A Trip in Three Phases… Phase 2… BMW Active E Electronaut Reunion 4 in Morro Bay

After completing Phase 1 (click here to start at Phase 1) of this trip.  We had an overnight pause before the start of Phase 2.  The second phase of the trip was a trip to Morro Bay for the 4th BMW Active E North-South Meetup in Morro Bay. This was on June 4, 2017.  Long-time readers remember when we had our last one that culminated in the Active E Wake.

Phase 2 – Active E Reunion – WxNS4

June 4, 2017

In previous years we had done this drive from home to Morro Bay.  Morro Bay was chosen several years ago because it was nearly halfway for all the Active E populations from Northern and Southern California.  The other three times that we drove for this meetup, we drove North to Morro Bay, but this time around, we were staying in Silicon Valley and drove South to Morro Bay.

Before our first stop in Gilroy (more a “human” maintenance stop than anything else…)

We spot someone taking off at the airstrip by the freeway.

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And here’s the route planned for us.

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That’s not a route we normally take for this drive, but thought it looked easy enough.

If you remember from Day 1 drive up from the previous post. This is a pretty big location and it is interesting to see so much empty space. We were the only one in Gilroy.

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It was a quick stop, but glad to have the boost. It looks like the winds were blowing hard today.

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Even Atascadero was relatively empty in the early morning.  We caught up with one of our fellow ActiveE alumnus, Jack Brown, the proprietor for the Take Charge And Go EV Hang Tags that I use to notify folks of my charging intent.  He was ahead of us, so he took off a few minutes before we were done with our charge.

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Our first view of the Rock at Morro Bay.

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Lots of EVs and one hydrogen in the mix.  We met at the Grill Hut in Morro Bay for our brunch.

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I even took the opportunity to tease my #EVBingo competitors on Twitter.

Lots of friendly faces waiting to be served at The Grill Hut.

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Here’s a better shot of that side of the table, George wasn’t moving…

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And a shot of the other side of the table.

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My good friend, Tom Moloughney made the trip out from New Jersey to hang with us for this meetup, he’s to the right of my empty chair.

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We parked our S on the other side of the street, there were enough Tesla Model S represented, besides the car is so large that it sticks out of the lines.  You can spot me in the picre below in the Orange.  I’m between the White and Blue i3s.

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It is a BMW Reunion, so we take a close up of the brave souls that stuck with them.

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I suppose the groupcould have spread out a bit more, but we’re a friendly bunch.

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A candid shot of us chatting away in the sunny Morro Bay day (it was appropriately cloudy during the Active E Wake.)

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The other two Teslas that made this trip today.

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The classic Tom and Dennis shot.

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And with Todd Crook joining us.  Todd’s just replaced his 2nd Gen RAV4EV with a Honda Clarity Hydrogen.

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George brought his yearbook.

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and we signed it.

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And after our reminiscing and conversations, we head back North to some great California scenery on our drive.

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And some not so great scenery…  That’s a lot of oil wells.

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But it changed back to great sights soon enough.

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We were thinking of making the turn-off to get some points to plug into Monterey Supercharger, but saw how full the stalls were and with all the traffic, decided to head back and skip it.

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We stop again at Gilroy.  The Gilroy Supercharger on a Summer Sunday afternoon doesn’t look as empty as Sunday morning.

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And then we were back in Fremont for our last night at the Marriott Fremont.  If you squint, you can spot the EVs and chargers at the office building across the street of our hotel.

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We head back to the re-opened Marriott Fremont Executive Lounge to get a great sunset shot of the Tesla Factory.

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We also noticed that this destination had ANOTHER set of chargers in addition to the two that were outside.  We figure to use those tomorrow morning.

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Before turning in, we figure that our #EVBingo totals would be interesting to tally up on a long drive day.

Total Spotted Points Per Car Total Points
Tesla Model S 38 1 38
Chevy Volt 14 1 14
BMW i3 5 3 15
Tesla Model X 10 5 50
Mercedes Benz B250e 0 15 0
Ford Fusion PlugIn 1 2 2
Ford C-Max PlugIn 0 3 0
Nissan LEAF 4 1 4
Fiat 500e 0 7 0
Kia Soul EV 1 15 15
Volkswagen E-Golf 1 8 8
Toyota Prius PlugIn 5 3 15
Sonata 0 15 0
Chevy Bolt EV 4 15 60
Chevy Spark 1 15 15
Honda Fit EV 0 50 0
Honda Accord PHEV 0 50 0
BMW i8 1 15 15
RAV4EV 2nd Gen 0 30 0
Mitsubishi iMiEV 0 50 0
Audi E-Tron 0 12 0
Golf Cart 0 1 0
Total 251

So, that’s 251 Total US points, or 125.5 California handicapped points.

June 5, 2017

We had a free day in-between phases on June 5, 2017.

Since we were re-positioning to a non destination charger hotel without ready access to a supercharger, we moved the car to one of the destination chargers in the morning and range charged it for our drive around the Bay Area.  Here we are using the Take Charge And Go EV Hang Tags to notify anyone who drives up that we will be done by check-out time.

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Even took the opportunity to check in on the TeslaratiApp and make a PSA Tweet from the OC Tesla Club account.

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Looks like the max for the car is at 252. That’s one less mile than last year’s trips, and 13 miles less than when we first picked it up from the factory. Additionally, there were several firmware changes, so not sure if that affected calculations as well.

On our drive to our new hotel for the night, we spotted a full car carrier full of EVs… Unfortunately golf carts are controversial for the #EVBingo points.  There were at least 18 of them in that carrier.

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We drove by Oracle Arena, jealous of the Golden State Warriors opportunity to win the NBA Championship for the second time in three years.

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And enjoyed our night at the Hyatt House in Emeryville. It was less expensive than most hotels that we looked at that was located near the Tesla Annual Meeting. Besides, we used the re-positioning to have dinner and visit a friend that live on this side of the Bay.

So, the second phase of our three phase trip was complete and we have an extra day before the Tesla Annual Meeting and our drive down home. Click here for Phase 3 of the trip.

If you want to join us on some of our other trips, here’s day one of our cross-country trip from 2015 or last year’s Long Way Round to the Gigafactory which took us to the Vancouver, BC and back.

I’m sure that we’ve driven over six orbits of the Earth on EV power alone!

Last week, I noticed that my wife’s Roadster reached 24,000 total miles on the odometer on May 4.

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A few days later, on May 7, we reached 75,000 total miles on the Model S Odometer as well.

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My wife is the second owner of her Roadster and it had 2,200 miles when we picked it up and the Model S had 22 miles on the odometer.  In the three years and eight months of Tesla ownership, it was a bit of a shock when I realized this morning that the total of these two mileages was 99,000 and that we were very close to having a 100,000 Tesla miles on our own vehicles.

Considering that we turned in the Active E with 54,321 miles on the odometer in February 2014 after two years. That means that our total EV mileage driven on vehicles that we’ve owned or leased now totals greater than 150,000 miles on electricity.  As impressive as this is, it is even more interesting to note that our actual totals are much greater than this.

During periods when we’ve had our cars in for service, I’ve been tracking our EV vs ICE miles and we’ve done about 80,000 miles on loaners and rental EVs.  So, our actual total is about 235,000 miles of electric driving.  In the meantime, we’ve done about 24,000 miles of ICE driving on our 2001 BMW X5 (both our driving, and when we lend the car out to visitors) as well as the times that we’ve rented ICE cars when we travel.

When I reached 74,000 miles of the Model S earlier in April, @Brian_Henderson (FYI: 75k is 3 orbits of Earth 🌏 driving pole over pole. ⚡🚘😃) reminded me that a circumnavigation of the Earth is approximately 25,000 miles and this is also cool to hing that all the vehicles that we’ve owned or leased means that we’ve travelled 6 orbits of the Earth.  So, that’s cool.

So, are we going to reach 75,000 miles on the Model S this month?  I’m pretty sure that we’ll get there before the end of this month.  If not on our beginning of June trip.

Five Years of EV Ownership

February 23 is a special day for me. It’s the day that we took delivery of our first EV in 2012. This means that five years ago, today, I joined the rEVolution and picked up my BMW Active E from Long Beach BMW.

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I didn’t even have Level 2 charging installed in the garage on that day and had to plug in the car on 110V.

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In fact, it wasn’t until several weeks have passed until I got our Level 2 charger installed under a grant that covered the charger, but not the installation. It’s a 30A J1772 charger from Chargepoint (CT-500) that is still going strong today (I use this for the Model S predominantly). It’s lost it’s networked feature as the modem in the device is no longer supported.

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What this also means is that February 23 is also a bittersweet day for me as well… As that same Active E was taken from me quite unceremoniously on this same day in 2014.

Time does heal old wounds and I don’t pout when I say Active E anymore.

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Then again, we did add the Roadster and Model S to our garage as we wait for our Model 3 and whatEVer else will take our EV future.

It helps that I can borrow the Roadster when my wife feels generous in letting me use it.

These next two pictures are from when we first picked the Roadster up…

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and how it looks a week ago.

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Here’s the Model S when we picked it up at the Tesla Factory

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at its first Level 2 charge on our delivery weekend first roadtrip (in Sonoma for this shot).

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And this recent shot when I was using the CHAdeMO charger near the Fountain Valley Supercharger from almost two weeks ago.

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And a little nostalgia for those few months that we had more EVs than drivers in 2013-2014.

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That was all three cars scheduled to charge at various times throughout the night on their own chargers.

Unfortunately, didn’t have a better shot of all three cars… Here’s a classic shot of the Model S and Roadster on the Model S first day home.

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In fact, for the past five years since we picked up the Active E  With all three cars (and various loaners and the few EV rentals we’ve done), we’ve added approximately 204,000 electric miles vs. 24,000 gasoline miles (both our own use, and when we lend our lone ICE car to visitors, as well as our use of ICE rental cars).   What’s funny is how much fanfare I had when I first hit 100,000 electric miles, and 200,000 went by and I didn’t even pay attention to it.

I’ve documented the challenges that we’ve had with all three cars and they’ve all pretty much “behaved.” In fact our Model S just replaced its first 12V battery earlier this week. We’ve actually just replaced all four tires on the Model S a few weeks prior (still around 69,000 miles on the Model S).

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To be fair, we did replace ONE of the four tires about 30,000 miles or so ago for a tire failure from driving over a road hazard. But the wear was pretty even, and we replaced all four tires when the tread was around 4/32 for two of the tires, and kept the other two (at 5/32) as “back-up”. The tires are “special order” and I would hate to have a failure and not have a pair ready to swap out (at the same tread.)

I guess what’s really special with driving EV is how “normal” it is for us now.  In the beginning everything felt like it was going to be a challenge.  How we managed to get 54,321 miles in the Active E in the two years that we had it depended a lot on available Level 2 charging.  The infrastructure was there and we planned our trips so that we can recover miles when we got to our destinations.  With the Roadster, we didn’t need to plan as much.  We often had enough range to get back home.  Now with the Model S, it’s even more interesting.  We went Here, There, and EVerywhere as well as the Long Way Round to the Gigafactory Party.  But the fact of the matter is, we picked up the Model S at the Fremont Factory.  Went to Sonoma for wine and then back down to Southern California in November 2013, without much planning.  That’s what EV ownership should be like.  Pick up and go.

Are we there yet?  To me, I’m there.  But to the rest of the world, perhaps we’re getting there.  It’s been a great 5 years and 200,000 miles of EV driving, and I’m looking for more and more EV adventures.  Stay with us and see where electricity will take us.

Home Electric Vehicle Charging Solutions

We had the opportunity to upgrade and make some changes to our home Electric Vehicle (EV) charging setup and thought to share that with you.

I went back to look at my posts to see if I could update what I thought I had written about in the past.  It turns out that I must have shared this information to the public via forum posts and not on the blog, so I figured to go over home charging today.

As a long-time multi-EV owner, one of the things that we’ve setup at our home is the ability to charge our EVs at the same time. This can be as simple as running several 120V plugs, but when you drive the miles that we had on our daily commute, 120V service is just not enough.  As a result, we’ve made accommodations to upgrade our EV charging to varying grades of 240V service.

So, to explain what I mean by varying grades of 240V service, I need to go off on a short tangent, I’m not an electrician, but having been involved with EVs for over four years has made me understand some EV basics.

1) Battery capacity and EV range is measured in kWh of storage (your consumption rate determines what that range is in miles or kilometers.)  This is why the Model S and Model X is sold with differing models corresponding with battery size.

2) The speed to re-fill this battery capacity is measured in several ways, but basically in kW of power.  The higher the number, the faster that a car can charge. So, this kW maximum for a charger is the amount of Volts multiplied by the Amps of the service.  Furthermore, an EV charges at 80% of the total Amperage that the circuit is rated for, so a 40A circuit can use a maximum of 32A to charge.

On a basic, common North American plug outlet, 120 Volt x 15 Amp service, an EV driver can use 120V x 12A = 1.44 kW of power.  (On Model S, this is a maximum of 4 miles per hour charge rate, under ideal conditions.)  It is interesting to note that many early EVs of this current generation (2011 and 2012 Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volts) had a 3.3 kW charger.  Even though, I believe, previous generations of EVs (GM EV-1, RAV4 1st gen, etc.) had 6.6 kW charging.  Many current EVs now provide at least a 6.6 kW charger.

Our old ActiveE was rated at 7.2 kW (originally, but by the end this was de-rated closer to 5.5 kW by software because of some issues.)  My wife’s Roadster has a 16.8 kW charger and our Model S is equipped with dual chargers for a total of 20 kW charging capability.

That being said, the higher the voltage one uses the amperage of the wire has to increase to give you a quicker charge.  So, to get a 16.8 kW service for the Roadster to run at full speed the Electric Vehicle Supply equipment (EVSE/i.e. electric vehicle charger) has to have a 90 Amp circuit to run at 70 Amps continuously over 240V.  (Remember the 80% rule for charging.)  So, to get the 20 kW charger to work on a Model S, a 100 Amp wire and breaker needs to run to get that going (19.2 kW, but who’s counting.)

I digress… Back to the point…  The higher the amperage for the circuit installed, the thicker AND more expensive the wire will be.

I am sure that for my North American EV readers, many have one EV plug to provide 240V service charge their car. How many places to charge 240V do you have at home? When we first took delivery of our BMW Active E in 2012, we didn’t have a single 240V service installed in our garage.

We actually spent a few weeks charging the car on 120V.  Something that those of us that follow Thomas J. Thias (the Amazing Chevy Volt) on Twitter see him espouse the greater than 1.5 Billion charging locations at this voltage in North America – 120V regular outlets (at 1-4 miles per hour, not normally relevant to me, but as Thomas reminds us, it’s a “good enough” solution for 80% of the drivers on their average commute.)

Just this evening, September 27, 2016, Thomas Tweeted the following out (in reply to a ZeroMC tweet)

New BMW ActiveE first night at home 2/23. 5

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We’ve even used the same Level 1 charger when we visited family…

Visiting family with our new @BMWActiveE and using the included Level 1 charger stretched to the limit!

Needless to say, that got old FAST…

So, two weeks later, we took advantage of a grant in 2012 and got a Chargepoint CT-500 (back when the company known as Chargepoint was called Coulomb Technologies.)

There was a grant program available for new EV owners/lessors to take advantage of that covered the cost of the EVSE and some of the installation.  The Chargepoint CT-500 was an intelligent/networked EVSE that connected to the Internet over a mobile network (2G?!?) connection and part of the bargain was that the government and researchers can glean the information about the habits of the participants in the grant program.

Since EVSEs in 2012 were over a thousand dollars, we opted to participate in this program and had our first charger installed.  We expected it to be a 32A EVSE, (80% of the 40A circuit that was installed) but it was actually a 30A Level 2 station. The total cost of the EVSE and Installation was $1,640. However, there was a state program that covered $1,200. Which meant that we were liable for $440 (plus $150 permit) for a total of $590 for the cost of our hardwired Level 2 station (plus the loss of privacy by participating in this monitored program.)

Here is the CT-500 when it was first installed.

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To install the units, we had to use Clean Fuel Connection and their sub-contractors for the work and it was a pretty painless program. After signing the contract they were at our house two days later with the EVSE and our days of charging Level 1 was put in the back burner.

The charger was hardwired and the installers did a great job.

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Here it is on the day we first installed the EVSE and we charged the Active E on that first Level 2 charger.

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With this Level 2 setup and public Level 2 charging we were able to drive the Active E 54,321 total miles during the two years of the lease.  Several years later, the intelligent features of this charger became unsupported because the mobile network that the signals rode on was being decommissioned by AT&T.  So, today, we’ve lost the “smart” functionality of the charger, but it still works great with the Model S.  So, our first dedicated EV charger was installed in March 2012.

A year and a half after we started driving the Active E, we purchased my wife’s Roadster and finalized the order for our Model S.  Since we were already “experienced” rEVolutionaries.  We had a good idea of what it takes to charge a car and how long it took to do so.  We decided to install several NEMA outlets in the house, two NEMA 14-50 outlets and one NEMA 6-50.  We picked the NEMA 6-50 because, in 2013, the first “plug” ready non-Tesla EVSEs were being produced and we wanted to be able to charge “anything” off that and didn’t feel the need to recover miles faster than a 50 Amp feed on either the Roadster that we took or the Model S that was soon to arrive in November 2013.  The approximately 25 miles per hour that we anticipated to recover on a 50 Amp circuit (40 Amps usable) was going to be enough for our drive.

When we originally ordered our Roadster, we were unsure as to what sort of charging we would get with it that we ordered a Leviton 40A EVSE to deliver the wire speed of the NEMA 6-50 at full speed.  Here is that Leviton being installed for the Roadster to use on its side of the garage.  At the time of the purchase, this EVSE was selling for approximately $1200 elsewhere and Amazon sold the same model for $1050.  In 2016, this same EVSE is now $699.

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The EVSE powered up.  However, we ended up returning the Leviton EVSE as it was incompatible with the BMW Active E and made some WEIRD noises and sounded like it was having a BAD time, electrically speaking.  Furthermore, it turned out that we were going to get a Roadster MC240 with my wife’s car, so that can take full use of the NEMA 6-50 that we installed for the Leviton EVSE.  (We just needed an adapter to go from NEMA 14-50 to NEMA 6-50 that we had made for us.)  We charged the car on this MC240 for a short while (Tesla actually stepped down the charge from 40A to 30A on the MC240 on a 50A circuit) because we wanted a faster recharge time, so we found another Roadster owner selling their Roadster UMC and purchased that unit with a 6-50 Adapter to fit directly onto the circuit that our electrician installed for the Leviton.  And used that equipment to continue to charge the Roadster until today.

Here is a photo of the NEMA 14-50 outlet on the other side of the garage from the NEMA 6-50 installed for the Roadster.

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We wanted to makes sure to protect it from the elements.

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When we were having our electrician wire up the outlet for the Roadster, we wanted to future-proof  that location and asked to have 70A service pulled in.  To maximize the 70A breaker, we split that wire to two NEMA connectors the one (NEMA 6-50) in the garage for the Roadster and another one on the outside wall of the garage (a NEMA 14-50.)  This sharing of the one breaker is not really the “code” for these connections.  However, as long as we manually manage the Amperage on the line when using two different vehicles on each of the NEMA connectors, we should be fine.  (Remember the 80% rule, so a 70 Amp breaker means that we don’t draw more than 56A continuously on the circuit.) One of the benefits of driving any Tesla is its ability to be managed “downward” on the amount of current to draw from a circuit.  So, if a newer 6.6 kW Leaf were to be plugged into that receptacle and draw 32A, we still have 24A to use for the Roadster or the Model S.

As I mentioned earlier, we lucked out when we took delivery of our Roadster, we were provided with an original MC240 (which works only with the 1.5 Roadster) and we shortly thereafter got the Roadster UMC which is the pre-cursor for the Model S Mobile Connector (MC) and its replaceable terminals.  The Roadster one continues to be more flexible than the Model S MC in that it still has ten choices for different terminals for the product, we bought the NEMA 14-50 and NEMA 6-50 adapters to work with the plugs that we have in our garage.

We also ordered Quick Charge Power’s Jesla, however this was before it was even a QCP product.  Tony Williams worked with me to customize a Model S MC to be a Jesla. I wanted something that would work with ANY EV out there and the Jesla would plug into any of the other outlets in the garage and in the exterior of the house for when we have visitors, like my mom and her Nissan Leaf.

Here’s a picture of the Roadster charging on one of our exterior NEMA 14-50 outlets.

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We had the same protective enclosure for the NEMA 14-50 that we installed on the exterior side of the house.  Additionally, should we ever decide to get an RV, we can plug an RV on the side of the house as well since this plug is dedicated to its own 50 Amp circuit.

Here is that outlet without the Roadster plugged into it.

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That is the MC240 that the Roadster originally came with.  It has a hardwired NEMA 14-50 plug on the end of it.

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It’s just on our driveway, but away from blocking the garage. This was convenient, but not the ideal place for the Roadster, the noisiest that a Roadster gets is when it is CHARGING, so we make sure, in the interest of keeping the peace with our neighbor, to have an outlet ready for the Roadster in the garage.

During the months between November 2013 and February 2014, we kicked the Active E out of the garage and it ended up charging on the driveway.

Here are a couple of pictures I took when we used to have all three cars, all plugged in and charging.

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The J1772 EVSE that is plugged into the Active E during this duty cycle is the Jesla that I had asked Tony Williams of Quick Charge Power make for me.  It is great to see all the business that he has since built from the time that he made this product for me.

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So, for several years we’ve had a great set-up at the house that allowed us to charge four EVs at once and not sure if we’ve ever have needed to do this… I do remember my mom visiting with her Leaf and charging it. The Model S was already charged, so I could just plug her Leaf into that J1772 (the original Chargepoint CT-500 from 2012). This photo was from Thanksgiving 2014, and the Active E was already back with BMW for at least 9 months at this point.  You can see the Roadster UMC plugged to the wall beside the Roadster (using a NEMA 6-50 at this point.)

Looks like the Family is complete... we can start Thanksgiving lunch! (3 EVs in our garage/driveway)

That’s a long way to catch you up to what we just had done this past weekend… in 2016.

Well, a short while ago, we’ve had some charger challenges with the Roadster.  During testing, we kept swapping chargers to see the effects, and as a result of one of these tests, the MC240 that came with our car died and was not repairable.  Our service center provided us a replacement as a result of this failure because we still had our CPO warranty in effect. The MC240 is quite rare, so the service center provided us with a second Roadster UMCs.

When we took the “new” UMC home and plugged it in, it turned out that the new one was “flaky” (or, I suspect that there’s something with the Roadster, but we’re still figuring that out.)

Now, it has been difficult for Tesla to track down the UMC to begin with, and they are quite pricey, so, instead of trying to find ANOTHER Roadster UMC, I asked if they could just replace the dead MC240/flaky Roadster UMC with a new Model S/Model X High Power Wall Connector (HPWC.)

My point was that they were producing more of these HPWCs, the price for the unit has dropped significantly and is about a third the cost of another replacement Roadster UMC. The retail price for the Roadster UMC is $1,500 without a NEMA 14-50 connector, and adding that connector is an additional $100 for a total of $1,600, and the Model S/Model X HPWC is now $550 for the 24 foot model. Luckily, my logic was deemed to be a sound one, and we were able to get a 24 foot Tesla Model S/Model X HPWC (ver 2? (the one that can be daisy-chained)).  I figure that between the Roadster UMC, the Jesla, and our CAN SR and CAN JR, we have enough portable Level 2 capability for the vehicle.

Several weeks later, mid-last week, we get word that the replacement Tesla Model S/Model X HPWC was at the service center ready for pick up.

We went to pick up the box from the service center and take it home.  It wasn’t going to fit in the Roadster, so we took an S (the service center’s loaner as the Roadster is in the shop for its annual service) to bring this box home.

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One thing about the Model S/X High Power Wall Connector is it is glorious and aesthetically pleasing EVSE.

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Unboxing the HPWC…

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In order to install the unit, it had to be hardwired, and I’m not an electrician, remember.  I scheduled our electrician to do the work this past Sunday, September 25.

As I mentioned earlier, we ran 70A service to the garage for the Roadster and the two shared NEMA outlets (the NEMA 6-50 and NEMA 14-50). I figured to have him use that feed for the HPWC.  Since it seems that we’re now predominantly a Tesla family, I also had one other change that I requested.  Between our Tesla bias and the fact that there are now more EVSE providers that are selling NEMA 14-50 plug-in EVSEs, not just NEMA 6-50 ones, I went ahead and asked our electrician to replace the NEMA 6-50 outlet for the Roadster with a NEMA 14-50 one.

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The new HPWC can go to 80A on a 100A wire, but it was cost prohibitive to run that wire three years ago.  I was glad that we ran 70A because we are now able to take advantage of 56A power for charging (when we’re not using the NEMA 14-50 outlets) we’re able to charge a Model S (with dual chargers, or enabled for greater than 48A for the newer ones) at 34 miles per hour.  The Model S normally uses the old reliable Chargepoint CT-500 at 30A and approximately 18 miles per hour of charging.  So, if we’re in a hurry or if the Chargepoint “misbehaves” we now have the means to “charge quicker.”

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Besides, the nearest supercharger to us is Fountain Valley and though it is a supercharger, it is easily the busiest one in the area as is evidenced by this photo around 1pm on 9/27/2016.

That’s six cars waiting and eight charging (there were seven cars waiting just before I took this picture.)

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Additionally, we still have the NEMA outlets (now all 14-50s). We just have to manage the load effectively, and safely. I could use the advanced features of the new HPWC and daisy chain them in the future, but I think we’re OK with the way we’re set up for now. In the meantime, we just have to do the math and run a total of 56A on the feed. One requirement currently is that all these vehicles will have to be Teslas because it’s difficult to limit each feed to only 16A…  We can, conceivably charge two Teslas at 20A and a Chevy Spark, Chevy Volt, or 2011/2012 Nissan Leaf on 16A of power.  As we mentioned earlier, many EVs now run at 6.6kW or higher and that’s 32A of power on 240V.

So, in 2016, we are now able to plug in five vehicles to charge at 240V service in our home…

Looks like we’re ready for the rEVolution and hosting an EV meetup…

Or to have family visit us…  My sister and her husband just added a Volkswagen E-Golf to their garage a few months ago and, as expected, my gearhead brother-in-law has been “digging” driving electric. (I think that he’s garaged his Porsche ICE and taken to driving the E-Golf places.)

Furthermore, once we get our Model 3 reservations delivered, we’re ready for those as well.  We might need a bigger driveway and garage!

What’s the big deal with the Model 3 trunk (boot)?

I was surprised to hear about all the turmoil regarding the PROTOTYPE Model 3 trunk (boot.) One of the first places I heard about this complaint was on Jalopnik’s article This is the Tesla Model 3’s Biggest Design Fail.

In the article, Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky showed the following photographs:

Tesla Model 3 Trunk picture 1 - Jalopnik 4/1/2016 article

Tesla Model 3 Trunk picture 2 - Jalopnik 4/1/2016 article
Model3Ownersclub.com‘s owner/administrator TrevP (also on Twitter at @model3owners.)

Posted on the thread – The Trunk the following photo:

Wider Trunk photo from Model3Ownersclub.com

Electrek also talked about the Model 3’s Frunk titled “Opinion: Tesla’s Model 3 AWD ‘frunk’, as shown in prototypes, is just a glorified glovebox”.

Tesla Model 3 Frunk picture - Electrek 4/3/2016 article

As previously mentioned, the Model 3 designs that everyone has been discussing are prototypes. As such, I expect them to be close to what will be released, but don’t expect the cars to be exact. Remember, the Model X prototypes had cameras rather than side mirrors.  Additionally, the Model X prototypes also had the same front nose as the now classic Model S design. (black nosecone).

The prototype for the Model 3 shows a smaller car than the Model S and Model X.

Long-time readers will remember that I preferred the Active E to the Model S.  It was all about the size of the car.  I have since gotten used to the size of the Model S and it doesn’t bother me anymore.  However, I still prefer a smaller format vehicle.  My wife’s Roadster is great, but it’s her car, and it is smaller than I’m comfortable driving regularly (should she even let me borrow it to drive.)  Though I haven’t seen the Model 3 in person, I surmise based on the pictures and information that this Tesla will be closer to the BMW Active E size and definitely outperform my old, beloved BMW Active E.

So, is the trunk and frunk too small for me?  Well…  Let’s see.

I drove the BMW Active E for two years.  It was a great little car, full battery electric and a range between 80-100 miles.  As for the trunk, there was a reason that I used to drive the car to do our Costco Wholesale shopping.

Here is a picture of the BMW Active E Trunk.  The Active E labeled portion of the trunk is the motor for the car.  Beside the motor is a full laptop/briefcase and that was pretty much it for space.  So, when I shop at Costco, I saved money.

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The trunk had a little more space and there are two shelves under the floor.  One fits several tools and the like and below that is space for the emergency Level One EVSE (110V.)

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Here’s the one for the Level 1 EVSE.

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Though the car seems to have minimal space, I proved that back in 2012… Looks can be deceiving.  So, a “small” Model 3 trunk, probably not an issue for me.

Just to remind folks, the Model 3 isn’t the only Tesla with a small trunk.  Check out the Tesla Roadster trunk below, it’s big enough to carry a set of golf clubs… For the driver OR the passenger.

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Folks are disappointed in the Model 3 trunk size because they have the Model S to compare it to.

Here’s a loaner we had during our charging disaster with the Roadster.

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Here is the Model S from Quicksilver Car Service that we used when we picked up our Model S at the factory.

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It had plenty of room for luggage.

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With the classic Model S with a single motor that we have, the frunk has a LOT of room as well.  So much so that we now carry a spare tire in it when we do our roadtrips.

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For a comparison, the Dual Drive Frunk on a Model S 70D loaner that I used in September 2015 is markedly smaller than the frunk on our classic Model S.

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Since we didn’t opt for the Premium Sound package, we get side storage on both sides of the trunk.  I’ve always found it the best place to bring home some flowers for the better half.

The space in the back of the .@TeslaMotors Model S is perfect to make my wife smile with some roses... Just because!

So, yes. I can see both sides of this. Tesla knows how to make a hatchback, but should they make the Model 3 a hatchback? Perhaps they will, perhaps they won’t. At the end of the day, it’s a PROTOTYPE, so Tesla can still change things. Personally, I’m fine with the trunk space. It’s not what attracted me to the car anyway. Besides, if they keep the trunk as is. I would probably save a lot of money at Costco. 😉

Now, if they can make the Model 3 a Coupe… Or better yet, a hardtop convertible… That’s an option I would love.

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:

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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.

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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.

Side by side ActiveE 1

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: CodaFiat 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:

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

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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:

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

The driver and passenger needs to refuel.

…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.

Interesting offer from Audi…

So, I got an interesting offer from Audi last week…  (it was in my Spam folder) but still rather interesting:

Dear DENNIS,Audi is conducting a first ever Luxury Vehicle Conquest Sales Event in your area. Your status as a 2011 BMW Activee owner qualifies you to receive: exclusive incentives from Audi not available to the general public. If you don’t currently own the vehicle noted please see us immediately. Audi is extending this invitation to introduce you to the exceptional value and quality of Audi.

Circle Audi has been selected by Audi to host this exclusive Luxury Vehicle Conquest Sales Event.

This email entitles you up to $5,000 in Conquest Funding.

Please present this letter to Circle Audi for entry. Due to an anticipated high response, we suggest calling (888) 246-9997 to schedule an appointment.

Additionally, thanks to strong market demand for 2011 BMW Activees, Circle Audi is very interested in purchasing your vehicle. It doesn’t matter where you originally purchased your BMW, or which to which bank you make payments. Thanks to this unique program Circle Audi may be able to trade you out of your BMW by paying off your current vehicle or by taking your vehicle in on trade.

I hope you take advantage of this unique opportunity.

Sincerely,

Peter Murphy
General Sales Manager
Circle Audi 1919 N. Lakewood Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90815
(888) 246-9997

I think they need to read the notes I gave the salesperson when I stopped in to see if they had any plug-ins for me to look at.  I know that the E-Tron has been announced, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Also, being an ’80s Alternative Kinda guy, it’s kinda cool getting an e-mail from Peter Murphy!

Really, that’s a response?


So, many of the EV sites that I follow got the attached response from BMW – thanks to the folks at Transport Evolved.

Anyone who has watched BMW’s ongoing development in the electric vehicle space and observed our investment in BMW i, has seen clear evidence of the company’s commitment to sustainable mobility.

BMW has always been clear that the ActiveEs were prototype vehicles and that the program would have a limited timeframe, which is now drawing to a close. Our time with the ActiveE and our Electronauts has been a great learning experience which has prepared us well for the arrival of the BMW i3 electric vehicle which is now in US showrooms at authorized BMW i Centers. As enthusiasts, we understand and appreciate the emotional connection that individuals can make with their cars. The enthusiasm that the Electronauts brought to the BMW ActiveE test program was truly remarkable.

The learning begun with the ActiveE will transition to the next phase with all of the lithium-ion batteries being repurposed for Battery Second Life research projects.

As prototypes, the BMW ActiveEs may not be resold. Based on increasing demand, the most well cared for cars have been deployed to bolster the fleet of Drive Now, BMW’s car sharing service in the San Francisco Bay Area, for a limited period. The total number of BMW ActiveEs in the Drive Now Fleet totals 150. Some have also been returned to Munich for additional research markets.

Legal requirements make it impossible to keep these cars on the road in the US indefinitely. Recycling of the vehicles locally is the most sustainably responsible means of handling the cars that are being taken out of service.

Wow… How about just a big “sorry” for being insensitive about parading your much loved ActiveEs crushed on the LA freeways? As I said in yesterday’s post, we understand the eventual fate, just don’t flaunt it. Spend a few bucks covering the cars up.

I would have preferred an apology for the insensitivity, heck you have our email addresses, send the apology via email. To BMW’s credit, it would seem to me (after umpteen views of this sickening picture), that the sequence in spray paint on the sides of the cars are NOT the VIN numbers. I would suspect some sort of list that corresponded these numbers with VINs.

Which means I still have hope that MY ActiveE is in San Francisco somewhere helping some DriveNow user get from point A to point B whilst saving the environment.

Heck, I’d even be happy if the DriveNow driver is taking the car from a San Francisco Giants’ victory (of course, being a Los Angeles Dodgers fan, I would be even happier with a Giants’ loss). But I digress. How about just covering the darn cars.

Don’t flaunt the eventual fate of our much loved ActiveEs. I’m just glad that I didn’t name the car.

Crushed…


Crushed ActiveEs
This picture was from the tweet from Chris Neff, owner unknown and uncredited.

Several tweets, pictures, and a post have come by recently that has confirmed what I’ve intellectually understood would happen, but refuse to accept.

I am crushed. At first glance, and following Airton’s tweet, I thought that the cars spotted were in NJ and I was saddened, but not crushed…

However, at further inspection, the freeway sign was for CA-91 and that is a freeway that I often cross in my many drives throughout Southern California. The reality is one of those cars could actually be “my” Active E. I had such high hopes when it was announced that another eighty ActiveEs were making the trek to Northern California to join DriveNow. Now, I suspected, and others have mentioned that perhaps the spraypaint on the side refers to particular VIN numbers… If that’s the case, I can still hope that my car is in the Bay Area.

Furthermore, I am extremely sad at these pictures, but thankful that the Active E has made me Accidentally Environmental. I didn’t care about climate change before my Active E. I wasn’t denying it’s existence, just not really doing anything about it. And now… I do a little bit more.

Alas, these pictures bring me back to a jarring reality.

I am, metaphorically, crushed.

The Morro Bay West Coast Active E Wake


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On Sunday, March 2, 2014, I joined fellow Electronauts in Morro Bay, CA for the meetup of Active E Electronauts from Northern and Southern California to hold a wake for the departure of our beloved Active Es. This was the same drive that I alluded to in the previous year and ended up driving in an ICE because it was range “insane”.

This year, saying goodbye and commiserating about the departure of the Active E was done in all EV mode thanks to the Tesla Motors Model S and Supercharging at Buelton, CA. Basically the Active E Wake served two purposes for me.

1) Provided me with a way to channel my “grief” by commiserating with other Active E drivers and honor the Active E at the same time.

2) Provided me with a good excuse to go on a long, supercharger enabled trip and really get used to the Model S.

One could say that it was the perfect way to bridge my EV experience from an Active E for my daily driver to a Tesla Model S.

The first leg of the trip was from home to the Buelton Supercharger and the car performed well. I had several changes in elevation as there were several passes to navigate, so even though the trip was approximately 166 miles and I was charged to 264 miles… I arrived at the Buelton Supercharger with 55 miles left. The overall statistics were 165.8 mile trip at 351 Wh/mi (2.85 mi/KwH). A good chunk of that trip was sitting on the cruise control trying to do “my version” of trying to hyper-mile. However, as I mentioned earlier, there was a lot of elevation, and the road was just too open that early in the morning. In the end, there were quite a few stretches where I “enjoyed” the Model S too much.

On the way to the West Coast Active E Wake

On the way to the West Coast Active E Wake

The weather was appropriately overcast for such a solemn occasion.

On the way to the West Coast Active E Wake

We supercharged for approximately 40-45 minutes and left with 225 miles on the range and a 150 mile roundtrip to and from Morro Bay ahead of us.

Having driven this same route the “other way” from our Tesla Pickup Weekend (see lots of posts starting here), it was a comfortable trip to do to Buelton and having driven more than halfway to Morro Bay with the stop in Buelton it was important to have enough charge to get there, back and some buffer.

We met at the Blue Skye Coastal Cafe in Morro Bay. As with most of my photo hosting, check out flickr for photos. There will be photos at breakfast and shots by the “Rock”.

BMW Active E Wake at Morro Bay, CA

Even an homage to the Mini-E can be found on the hood of the Active E that served as stand in for all the Active Es out there.

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Here’s a shot of all the cars with their drivers. The truck is NOT with us, but one of the Active Es drove down with a Model S as well (the white one)…

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Another shot with a driver beside each of their EVs.

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One of the many residents of Morro Bay that was wondering what the heck we were up to, this one was having seafood for lunch.

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I didn’t log my drive statistics to Morro Bay from Buelton, but made sure to catch it on the Roundtrip to the Supercharger…

So, returned to the Buelton Supercharger with 56 miles left after 155.7 mile roundtrip to/from Morro Bay at 310 wh/mi (3.229 miles/kWh), drove more efficiently than the trip to Buelton from home. We left Buelton with 225 miles of range, so the “spoilage” was close to 19 miles of estimated miles.

Back at the Tesla Buelton Supercharger on the way home from the BMW Active E West Coast Wake

Back at the Tesla Buelton Supercharger on the way home from the BMW Active E West Coast Wake

This time around, I wasn’t alone at the Supercharger station. We had an homage to USA with a Red, White, and Blue Model S supercharging.

Back at the Tesla Buelton Supercharger on the way home from the BMW Active E West Coast Wake

For my readers outside of Southern California, this is an overcast day… Just to prove that it ISN’T always hot and sunny in California. Another shot of the Red, White, and Blue Tesla Model S at Buelton.

Back at the Tesla Buelton Supercharger on the way home from the BMW Active E West Coast Wake

This trip was somewhat therapeutic for the sense of loss for the Active E and reassuring that the EV future really is quite well represented by all the brands that fellow Active E Electronauts have decided to go to rather than wait for BMW to release the i3. Several still were deciding whether to get an i3 either in addition to the other EV that they may have also obtained.

BMW Active E Wake at Morro Bay, CA

This time, I figured to charge as close to full as possible, so we went to around 240 on the mileage gauge before we headed South at a more leisurely pace. We got home having consumed 48.7kwh in 170.6 miles of travel with an average of 286 Wh/mile (or 3.50 miles per KWh) amazingly close to what I would do on the Active E on an average day. The entire 492 mile trip was accomplished using 155.1 KWh of energy for an average of 315 Wh/mile (or 3.17 miles per KWh).

Final leg stats of trip to Morro Bay for West Coast ActiveE Wake

Amazing to think that about a year prior, I chickened out and decided to use an ICE car to do this same drive and took about the same amount of time to travel. The cost to “fuel” up this drive… $0.