July 8: Drained it!

Don't get cocky, kid! I drained the battery more than it's ever been drained today. All the bars were gone and the little gas tank icon was flashing at me, with miles to go before I got to VSP Parking at Burbank Airport to plug in. Luckily, traffic was clogged on the freeway those last miles so I crawled along at a battery-saving pace, timing my slow-downs so I could use regen as much as possible and accelerating as slowly as I could without causing cars behind me to rear-end me. I was never so happy to see an electrical outlet in my life. I plugged in, got on the shuttle and flew away. When I return tomorrow it'll be fully charged and rarin' to go. Maybe I'll try to see how far it can go on a full charge. Does it get better mileage in city driving, taking advantage of the regen, or is it better on the freeway? I will investigate.

I had been so confident with the car's range that I wasn't topping it off. I'd leave it in the driveway with half a charge, so certain was I that I could go anywhere I wanted. Well, I can go anywhere I want but from now on I'll recharge whenever I can, just to avoid the anxiety.

Last night, in a real “duh” moment, I counted the bars on the fuel gauge and found there are 16 of them. The battery is a 16-kWh battery. So each bar represents one kWh, right? Of course. Duh.

So if I use 8 or 9 kWhs driving to and from work, and if each kWh costs me 10 or 11 cents if I recharge at night, then my 44-mile round trip to work and back costs me less than a buck. If I drive a gasoline-powered car that gets 20 mpg and gas costs $3.25 a gallon it's about $8.80 or so for the same commute. So an EV costs one tenth or one ninth or so what a gasoline car costs to operate. And there are no oil changes, either. But you do need tires and windshield washer fluid.

First car I got into after the i-MiEV was a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. What a change. Yowzer. I did not feel guilty at all. I suppose some undergraduate ethics major is going to call me a hypocrite. Well, let he who is without kWhs cast the first electroshock.

By Mark Vaughn