Monday, June 15, 2009

Trip to Philly

This weekend I drove #304 to my fiancee's house outside of Philly. I had previously measured the distance as 80 miles and was a bit nervous about my first long trip in my MINI E. I let the car charge upto 100% on Friday, while I drove my gas car to work. For the trip there I drove very conservatively staying at the speed limit and accelerating slowly, there is about 30 miles of highway driving with a 65mph speed limit, and I really saw a big differance in my charge usage during that time compared to the rest of my drive. I arrived having driven 77.6 miles with 31% charge left and 36 miles of range left.
I had to back the car into the driveway and plug the charger in through a window to get a charge, I can see why the EV1 had the charger plug in the front it would be a much more convenient location. I also put a towel over the wheel charger light, as it was a bit too noticeable otherwise. We used #304 a little bit over the weekend for short trips around the suburbs of philly, then I drove it back on Monday morning.
For the drive back I decided I could drive normally and get home safely. I left with a 100% charge and drove the same speed as most of the traffic about 75mph on the highway, and not exactly the speed limit on other streets. I arrived having driven 76.5 miles (not sure how I lost a mile) with 29% charge and 27 miles left to go.
I didnt have enough charge to make it into work so #304 got a rest day to charge up today.
I've had my MINI E for a week now, and have put 343 miles on it, would be more but without a fast charger, I'm having to give it rest days.

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