Space… the Final Frontier. The difference between built Electric and a converted ICE Electric

This weekend, I was challenged by my better half to fit everything we needed to haul up to my sister-in-law’s house for our niece’s Fourth Birthday party.  She thought that we needed to use our ever reliable X5 to do it’s hauling duty and I asserted that I thought we could take the ActiveE.  Figuring that after many years of marriage, the worst that could happen was that I would have to accept defeat, I decided to prove it.

So, as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother would say, “Challenge Accepted.”  In retrospect, I should’ve taken pictures of all the items that I had to pack into the ActiveE, but we had a kid’s birthday party to help get set up, and didn’t really have the time to dawdle.  So the picturess are of the stuff IN the car…

To remind everyone… This is what I had to work with:

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I also have a backseat where the seats fold down to carry stuff with, which I used, but the electric motor hump really does take the space.  (that’s the section that has the ActiveE written on the carpet.)

These next three shots are what was packed behind the front seats with the passenger seats folded down.

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Here it is closed:

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Right side of the trunk:

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Close up –

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Left side of the trunk:

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Needless to say, we packed a lot of stuff.

Distributed throughout the back are 8 bottles of wine (for the adults, not the 4 year old kids, of course.) The rolled up dusty thing is a rug that we use to lay outdoors. You would’ve also noted a 3 course buffet server in the backseat.

So, not only was the challenge accepted, I was also able to accomplish the task.  Being an Electronut means being very motivated to try to stay away from driving any ICE, EVEN something as fun to drive as a BMW X5.

The balloons, were for a giant popcorn display that my better half made for the party (it was a Princess party with a movie at the end of the night, Beauty and the Beast, if you must know.)

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If you’re paying close attention, you may have noticed that we DID lose a couple of balloons, but these were lost AT the destination, and thus not in the transport or difference between traveling with the X5 vs. the ActiveE.

So, what did this exercise prove. The ActiveE can make a quick stand-in for the X5, in a pinch, but it’s definitely one of the reasons that my Costco trips have gotten cheaper. I really can’t carry much there. Just more than I initially thought.

Which leads me to the second part of the thesis. These challenges occurred because we’re using a converted 1 series BMW. The hump does not exist in the Coda or the Tesla Model S.

Here are two shots from the Coda’s cavernous trunk:

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or the Tesla Model S

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I am sure that neither one will haul as much as the X5, however, I would guess the upcoming Tesla Model X will.  I am sure that either the Coda or the Tesla Model S CAN haul more than the ActiveE.

I would think that the upcoming BMW i3 will ALSO have more hauling capacity than the ActiveE.

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More i3 Pictures here.

So, as much as I really enjoy the ActiveE, the only positive of having to give it back to BMW at the end of the two years is I have something to look forward to with the NEXT generation of EVs.

Just a few more pics from Lot 6… Finally got a charge…


Didn’t get a chance to post much (or drive much) this week as I’ve been on a business trip to Chicago…

Here are some pictures we took before the trip.  My sister and her family were over and my brother-in-law, who is a car guy, was daring enough to take apart parts of the car to take a look… mainly the plastic cover thing, so I snapped some pics of the “engine” area of the ActiveE.

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Additionally, it did provide me with the opportunity to get some updated pictures from my better half.  She had her first day with the ActiveE and was a trooper.

She found LAX Lot 6 and was able to get us plugged in for the recharge for the drive back home.

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and to verify that it was plugged in fine. She did a video of the blue blinking light of happiness!

Lastly, ’cause she thought it looked cool and teased me (I hope) with what she tells me she wants for her next car.

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Yes, a Fisker Karma, what can I say, the better half has great taste!

Update to back of napkin math using first month’s SCE Time of Use Tariff


It’s time for an update.  As a response to my $0.31 per kWh price for charging my ActiveE on Southern California Edison’s Domestic Tariff, I signed up for Electric Time Of Use (TOU). Now there are TWO flavors of the TOU tariff.  One requires a separate meter, the other does not.  The approximate cost for the separate meter and installation at my house was an additional $2,000 to $4,000.  Since, we were not sure if we would be staying on Electric after the two year closed-end lease of the ActiveE, we decided to go with the one offered for customers with a single electric meter.  At this point, barring the lack of good choices after the 2 years, we probably will go ahead and get at least a replacement electric vehicle.

So what did we find out after the first month on the new tariff.  First, let me spell out what assumptions were made to calculate the amount of energy used by the AE.  I could have gotten more detailed (counting ALL the emailed kWh usage identified by my Chargepoint EVSE, but decided that I did not really want to do all the calculations and since most of my charging is done at the super-off peak hours and very few outside of these times, that I would overstate the amount of energy and calculate based on the total super-off peak usage AND 10% of off-peak charging to come up with my model.) but I would’ve run out of room on the back of the napkin.  Bottom line, in the new month, I came up with $0.12024 per kWh to charge this past month under the winter rates.  This assumption puts me at the cost to fill up at home at $1.20 per day

So, using the 70 mile number – from my electric cost per mile last month is approximately $0.01714 per mile.  After two months of driving, I have noticed that my average roundtrip is actually a little higher than the 70 mile number.  Let’s call it 85 miles…  So, using this mileage, I was able to recalculate this cost down to $0.01412 per mile.

Using the revised mileage numbers, 407 miles is $5.75 vs. $60.00 approximately 1/12th the cost of ICE.

Folks with lower kWh pricing obviously come out a lot more.  In fact, it’s practically free for those that are on solar power, though not really free, since installing solar DOES cost money.  Now that BMW got a nice group discount at 35%, but still not “free.”

Of course the subsidized power may disappear as electric cars gain greater traction, but there’s a lot of room to go before it gets close to the same level as an ICE car of a similar caliber.  Additionally, it would seem that my rates are bound to go up when Summer Rates kick in, so I will have another update when those bills come in.

Second napkin math for those that use an SUV…


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


After having read yesterday’s post.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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