Driving for free. What’s the catch?

What if you could drive all those drives to the shops for groceries, soccer practice of your son, balletclass of your daughter for free ?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO DRIVE THOSE TRIPS FOR FREE?

Sure you would. But that is ofcourse to good to be true isn’t it.
Well maybe you are right. Maybe you are not.

How much do you spend on your current car every year?

How much of that is petrol?

How many kilometers do you drive per year? Per month? Per week? Per day?

Statistics say “people drive 30 km per day average” .  I think thats low. lets say 60km on a good day is more likely.

That is of course just a statistic. I do not feel like being a statistics, so those kind of sales talk don’t cut it with me. I always see for myself.

According to http://www.anwb.nl my 4 year old car cost 700-900 euro per month they say.

WOOH! 10.000 eur per year for my diesel

I didn’t realize its that much. And if you add up all your costs… it really is that high !

After having repairs on my fuel ( diesel) car for over 3000 euro I started thinking…how long is this car going to last… how much more cost will show up.

I looked at my own situation a year ago. What is my max. distance on a day, one way, return and started thinking whether or not I could use all the latest tax breaks, “free electricity” and other insentives to start driving the “new way”.

I found out that a few models came on to the market for real, that could do just fine. So I started calculating. Add a little extra fun factor. Marketing possibilities and before you know it I was driving my Mitusbishi I-Miev in The Netherlands.

Yeh yeh… but what did it cost me? Money. Lots of it. At first.
After 20.000 km driving with a periodic 20.000km check of 140eur the running cost seem to be not that much.

Tax breaks and environmental invenstments make it profitable to invest in a EV instead of buying a fuel powered car. Tax breaks return av. 4000 eur per year.

I save 1500-2200 litres (more?) of diesel a year equals more than 3000 euro of fuel i do NOT have to pay anymore.

I have a free charging pole in front of my house. No energy cost at this moment.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention. You don’t pay road tax.. at ALL ! My diesel is costly !

And I am not mentioning yet how much FUN it is to drive electric. The silence. The POWER. Its really fun!

So what’s the catch. Yes you know it, I am sure. The radius. You need to plan your drive. Drive with the knowledge that you need to be energy efficient if you want to drive to the limits of the radius of your EV.

We started with the radius, didn’t we. So if you decided that you are going to use the car for your 60km daily drives, whats the problem? How much I drive? 120-150km per day. Every day. That is 4 times more than the average statistics.

Within 8 months 20.000km at (almost) no cost for the energy.
My diesel car cost me total 10.000 per year. My EV… much less… you do the math. Don’t trust my calculations!

My diesel gives me good 900km radius, but really how many time do you drive 900km on a day.

My EV gives me much more pleasure on all those smaller distances.

What I get and pay for my EV compared to my diesel; the benefits, the technique, silence, power, cheap energy outweighs the fuel based car by far.

I LOVE DRIVING MY EV

for all the good, fun and eco and environmental reasons.

What is your opinion? I would like to hear.

Round trip Europe in a EV: is it possible?

Making larger distances than 75km is difficult with an Mitusbishi I-MiEV, at least when you want to keep the pace in to it and still want to arrive at your destination without sweaty armpits from fear of possible pushing the car for the last mile 🙂
60 km driving distance towards the next charging / rest point is NO problem.
75 km will take a little restraint on your big toe.
100 km driving is driving ECO and driving conditions will take part of your calculations whether or not you will make it.

SO

Lets see if we can drive through EUROPE. Full Electric !
What do we need for it?
– A few “idiots” that have an EV
– A “simple” driving plan: i.e. Amsterdam-London-Paris – and back to where you came from …
– Charging points: official or unofficial. every 75-100 km. Preferrably Quickchargers for cars like the I-MiEV with small radius.
– Sponsors
– (social)media
– A “sweep” car: we do not like to push a car. This can be a very strong EV, full hybrid, plug-in, range extender, or fuel -based car.
– Good weather 🙂

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Please retweet and leave your comment on the blog and/or twitter mentioning #eveurope

20.000 km 100% electric

I am passing 20.000 km on my Mitsubishi I-MiEV this week.

I did some calculations on how much diesel fuel I would have saved. I come up to more than 1000 liters! With a current price of 1,40 euro / l thats a lot.
On the other hand I had to charge my car with electricity ofcourse. This is not that cheap here in the Netherlands. 22 eurocent per kWh. So it costed me about 365 euro using 1500 kWh charged from my house ( separate ELCO meter ), the round trip was charged at the company I am currently working – for free 🙂

Currently I have a charging pole in front of my house. FREE electricity !

Saving power consumption

Dear readers,

I have just pasted 17.000 kilometers driving my Mitsubishi I-MiEV.

Small recap from the last 7 months.

Starting in the winter I was driving in a down-coat, hat and cloves for using the heater would just not get me to my destination.Please read my first blogs for further details.
Spring time came and driving went much smoother. The battery showed big improvements in power while temperatures were rising. Some tests were done using the heater carefully.
In summer time I could drive ECO making it possible to go to my customer AND get back ( theoretically ) on one charge, reaching a radius of more than 120 km. This made it possible for me also to experiment with using the AIRCO.

Club of 90
I recently joined the “Club-of-90”. No its not a club of old people. Its an iniative by  Matthijs Lievaart. His idea was on the radio and newspapers. It was the radio broadcast on Radio 538 which caught my attention. He explained that driving 90 km/h (when you can) makes such a big diffference on fuel consumption! For 1 euro you buy a sticker you put on your car and with it you show people you drive 90 km/h consiously to save energy. You don’t “have” to drive this “slow” always and further more, only when safety allows ofcourse. Be aware that the speedlimitation on trucks is set on 90 km/h, making them drive close to 92 km/h, So drive about 96 km/h on your own meter. http://www.clubvan90.org

Driving 90
So with “explanation” ( the stickers on my rear window ) of my slow driving I started slowing down even more on the highway and surprisingly, I was not the only one driving so slow! Execpt for passing trucks – slowly- a few other – previously referred as idiots or old folks were drving my speed ( or slower 🙂 )
So did I feel like an idiot? Well yes in the beginning.

But when I arrived 74 kilometers further at my destination and found out I had 5 bars left I was happily surprised that driving 5 km/h slower saved me more than 20%. I was driving 97-106 on my meter which means 92-100 km/h real speed. Can you imagine the saving on 90 km/h ? This will easy get to 25% or more.
Did it take much more time? Well just a little, logically. Much more? No I arrived in 54 minutes. Just 6 minutes more on almost an hour driving.

So was it really so bad to drive 90-100 km/h? No not really! The only thing missing really was a cruise control on the I-MiEV which Mitsubishi is still not able to deliver!

This ECO drive was not the first time, yesterday I made two testdrives  reaching the same results as this drive.

Here I show you some pictures of tonights testdrive.

Funny enough, yesterday I drove 80 km and still had 5 bars left! I think milder weather condition made the difference. And even when it rained  and a small brease was noticable driving 74 km still left me with 5 bars left!

Ofcourse I really did my best in driving as close to 92-96 km/h as possible while driving my 74 km on the highway.

I arrived last 4 drives with 30-38 km radius left. In the morning, after charging the computer showed a possible radius of 120 km!

Summer HOT -> i-MiEV COOL

Day to day with my EV

My day-to-day routes taking me to my work and back consist of either the “shortcut” driving highway (20km) and inside road (45) or the “fast way” driving highway (70) km and inside road (5km). Previous reports show that driving ECO the inside road is much more eco on your battery, driving slower and less distance, while the time to drive is almost the same.

A few days ago I reached the 10.000 km !
I will drive this year possibly a total of about 20.000km in my I-MiEV.

Driving ECO

I must say almost 5 months driving my Mitusbishi I-MiEV I am really getting attached to this little car. Sure, I still miss the cruise control ( working on that ) but driving for not more than an hour or so its quite ok. The spoke persons of Mitsubishi claim that a cruise control will increase energy consumption. I do not agree. If I can constantly drive 100 km/h without slowly climbing up to 115 on a  road with max 120km/h, I think I will save. Besides energy its much more comfortable for if you have long legs 🙂 like I do.
Now, driving the same route as during the winter, instead of reaching my destination with only 2 bars ( 2 kWh ) left, I can reach my destination with 8kWh ( half a battery) if I do not speed up to 120km/h on a 20km stretch.

AIRCO

The temperatures are rising. When spring time came, I reported in previous blogs that I could see my radius growing. A combinations of a well “worked in” battery, higher outsides temperatures and a more skilled ECO driver 😉 .
In the winter time I could NOT use the internal heater since that would give me trouble reaching my destination.
Now, driving the same distance I turned on the AIRCO and kept it on during my whole drive ( inside road)  and reached to work with 8kWh ( half a battery left). The computer showed me I had 48km to go , but this is calculated on the last part of driving. Theoretically I could drive up and down to work with my AIRCO on ( set on medium ). Outside temperatures were only 22oC in the morning, I just needed to cool a little bit. In the afternoon it will be 29 oC

Tomorrow the temperatures will rise up to 30 oC maybe and I will report on how it handled the high temperatures that can occur in the Netherlands. ( yes its not that hot here ). With the car standing in the sun in the morning and afternoon, it is advized to open and air out your car before turning on the AIRCO, thus saving energy.

Do you have experiences you like to share or questions you would like to ask me? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Blog you later!

Edwin

Second time Highway

After a long day working I hit home at 19h. The benifit of driving home late is that you normally would have no traffic jams anymore. I drive the same route in previous blog. The highway home…

The same route as yesterday. After a few kilometers driving 50km/h I got onto the highway again driving 120 km/h. Followed by a long stretch of 100 km/h with some road works driving 90km/h and an end sprint driving 120km/h I reached home.

The Netherlands is not that big.
The radius of the I-MiEV is enough to drive  most home-work distances, but not to cross north-south or east-west.

The weather conditions have a BIG influence on the cars radius. With this nice temperature where AICO nor HEATER is needed, the I-MiEV drives beautifully.

What are you interested in to know? Let me know.

Blog you later !

Edwin

Car navigation systems NOT ready for EV’s

“Using my car navigation systems in the electrical I-MiEV gave me disappointments… “

When I bought my Mitsubishi I-MiEV last year november, I asked for the best navigation system for my EV. A suggestion was made for the Pioneer Avic F20BT so I accepted that option.

I soon found out that this system is NOT ready for electrical vehicals.

Navigation systems in general
Ofcourse the Navigation system in this Pioneer navigates you to your destination. But like all maps, they have one or more errors , resulting in strange routes… That said I am still hooked on my TomTom on my telephone/PDA!

Navigation systems for cars NOT running on liquid fuel.
 Only fuel consumption in liters, tanked in liters ( or gallons)  and consumption in l/100 km can be used. The system can calculate if you drive ECO but thinks you use a lot of “fuel” when you stand still.
With an EV you use almost nothing when you drive slow. Standing still also means NO energy consumption, when you put the gear in Neutral (N). So the ECO calculations make not much sense.

When I drove SUPER ECO on one of my last drives the ECO meter said, slight improvement! I never had a 130km radius before!

Tricks?
That said I am sure there are some tricks in fooling the system.
Its a bit strange to tell the system you have only 160 “liters” ( 16 kWh)  and you  use up this 160 liter within 100 km on the highway!

Pioneer @ Autorai 2011 Amsterdam
I talked to a representative of Pioneer at the #AutoRai in Amsterdam last week. The suggestion of mine to make a little update on fueltypes ( adding kWh ) and tweeking the system for better ECO calculations ended up in disappointment.

Do you have any suggestions how to use this ECO calculation of this Pioneer systeem for EV’s?

WHICH NAVIGATION SYSTEM IS READY FOR EV’s?

Do you know BETTER navigation systems which CAN work with EV’s?

Please comment on this blog if you have any suggestions!

Read more on the Pioneer system I use on:  http://www.pioneer.eu/nl/products/25/111/241/AVIC-F20BT/index.html

Driving the highway

After proving to myself that I CAN drive forth and back to my work on ONE charge, theoretically, I desided to drive the long but faster route back home to see how the I-MiEV would perform.

When I turned on the car, ofcourse you don’t hear anything but just turn the key, I read the proof of my ECO diving. 130km on the radius! YES!

So I now decided to drive the highway. Like in the beginning driving my “inside” route, I now had to see again if a certain driving style / speed would get me home or not. So with a close look on the radius and the distance to go I drove home.

I drove carefull but NOT as a grandma, driving the maximum allowed speeds on ALL parts of the 75km route going home. Ok, I did let the car go a little slower when going slight up hill and go faster downhill, just to drive a little more ECO. I passed many other cars who thought they would otherwise speed to much.

The 75 km route consists of a  few km untill the highways starts, a small part 120km/h highway, than a 100km/h highway and within that part some roadworks 90 km/h maximum speed on the road home. The last part of 20 minutes driving I could speed up to the maximum of 120 km/h again.

The total route of 75km was driven with a average of 96 km/h and left me with 3 bars on the meter.

So I used 13.x kWh driving the 75 km.

An average of 6km/kWh driving an average speed of 96 km/h.

I now know that driving around 100km/h will give me a radius of almost 100km.

This route took be 49 minutes to drive instead of 1h5m with almost twice the consumption using 13 kWh instead of 7 kWh

Highway vs. Inside route ( 75km vs 60km )
15 km longer
16 minutes shorter
6kWh more energy

Are you interested in some particular information, leave a comment and I will try and find out.

Blog you later,

Edwin

The I-MiEV lived up to its expectations!

One of my questions I listed for myself to be answered on driving an EV was ” Can I make it up and down to my work, driving two times 60 km, on one charge”?

Flashback
When I started driving it was winter and my radius, with my “normal” driving style was getting me to work, but emptied the battery almost totally.
In winter time with tempartures like -6 oC  and a “normal” drive I got a radius of  78km. This could only be reached while NOT using any heater.  So I literally froze my butt off!
Through time I started driving more economical and I found out that I could use the seat-heater ( no frozen butt ) which had no influence to the radius -super- since it was powered by the seperate battery in front of the car.
Winter turned intospring and my radius gradually became bigger and better. In winter times I ended with 2 bars ( 2 kWh) left on the meter, after a few weeks learning to drive ECO style this became 3 or 4 bars. Only when temperatures rised above +6 oC I got to my destination ( same distance and route all the time ) with 5 and later even 7 bars left over reaching my (same) destination. I was getting better in driving ECO.

All the time driving this distance took me about an hour to drive.

Same as I would with a conventional car.

GREAT NEWS

Today, being up for a real challenge, I drove my route of 60km with ECO on my mind.

The first part of the route consisted of 50 and 80 km/h roads with lots of traffic lights and roundabouts….

The first bar ( kwH ) I consumed within 10 km. Wooh I thought… thats going the right way. The second bar @ 19 km and the 3rd bar was gone from my meter @ 28km. So When I calculate my power consumption I drove the first (almost) 30km on 3kWh making my radius close to the official 160km. A few less traffic lights would have given me the real 160km.

Just before going on to the highway I used 5 bars, driven 41km. An average of almost 8km/kwH. 19 kilometers to go… could I make it on half the charge?

The Second part of the route was a highway on which I decided NOT to drive 120 km/h but drive a little faster than the speed the trucks do. With 90-100 km/h I drove the last part and… after an hour and 5 minutes I reached my destination.  with…..

ONLY  7 kwH used AFTER  60km__>.

My radius showed me I had <___69km to go !

YES !  I DID IT. I CAN DRIVE UP AND DOWN to my DESTINATION !

RADIUS of 130km reached !

I am sure other ECO drivers know it already, but actually driving SO SLOW did NOT make much difference to my TOTAL TIME.

As you can see and can compare to previous pictures in my blogs, I drive a little slower, but the driving time is not much different!

More driving time?
Driving faster on a short part of your route does not influence your average speed THAT much.
While driving “grandma style”  I even passed some grandma’s stuck to their stearingwheel looking over their wheel to find out if they could see where they were going, you know… front seat max. to the front!

Not the only one.
What I found interesting is that I even passed big luxourious cars driving only 90 km /h where 120 km/h was allowed. Could it be that the extreme petrol price of 1.75eur/liter make people drive more ECO?

And… I am left with <___69km to go !

I would surely be able to drive more often this way, the only thing is, there is NO CRUISE CONTROL yet in the I-MiEV. Maybe Cornelis van Putten from Goldautomotive.nl whom I met on the AUTORAI in Amsterdam will be able to provide the cruise-control to Mitsubishi.

Please feel free to leave comments and questions on my blog. I like to hear your opinion!

Blog you later!

Edwin
First I-MiEV owner in tHe Netherlands

Technical specifications

Some interesting technical details on the I_MiEV

Size
Total length: 3.475mm
Total length: 1.475 mm
Total height: 1.610 mm
Yes funny isn’t it, its higher than the car is wide. And though its looks really small, I can sit quite good inside and I am 1.88m long, ok fine am not heavy boned…

Power car
Topspeed: 130 km/h
Accelaration: 0-100 km/h  in 15.9 seconds

I find this statistic of 16 seconds to get to the 100 km/h wrong. I swear I reach this already within 11 seconds!

Blog you later

Edwin