016

Not too many had to endure what the hardy souls in Montreal had to with the rain and cold.

Now more than 150 person in the Montreal #Tesla store’s queue! 😃#Model3 @TeslaMotors @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/lQLqwiXwET

— Christian Roy (@TeslaTaxi) March 31, 2016

Still, we left home early for a 10:00 AM launch, but later than many.

My mom has decided to upgrade her recently replaced Leaf (the original one was totaled by an SUV) by the time the Model 3 is launched and we were not going to have her camp overnight.

We arrived at our first nearest Tesla sales center – Buena Park. The Buena Park location is one that took over a former auto dealership location and is a consolidated, Sales, Service, and Delivery (and soon a Supercharger.)

The line at this location was long and was out the door and down the street. As we drove up to it, we estimated it to be closer to 120+ people in line. The parking lot was full and all the street parking near it was taken. The nearest place to park was quite a ways from the location and I had my mom with us. So, we proceeded to our backup store – Brea Mall.

We arrived at Brea Mall and found parking and walked throughout the mall, past the Apple Store which was having its iPhone 5SE launch.

The line at Starbucks was longer than the one for Apple:

And then there is the Model 3 line:

(thanks to Mark Z for this next picture)

Here’s mom with the LONG line that we stood in:

We walked past the Tesla store and start of the line and got to the end of the line by 9:15 AM. We didn’t know what number we were in line until about 30 minutes later when our friend Mark Z swung by and was counting people in line and notified us that we were 240-242 in line.

Here’s Mark Z catching me in line at 242… (thanks to Mark Z for this next picture)

On his loop back on his way to another store, he had completed his count at 320, many more added to the total as he left.

We spoke with the folks immediately before and after us in line for the Model 3 and found out that everyone around us are new to EVs and currently in ICE cars. We got to know them as we ended up spending many hours with them. The Brea location started the order process on time at 10:00 AM Pacific. During the wait and before the start of the order process my mom asked the guy in the front of the line what time he got there and he said he arrived around 3:00 AM Around 12:15 PM, we were still pretty far from the store and I shot this video:

Around 1:30 PM we finally have the store and the roped part of the line in sight.

We still had a ways to go, but at least we can see the store.

Remember our friend Mark Z? He returned to our location after driving from Brea to the Costa Mesa Delivery and Sales Center (up the block from the Service Center.)

He took this picture of the line around 2:00 PM.

Apparently, he was 220 in line in Costa Mesa when he arrived at that location at 10:15 AM and was done with his reservation in time to catch us as we continued to stand in line.

Near the front of the line, Tesla provided some FAQs (thanks again to Mark Z):

Here we are finally in the front of the line:

And Mark Z taking the picture as we were being called into the store…

When we got back into the store we were sent to another line. Apparently this store had three employees taking orders for those in line. We sat in the same line as my mom as I was there to assist her if she needed some clarification.

If you squint you can see us on the right side.

While waiting in the store for our turn, three more Tesla employees showed up with computers and iPads to take orders, they were augmenting this store from the Buena Park location that we had originally skipped in the morning. We were among the first of three in-store folks that “got the benefit” of a 100% increase in order takers. 😉

And so, we’re finally taking mom’s order (picture courtesy of Mark Z again).

and this next one too.

We were all set to order one Model 3 each. But when mom was filling hers out, she figured to reserve for two. Not sure what she’ll do with two, but that was good. Perhaps she might just gift a Model 3 for each of my nephews (her grandsons) or perhaps she’ll cycle through three EVs.

Rather than have the employee have to go through my long Tesla email, I asked if I can just go ahead and fill out the web page quickly and he let me go at it. So, I started filling out the form, and the drop down said 1 or 2 Model 3. I looked over to my wife, and she said to go for two. Who am I to argue?

Finally… success:

From the time we jumped in line at 9:15 AM and from the time that the doors opened at 10:00 AM, we didn’t complete our last reservation until 2:16 PM. That means for the approximately 4.25 hours since the line opened, this store was processing 1 order every 1.06 minute.

The email to confirm our order popped up in our emails (my mom’s and mine) approximately 18 hours and 20 minutes later. And for those of us who are already Tesla owners, it was in our My Tesla account another day later. People have been tracking what Reservation Numbers they’ve been getting to see if there is any pattern (on teslamotors.com forum and for UK ones at SpeakEV.) For the sake of privacy folks have been deleting the last few digits for the RN and I have provided the following information:

Pacific Timezone 3/31/2016 14:16:00 Dennis RN10792
Pacific Timezone 3/31/2016 14:16:00 Dennis RN10884
Pacific Timezone 3/31/2016 14:14:00 Mom RN10892
Pacific Timezone 3/31/2016 14:14:00 Mom RN10892

Folks around the forums are trying to figure out a pattern. I can share that Mom’s two reservations are about 4200 apart from each other.

Having a week between the reservation for two Model 3 and over a year and a half (at least) wait for taking delivery of one or two Model 3s, I’ve justified to myself what a second 3 would be equal to. It’s roughly the same cost as upgrading the Roadster to 3.0. However, unlike the Roadster 3.0 battery, if we’re early enough, we could apply for the Tax Credit for the Model 3.

It was a long wait in line and an even longer wait for the “configure your Model 3 email.” I guess the blog content is going to increase from Model S and Roadster to include Model 3 (unless we happen to pick up a CPO Model X in the meantime.)

So, last week’s EV Week has gotten to be pretty epic.

Great #EV week continues…
✔️ 1) @FaradayFuture tour
️✔️ 2) @TeslaMotors #Model3 reservations
🔲 3) @FIAformulaE race in Long Beach.

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) April 1, 2016

I wonder if our 4.25 hours since store opening is the longest for someone who was 240-242nd in line.

Visiting Faraday Future… Impressions for a hopeful future….

This week is the start of a great EV week for rEVolutionaries. Especially if you’re in Southern California… It was extra special for me, ’cause I got to add one more to the two things happening toward the end of the week.

Great #EV week start.
✔️ 1) @FaradayFuture tour
🔲 2) @TeslaMotors #Model3 reservations
🔲 3) @FIAformulaE race in Long Beach.

— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) March 29, 2016

I was lucky enough to be invited by Dustin Batchelor (on twitter or his blog) on his visit to Faraday Future [updated 2016-04-01, his blog post on his take on the Faraday Future visit] during his family vacation to Southern California to attend Formula E’s second visit to Long Beach this weekend.

Dustin is a fellow rEVolutionary and 2 Electric Vehicle family (Leaf and Volt) from British Columbia and had driven down to Southern California with his family in their Volt. He had hoped to visit Tesla Motors, but didn’t get a response to his requests for a factory tour from Tesla. Apparently he also reached out to Faraday for a visit and was granted one by the folks there. When I heard from him that he was going to drop by and tour Faraday, I asked him if I could “tag along” and he requested and was granted approval by his contact at Faraday to bring me along.

So, step one to the visit was to sign the Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement from Faraday Future and I wanted to make sure to protect my secrets, so I signed the document (kidding, though the NDA was mutual, I wasn’t working on anything proprietary… 😉 ) and returned it to our contact at Faraday Future.

The NDA guarantees that I won’t be taking any pictures of my visit, so you WON’T be seeing ANY pictures of the visit to Faraday Future, but I can share my thoughts and impressions of this company.

First off, many have wondered whether Faraday Future was producing vaporware. As the secretive company was announcing its sponsorship of Formula E’s stop in Long Beach, one of my staple EV news sites, Transport Evolved published the article “Just Ahead Of Long Beach FIA Formula E Race, Faraday Futures Becomes Surprise Official Sponsor — But Still Has No Car”. The company was criticized by its CES debut by many because they produced a super-car concept (the FFZERO1 Concept) rather than a “real car.” As I tweeted during their big reveal, it’s really their VPA (Variable Platform Architecture) that I felt was important in the announcement and not the FFZERO1. The VPA is basically a base that can be expanded or shrunk down to use as a basis for their entire line of vehicles. Comparing this to Tesla’s Model S and Model X and the skateboard design which is a fixed size to build the platform on top of.

I looked forward to this visit because I had my reservations as to the substance of the firm and its viability. After all, the history of American automotive startups is littered with failure. It is often said that last “successful” American automotive startup was Chrysler.

So, I went to this visit without much expectations and came out of it fully satisfied.

As I mentioned earlier, I was unable to take pictures of the facilities or share what they are working on but I can tell you my impressions.

This is a growing company and it is growing fast.
There was an energy in the air as I walked through their facilities and people were focused on their work. Furthermore, this same energy can be summed up as a “sense of urgency” as these guys realize that they are looking to join a field that is dynamic and filled with awakening giants because of Tesla and its success.
Since I was unable to take photos, I thought to at least share a photo that IS public and here is a photo taken in December 2015 of Faraday Future offices that was part of their CES Press Kit.

I can tell you that this photo is INACCURATE. It is inaccurate because there are SO MUCH MORE PEOPLE in the offices that these pictures were taken in now than there was when it was taken four months ago.
They’re out of parking. I arrived to take the “last spot”.
These guys are working on a lot of systems in parallel with developing their car. We saw “mules” of their technology in other OEM’s vehicles to test their technology on a platform akin to what they would be developing their own vehicles in.
Faraday Future must have bought large-car sized tarp and sheets from Costco… We saw quite a bit of concept cars covered by tarp and sheets.
There is a lot of tech that they are using. We walked by several workstations that reminded me of a space mission control location. Desks buttressed to each other with multiple monitor stations in front of each employee.
They have lofty goals, but ones that would benefit EVeryone in the rEVolution should they execute on their goals.

Lastly, as “parting gifts”, the guys over there provided us with a hard-copy of their CES Press Kit.

Here is a link to the same kit in PDF form.

Apparently, Dustin Batchelor and I were not the only folks to visit Faraday Future this week, I wonder whether Chelsea will be able to share more than I was…

In other news, @FaradayFuture has invited me to drop in this week. Will undoubtedly be interesting… 🙂

— chelsea sexton (@evchels) March 27, 2016

Third Year’s tracking of Hybrid Garage use.

So, it’s been three years since I’ve started tracking our garage’s EV vs ICE use.

As I previously wrote (three years ago on my Minimizing Gas Use article; on my update two years ago; and the one from last year) we drive a hybrid garage.

For those that need a refresher, a hybrid garage is one where some of our cars are EVs and the others are internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. As a family that is a part of the rEVolution, why do we still have ICE cars, it’s because we’re not as good as those that have gone to an all electric lifestyle. Hats off to them, but there are just times that I like to use vehicles that happen to use gasoline.

This winter” was supposed to be better than any of the previous “winters”, but we did not brave the mountains with our fifteen year old BMW X5. The X5 lets us go to the mountains around LA when there are restrictions to drive when the snow is fresh. Additionally, when we need to buy large items to move, we’ll use this same workhorse to help us move them. Granted the Model S does have a LOT of space, but we prefer to beat up the X5 with hauling stuff rather than put the Model S to work.

That being said, I understand the costs of our addiction to oil and gas and we continue to try to minimize our gasoline use.

In preparing for the last article on Celebrating Four Mostly Electric Years, I noticed that I had transposed some statistics and noticed that I had overstated the EV miles by 36,000 miles, so I wanted to make sure to correct that.

Three years ago, I started tracking the number of miles my household used ICE vs. EV to see what percentage of our private car travels are electric and what part are powered by internal combustion engines. Our methodology was to count the miles driven in rental cars to this spreadsheet and the miles that we’ve lent our ICE vehicles (and EVs) to our friends and family when they visit Southern California. This is why I created some tracking spreadsheets and tracked mileage for a year. The results year over year are still impressive even with the mileage transposition error in year 2.

In the first year of the study, we drove EV a total of 81.20% of the time and ICE 18.80% of the time.

In the second year of the study, we drove EV a total of 92.64% (vs. what I thought was 94.78%) of the time and ICE 7.36% (vs. what I thought was 5.22%) of the time.

As a whole, the household (as defined earlier, my wife and I and when we lend the cars to family and friends) drove about 46,000 total miles (both EV and ICE in the previous period) in the first year, about 40,000 miles in the second year, and we drove a total of approximately 41,000 total miles in this third year. That’s approximately the same number of total miles between years one and year two. Even though a good number of those miles were the 8,245 miles of coast-to-coast driving from our Here, There, and EVerywhere trip in May 2015.

Because of the error in Year Two’s calculation, I thought that we would be close to 150,000 EV miles this year, but still at 126,000 All EV miles since we started driving EVs. For the study, we’re closer to 112,000 EV miles and 14,000 ICE miles for a study average of 88.7% EV vs 11.3% ICE three year average. Definitely an upward momentum.

Looking at the monthly figures, for the third year shows a big blip in the ICE use for month 34 and that is mostly December 2015 and my sister and her husband was visiting us and most of those miles on the X5 was because we had lent them our ICE car for that month. The approximately 1400 miles of ICE that was driven that month is more than half the total ICE miles for the year. Until we have an EV to lend out to family, we’ll have to take those spikes.

Here’s to hoping that this next year’s study will have a greater EV momentum. And we continue to look forward to seeing what else we can achieve with our hybrid garage next year. Perhaps another coast-to-coast EV journey.

Celebrating Four Mostly Electric Years of the rEVolution.

On February 23, 2012, we joined the rEVolution with the addition of our BMW ActiveE.

This was one of the first pictures we took of our ActiveE when we picked up the car at Long Beach BMW. Shows a very happy, young rEVolutionary:

Brought it home and plugged it in… We didn’t even have our Level 2 installed at the time and had to charge a BEV with an 80-100 mile range on 120V.

Granted, my commute at the time was 70 miles roundtrip if I took the most direct route, and the “fastest” route used the carpool/HOV lanes and that was 100 miles roundtrip.

BMW’s friendly policies for ActiveE Electronauts meant that I was able to charge at Pacific BMW (a 10 minute walk from my office) J1772 station and ensure that I recovered my miles that first week.

I wrote about my first year of electric driving on the blog three years ago.

Once you go electric, it’s hard to look back. At the time that we picked up the Active E, we had a few ICE vehicles in the garage. The Active E was outnumbered by ICE vehicles and we figured to keep the ICE for our hybrid garage.

After taking delivery of the Active E, we we sold our Honda Civic Hybrid. There was no real need to keep it since we originally purchased the Honda as a commuter vehicle and the Yellow HOV stickers were expired by the time we picked up the Active E.

The two year lease of the Active E meant that there was pressure to see what “the next car” will be and we decided to place a deposit for the Model S. However, at the time, the plan was for my wife to get the S and for me to look for a replacement for the Active E.

We received our “configure your Model S” message in the beginning of 2013. However, we still had another year on the 2 year lease on the ActiveE and we didn’t think we would run with 2 EVs concurrently, so I took the time to test out other cars for me to use when we decide to become a 2 EV family, after all, the Model S was going to be her car. Since I wanted to ensure to get the Federal Tax Credit in 2013, we delayed the delivery of the vehicle to the end of the year. The ideal delivery would be December 31, 2013, however, understanding the Tesla process and to ensure that I get the vehicle with some “buffer” we settled to take delivery in November 2013.

Long time readers of the blog and participants of the now defunct Active E forums will remember the many test drives (a few sample test drives: Coda, Fiat 500e, Smart ED to name a few) and discussions over what my next car will be. I was really hoping to love the i3 and my wife was “under protest” if I went with the i3. At the end of the day, we skipped the i3, a decision that I discussed on a previous posting.

To make November 2013 delivery, we figured that we needed to start configuring our Model S on August 2013. It was at this time that we noticed a bunch of Tesla Roadsters being sold as Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) and my wife fell in love with her Roadster. So, it was at this point that we decided to pick a Roadster up and the Model S became my car.

Here is the Roadster on our pick-up day:

And here I am with a rare (driving my wife’s baby) picture:

Picking up the Roadster was awesome, but not without problems.

And a few months later, we did our first roadtrip with our Model S when we picked it up at the factory. And live-blogged the weekend a few hours before and a few days after. I summarized the whole weekend.

Here is our Model S on pickup day:

After the early start, factory tour and pickup of the Model S, our first recharge for the car…

…was for the driver. Needed Starbucks.

Though we started the year thinking that we wouldn’t need to drive 2 EVs, we ended up with 3 EVs from November 2013 until the return of the Active E to BMW on February 2014. The second year anniversary was a bittersweet one.

The following year of EV ownership strengthened our positive impression of Tesla Motors. The BMWi debacle in the launch of the i3 in the United States made us adjust back to the original plan of 2 EVs for daily use. Originally we wanted to get a third EV so that we can minimize the miles in the Roadster, but my better half was having too much fun driving her Roadster and didn’t feel like swapping it out on daily drives. So, we saved some money and skipped the third EV.

I didn’t even write a 3rd EV Anniversary post.

So, from February of last year to now, we’ve settled into a life with our two EV, one ICE hybrid garage.

This past year, we’re really just living the rEVolution on a day to day basis. We took our Model S on a Roadtrip Coast-to-Coast and back, and it was a blast. With over three years of EV driving, we don’t suffer from range anxiety, however the trip solidified our “can do” attitude as far as driving our EV for distances and this past year we took more roadtrips than we’ve done the previous years.

I would have loved to say that we hit ~~150,000 miles of all electric driving, but I will just have to settle on 148,404 electric miles~~ vs 14,194 ICE with a little under 3 hours from the time we brought our Active E home 4 years ago (9pm Pacific vs. 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific right now)). [EDITED 2016-March-5, Looks like I had an error in my tracking spreadsheet… We’re closer to 125,000 EV miles… I had transposed numbers in Month 16 of our tracking spreadsheet that overstated total miles by around 20,000 miles for totals. I was preparing for the Year 3 of our EV vs. ICE posting, and found the error…]

So, what’s in store for our EV future?

To begin with, we’re about 2 weeks from the third anniversary of my ICE vs EV statistics that I’ve been tracking and we broke 90% EV vs 10% ICE use after almost three years. But that’s another post.

My Thanksgiving 2015 post gives a good hint of what I’ve been up to. Additionally, I am happy to report that my client, EV Connect, Inc., was selected for three of the nine Electric Charging Highway Corridors for the California program. This project, when completed will allow all EVs equipped with CHAdeMO and/or CCS DC Fast chargers to complete the travel from the Mexican border to the Oregon border with Level 3 charging stations.

Additionally, the Model 3 reservation process will be open on March 31st for a $1,000 deposit. We’re trying to see if we’ll take advantage of this or not.

Lastly, we’re thinking of expanding our long EV roadtrip plans. We are tempted to do another coast-to-coast trip using one of the newer routes. Perhaps we’ll finally join the Teslaroadtrip folks on one of their cool get togethers. This year, they’re planning on something at Colonial Williamsburg, and we’ve never been. We’ll have to see if things work out for this trip.

Here’s to hoping that the Model 3 and its competing EVs become massive successes and we transition from ICE to EV at a faster rate.

In the meantime, time flies when you’re having fun.

Driving the Model S. P85, P85+, and P85D (or loaners while the Roadster was in for its second Annual Service)

The following experience with various Model S was before the release of 7.0 and Auto Pilot. It was drafted and the experience was in September 2015.

In the beginning of September we brought our Tesla Roadster in for its second annual service. We scheduled the service far enough in advance to ensure that we would have access to a loaner.

As is customary with Tesla Service loaners lately, we received a CPO P85 for our use while the Roadster was in service. This is not the first time that we drove a P85 or P85+ Longtime readers would remember that we suffered a charging disaster the first day that we picked up our Roadster from Tesla. Since the initial draft of this post, it has been reported on teslamotorsclub.com that Tesla no longer provides loaner Model S for Roadster Annual Services, i can’t confirm this post’s assertion as we’re still under our CPO Warranty, and don’t know if that provides a different level of service than Roadsters ex-warranty.

The differences between each iteration of the Model S is quite subtle. From the Sig P85 to the P90DL, the car looks pretty much the same. Most stock Model S that have spoilers are Performance models and without the spoiler, usually a Standard model. Additionally, most of the Model S with Red Calipers are also Performance models, but that’s not necessarily a guarantee.

The P85 that we initially received for my wife’s Roadster scheduled annual service was Blue and had a Vin number almost double ours (in the 40XXX) and had 19,276 miles when we took delivery of that loaner as they took her car in for service. It was a CPO vehicle that the previous owner traded in as was evident when the car was lent to us with “regular” California license plate and not the typical MFR or DLR plates that is indicative of an “inventory” Model S.

It had the same blue as our Model S, but had both the Spoiler and the red calipers. As a newer P85, it drove very quickly and performed well while we used it in lieu of the Roadster or even our own S85. As our car was close to the 50,000 mile initial warranty limit and I wanted to delay the inevitable “buy a warranty or pass on it dilemma” I wanted to delay that decision as long as I can.

Her vehicle was taken into service on September 8. We had hoped to get both the Roadster and Model S in for service the week leading up to National Drive Electric Week (NDEW) 2015, but there were some issues found on the PEM and some of the wiring that connected the PEM to the rest of the car that we had the loaner with us as we participated in the first weekend’s activity for NDEW 2015.

Here is the loaner P85 at the LA NDEW2015 event.

Aside from the power of a P85 vs an S85 to clue me in that I was driving a loaner and not my own vehicle, the loaner P85 had cloth seats and black gloss interior versus the Obeche Wood Gloss that we had.

The P85 Model was nice and clean and served as a nice proxy as we attended NDEW 2015 events in Long Beach, Diamond Bar, and Los Angeles CA.

The vehicle was a lot quicker than our vehicle and was more of an electricity hog as it was equipped with 21 inch wheels and had a bigger motor. Into the second week of our use of the P85, it started to have some systems fail. The first was the driver’s side door handle started to get stuck and we would be unable to let ourselves into the car via the driver’s side door handle. We had to enter in through the passenger door and open the driver’s side from there. The service center was quite busy and did not have a replacement loaner at the time. The day after the vehicle developed this door handle issue, my wife had used the loaner to go on an errand. While out and about, she stopped to charge the car and the car started to fail. It displayed some sort of low-voltage error and stopped charging. We called Tesla and it appeared that a 12V fault had occurred. Lucky for us, there was another loaner available, and Tesla drove out to her to swap out loaners with her and wait until the tow-truck arrived to take away the P85 that had issues.

The second loaner that she was provided was a Grey P85+. This P85+ was another one from the CPO inventory as it also had regular CA plates, 17,551 miles on the odometer when my wife took delivery of the vehicle. We had driven over 423 miles in the Blue P85 loaner and would add 333 miles to the Grey P85+ loaner that took its place.

I could not tell much difference between the P85 and P85+ as they both had the same motor and the enhancements to the plus were negligible. The VIN # on the P85+ was in the 19XXX and is thus older than our vehicle and it did not have the parking sensors and other enhancements that came by the time our vehicle was delivered to us in November 2013. It’s amazing to see how low the mileage was on the P85+ that we were using for a few days. Tesla had to reclaim that vehicle from us because it apparently sold online to a soon to be new CPO owner and they were still working on my wife’s Roadster.

They quickly located another vehicle for us to drive while the Roadster spent its time getting repaired and the like. Tesla brought us another Grey Model S. This time, it was practically new. The car was a grey P85D with only 228 miles. It was an Inventory model and didn’t have any plates on it, yet. The inventory vehicle came from a store that just took delivery of a P90DL, so the P85D as moved to loaner status.

The P85D was equipped with the latest sensors and the like. It had the active cruise control on, not auto-pilot, but at least the hardware for it. As I mentioned in the beginning, all these experiences was in September 2015, before auto-pilot was released.

Aside from the label on back, we know that the vehicle is a P85D because it was equipped with Insane Mode and not Ludicrous Mode.

Thought to do a little recycling with the P85D.

Thought to try out the CHAdeMO adapter (ours) on the loaner.

One of the deficiencies of the D is the small Frunk (for a Model S, big if comparing it to the i3.) They had to make room for the second motor, so that takes the place of where a large frunk would be.

After several weeks with the various P85 models, we finally got our Roadster back and the P85, P85+, and P85Ds were all returned to Tesla… But that’s just part of the story…

Since the Model S was scheduled for service as well, we got a 70D to try out while the Model S went in for service. But that’s another post… (perhaps in a week or so…)

[edited, added 2/20/2016 9:47AM Pacific / 17:47 GMT]

Figuted that this might be helpful to those looking at these “out of production” Model S –

http://ev-cpo.com/

or the official Tesla Motors site:

https://www.teslamotors.com/models/preowned

Thankful… and the reason, I haven’t been posting as much…

It’s Thanksgiving Day. The day that Americans post their thoughts on things that they’re grateful for.

Two years ago, I wrote an EV Thanksgiving post focused on all the EV choices that we get in California. Since then several other models have been introduced, with the latest one being the Tesla Model X.

Another thing I can be thankful for is the safe, little EV that my mom was drving that met its untimely demise when an SUV merged into her. It did its job and protected her through the whole process and reminds me that i have to re-emerge from the cocoon I’ve been in and help her find a new EV to replace little OB-8.

I’ve been very busy lately and have started, but not finished a few blog posts that have not seen the light of day.

Namely a draft of my Tesla Model S 70D experience (it’s what we drove from SoCal to the Bay Area in September for the Model X Launch party.
A draft of my month of driving a Tesla Model S P85, P85+, P85D, and 70D in the same month.
and so much more… I’ll get to it… eventually.

So, loyal readers, what have I been up to?

A few months ago, I was approached and engaged by EV Connect, Inc. ~~an EV Charging Solution provider [since I started writing this on Thanksgiving Day, I didn’t get formal approval to release my client’s name, so withheld for now]~~ to assist them to manage and file a submission to design, construct, manage, maintain, analyze, and report on the nine electric charging highway corridors that the State of California, via the California Energy Commission (CEC), has decided to fund in its 2012 agreement with the states of Oregon and Washington, along with the province of British Columbia to create the West Coast Electric Highway. It’s been a fun three months of working in a field that I’ve grown into.

As many long-time readers can attest, I really “fell into” this industry and I really enjoy transitioning from a consumer to hopefully a professional in this field. I am thankful for that client and truly hope that we “win” the bid from the CEC for GFO 15-601 (which was due yesterday at 3pm.)

Since, I didn’t get a release from my client, I won’t give out the details of the proposal, but can at least talk about the CEC grant. I can say that the approach we took gave due consideration to light duty electric vehicle drivers traveling these routes. It wasn’t that long ago I was driving an 80-100 mile EV with no DCFC capability. (I miss my Active E.)

The CEC identified 9 highway corridors that are in need of additional DC Fast charging (DCFC or CHAdeMO and/or SAE-Combo/CCS.)

The corridors identified by the CEC are:

I-5: Oregon Border to Red Bluff
I-5: South of Red Bluff to North of Sacramento
SR 99: South of Sacramento to North of Fresno
SR 99: Fresno to North of Wheeler Ridge
US 101: San Jose to Buellton
I-5: Wheeler Ridge to Santa Clarita
I-5: San Clemente to Oceanside
SR 99: South of Red Bluff to North of Sacramento
I-5: South of Sacramento to North of Wheeler Ridge

These nine corridors had differing distances, budgets, and preferred number of chargers to install. The first seven were required to have both CHAdeMO and CCS for the equipment to be proposed and the last two were secondary and required CHAdeMO only, though preferred a combo CHAdeMO and CCS, but the budgets were also very tight.

We had several months to find site sponsors, get equipment quotes, find construction partners, obtain additional funds, start the process to participate in the WCEH, and approach other constituents.

As a rEVolutionary, I am glad to see the expansion of the ability of light duty electric vehicles (your approx 80-100 mile range EVs in the parlance of the CEC proposal) to traverse the North-South corridors of California and eventually connect with Oregon, Washington, and beyond, but as a participant in the process, I’m biased. And hope that EV Connect, Inc. ~~[name retracted for now, the awesome folks who hired me to work with them and get our bid in to fruition]~~ win this bid!

I truly am happy and thankful. Hopefully by this time next year, we’re well on our way to having this DC Fast Charge network being completed to get mom in her replacement light duty electric vehicle able to fast charge from the LA Area to wherever North or South she wants to head to… ’cause my input was to ensure that folks like her can travel these distances comfortably without getting stranded… So, fingers crossed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The untimely end of OB-8

On Saturday, September 26th my mom was driving her little blue 2013 Nissan Leaf (OB-8) that she leased on July 2013. An SUV didn’t see her and decided to merge into her lane. The most important part of OB-8’s job was to keep her safe and it did just that.

She was unhurt from the accident, she was sad for her little blue Leaf, but in good spirits at her getting through the accident physically unscathed.

Longtime readers of the blog remember welcoming mom to the rEVolution. And like many EV drivers, once you go EV, it’s hard to go back.

On initial review, The damage did not look that bad.

The wheel and tire looked like goners, but looks like it could be repaired or replaced.

The passenger side looked relatively unscathed. However, between the damage to the car and the depreciated value of the 2013 Leaf, the insurance company declared the car a total loss.

More shots of the car from the passenger side.

The charge port door was stuck.

Close up of the charge port door.

The battery is still in good condition, or at least it still kept its charge.

Thus, with 17,893 miles in a little over 2 years, we had to say goodbye to OB-8, Mom’s Ocean Blue 2013 Leaf.

Mom leased OB-8 and the residual value on the statement was about $6,300 more than what the adjuster had valued the car for. We initially were wondering whether Nissan would allow us to apply the $5,000 price reductions that 2013 Leaf lessors were offered a few months ago as a totaled car is effectively bought out.

Luckily, Nissan had Gap Insurance on the car, so she just had to pay her deductible and was able to walk away from the car. Had she purchased the car and not purchased this insurance, she would have been liable for this shortfall on a loan.

The 2016 Leaf with 6 kWh more in the SV and SL packages seem to be a no brainier, but there are definitely more options. Though mom originally wanted to be able to DC fast charge she only did one DCFC and that was when I trained her on using the CHAdeMO.

So, what’s next? Stay tuned. We’re checking out alternates for her, too bad the Model 3 or Bolt EV isn’t out yet. However, it’s a good thing I started test driving new EV choices during National Drive Electric Week 2015, but that’s another post.

Observations from the Model X Launch Party

On the morning of September 21, 2015, I received an email from Tesla.

It was an invite to the Model X Launch Party.

It is a surprising invite as my wife and I do not have a reservation for the Model X. The event was going to be held at Fremont and I figured to go ahead and RSVP positively as Tesla events tend to “sell out” quickly. I figured that we could always cancel a positive RSVP if it turned out that we would not be able to make the 350+ miles from our home to the party.

We decided to go.

The trip to Fremont is approximately 350 miles and through a minimum of two superchargers for us (assuming a good charge at home to start.) However, it would turn out that this trip will be using a Loaner 70D and not our S85. I will write about the trip in a later blog post and focus this post on the actual Model X Launch Party and our impressions of the car itself.

So, the start of the party is at a Fremont location that used to be the Solyndra headquarters. This is the same building that Tesla was recently in the news for Tesla’s expansion into the space. It’s nice to see Tesla re-purposing a new asset for this party before they re-furbish the location for their expansion. We’ll start this post with our arrival at the location.

Tesla expected a lot of people to the event that they secured off-site parking and provided shuttle services. We had expected to be directed to these overflow lots, but lucked out and parked in the event parking location.

With a happy Dennis at the end of the line for the event. Tesla was pretty well organized at the early portion of the event and the line was winding in an orderly manner. However, the line was longer than the barriers and folks were asked to line up without the guiding barriers very soon after.

There was a drone taking pictures.

I was preparing to report on the event for my Twitter followers. So, I had my mobile reporting devices/phones at the ready.

However, soon after the doors opened and the second set of folks in the line got into the building, the crowd descended into chaos and those of us following the queue were at a disadvantage. What had once been one of the more orderly starts to a Tesla event, morphed into a free-for-all.

Knowing how late Elon usually is for these things, we knew that as late as we may be, Elon will be later. As we entered into the building, we were greeted by a Big X… which obviously marks the spot.

There was a cool “red carpet background” off to the left of the entrance which makes for ideal photo opportunity.

Once in the building, we were in a large room for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres

Since we drove to the event, I made sure to have my usual “virgin” Rum and Diet Coke… We parked ourselves in the back of the room, in an elevated stand so that we can have a good view. Walking around the room, I spotted a garage door in the main room.

As we were wondering if the X was going to be driving out of that garage, that notion was quashed when it turned out that Tesla had other ideas, as a new set of doors opened and the cars were being presented in ANOTHER great room.

We tried to hang out in the reveal room

We had a rather tough view from the right side (a function of many people and being “height-challenged”) Our view of Elon was not as good as the one for the D Event.

We heard Elon discuss the car’s self-opening front doors. The biohazard air filtration that the Model X is equipped with.

We noticed that there was video of the event from the original “holding room.” So we headed back there to get a better view.

We had a better view of the festivities, but a poor opportunity for further pictures. (like the one with the Model X pulling the Airstream, etc.)

So, we just watched the rest of the presentation from the holding room.

One thing that we did get to do was to get in line for a ride in a production Model X.

This was through the randomized badge holders that we received when we got to the event and we got our numbers in the 600s for the ride. Which meant a long wait in the outdoor lounge area.

We got to meet people and see the cars be driven.

As we waited, kept taking pictures of folks on their drives.

Several hours later, our number was called… And we got to stand in line again.

This was another 30 or so minutes of waiting, and we were getting closer to the front.

As we got closer to midnight, we were up. As luck would have it. we would HAVE to be a Blue one for our ride…

And your author has to get a shot in front of the one we’re riding.

We did shoot a video inside the car, but we were running out of juice on our devices as we got to ride just after midnight.

We did get some stills of the car that we were riding in. But since there were two of us, we got to sit in the second row seats. The vehicle we were in was outfitted with the three row second seat configuration.

The hinge of the Falcon Wing.

The empty second row we sat in.

We headed back in to get a close up look at Elon’s Founder VIN #1.

It’s a beauty…

There is no removable nosecone on the Model X, it’s all one piece.

Headlights look different from the S

Full car, but folks seem ok…

A fine detail from the outside that tells you it’s a Founder’s series Model S.

In closer

Patiently waiting for my turn inside Elon’s car’s driver’s seat.

Finally in the front seat.

Fiddling around

Frunk space

A closer look at the Model X Frunk

Better view of the falcon hinge.

Step in.

The screens from the driver’s seat.

The Panoramic Windscreen

The sunvisor on the side

Sunvisor extended

Another shot of Vin 1 again.

Opening the Falcon Doors…

Here is the door opening in a video.

In front of Elon’s car.

We left the party late… But there were still folks in line for their rides.

We enjoyed the vehicle and the event. The event was packed and the disorganization apparent, but that has been the typical of Tesla events. It took forever to get a ride in the Model X. As I had previously mentioned, we were surprised to have been invited to the Model X Launch and appreciate it. I can say that after taking the time to experience the vehicle, we are now tempted to get one. Eventually. Perhaps in a few years when there are more CPO Model X we would pick one up.

There are more pictures at our flickr album, as usual –

Our third year of Solar usage.

This is a third year update. Click here for the 2nd Year of Net Metering.

It’s been three years since our PTO was approved, we originally estimated our savings on driving the Active E or a vehicle like the Active E. Since then, we moved from one EV to two EVs to three EVs back to two EVs. We’ve also driven around a lot and our mileage has grown significantly since then. I haven’t done the math, but estimated that we’re either at break-even this year or definitely in a few months.

In our first year of Solar use, we had a credit. Which, as we found out, we could not claim. Because, it turns out, Net Metering means that though we’re credited for the production at a $ rate, customers are paid out on OVERPRODUCTION of power and not on the CREDITS earned. What this means is the system produced greater kWh of energy than consumed by the end user. If this is the case, the customer is PAID OUT the power times the wholesale rate of production. Last year, we paid over $200 to SCE for the entire second year of Solar. This third year, coupled with our nearly a month of travel to Maine and back in our Here, There, and EVerywhere roadtrip, we’ve been out of the house for about a month. So, that created a month of overproduction. As a result, the annual net metering statement was for approximately $40 for Year 3.

This full third year of solar production is basically the Model S and Roadster. What is interesting is that our usage this past 3rd year probably would have cost us less than Year Two’s Annual bill. But the month off really helped. At less than $4 a month for power for the third year is greater than I expected. So, I chalk this third year as a monumental year. Considering our average electric bill prior to going EV and solar was closer to $200 a month, it is incredible to get most of our transportation and home energy use at so little.

Now, this current fourth year, I wonder what our bill will be. Most of the past three years our electric tariff was on TOU-D-EV. This was a special whole house rate with a discount for EV drivers. A few months ago, Southern California Edison got rid of that tariff and adjusted the Time of Use tariffs so that the times that start with Peak, Off-Peak, and Super Off-Peak.

Under TOU-D-EV, the Peak rates were from the hours of 10am-6pm M-F, the Super Off-Peak hours were from midnight-6am every day, and Off-Peak is any other time. This was great because Solar was credited during the peak times most days and helped off-set a lot of the costs.

Under TOU-D-A, the Peak rates are now from the hours of 2pm-8pm M-F, the Super Off-Peak hours are now from 10pm-8am every day, and Off-Peak is still any other time. Though the Super Off-Peak hours are longer, the effect of moving peak time to the hours between 6pm-8pm means that we’re no longer generating credits at the Peak rate between 10am-2pm. Additionally, we’re spending more between 6pm-8pm because we’re paying at Peak rates and not Off-Peak rates.

So, I’m projecting paying a little bit more for electricity next year… Unless we go on yet another LONG roadtrip.

Interested in going solar? Get a quote from my solar vendor – Real Goods Solar.

MyEV post-mortem review…

A few months ago I published a guide to install the MyEV on our Tesla Model S. What I didn’t share in the original post, but did on subsequent comments is the purpose of the support of the Indiegogo project – MyEV Electric Vehicle Logger and App.

Since we’re a two electric vehicle family, there is some healthy competition between my wife and I on who is the “more efficient” EV driver. The marketing for the MyEV project introduced the fun, social gaming concept using the loggers that MyCarma built for the MyEV product. Since my wife drives a 1.5 Tesla Roadster, I made sure that the folks at MyCarma are able to support her car for the purchase of the two units. I was pleasantly surprised by their positive answer.

The original version of this post was to be along the same lines of the installation guide for the Model S, but we ran into some snags with the way that the Roadster reports itself. Furthermore, it appears that we were the only Roadster owner to support the project for the Roadster. In the end of the day, the Roadster reported data at a rate that was too much for the logger. I appreciate the effort from MyCarma to try to resolve this challenge. Especially since I needed them to make the product work in conjunction with OpenVehicles.com OVMS.

Here is the Custom Roadster cable to the MyEV unit.

The folks at MyCarma were aware of my requirements to have the unit work with OVMS, so they sent me a Y-cable for the Tesla Proprietary diag port with custom OBD adaptor.

Like I said, this one is built for the Roadster

Here is the cable chained up.

And connected

Here is the footwell with the OVMS installed in the Roadster.

Pulled the cable and OVMS off…

When connected, the Bluetooth connection should work.

And start transferring the log files.

Here’s what the setup looks like, before it is tidily installed.

Then put it back in place.

So. It all hooked up just fine. The problem lay with the fact that though it looked like the unit was logging and transferring it actually wasn’t. I tried playing around with it and finally asked for help.

Tech Support at MyCarma replaced some cables, did some programming and generally tried to help me for at least a month if not longer. At the end, since we were the only Roadster purchasers of the product, it became cost ineffective for them to figure it out and offered me a refund for the unit. I explained to them the reason why we purchased two units (one for the Model S and the one for the Roadster) and they went ahead and refunded us for both units.

The app looks like a lot of fun, but we really needed it to work for both vehicles and it was quite good customer service of MyCarma to provide us with the resolution. I continue to hope that they fix the Roadster, but lacking any further sales. It’s like Waiting for Godot.

[Added at 10:20 PM 9/27/2015 – I forgot to add pictures of what the software looked like when I was using the product]

All these screens are for the Model S as the Roadster one never really processed the data properly. The roadster processed at a speed that the logger could not figure out.

Here is the summary of the power charged for as long as the unit was plugged into the Model S.

Here is the charging histogram of when the most amount of power was added to the car. Considering that the unit was installed before the start of our Here, There, and EVerywhere roadtrip in May 2015.

Several leaderboards, this one is for the Same Model (Model S) in the Same Region (California?)

The next leaderboard is for All Cars in the Same Region.

The last leaderboard is for all cars in all regions.