Living with my Level-1 charger and charge-anxiety

You never know how much you depend upon something until it breaks.  My home level-2 charger worked perfectly for over two and a half years before it stopped working.  Repairing it was not an option, so I have had to live with the level-1 charger until I can find (and pay for) a suitable replacement.  At the recent EV car rally, I remembered Clipper Creek offering a decent product, so I looked into it online.  The unit with the wall plug will meet my needs after I alter the installation of my 220-volt outlet to reorient the plug for the new charger.  I was about to order the unit when I remembered one of the recall notices that I had yet to perform on my Mitsubishi i-MiEV involved a level-2 charger problem.  So, I scrambled through the myriad of papers floating about my car and found the notice.  Sure enough, the recall applies to Clipper Creek level-2 charging stations, so I have to wait until I take my car in for the recall to get the charger (to avoid damage to my car).  Doh!

Meanwhile, I am growing ever more tired of the slow charging level-1 charger.  Being able to add a 20-mile range to my car in about two hours is great with a level-2 charger, but the same range requires six hours from my level-1 charger.  And, my drive to work and back needs about 12 to 14 hours to recharge using my level-1 charger, which just gives me enough time to get to work the next day.  (Thank goodness for morning meetings handled online at home.)  If I need to stray from my route home, I cannot get a full charge by morning.  If I need to make two long trips on the weekend, that is impractical as well.  Clearly, the level-1 charger is suitable for folks that drive fewer than 35 miles a day or don’t need to drive every day.  (It’s worth noting that my level-1 charger draws only 1kw, while many newer level-1 chargers draw 1.4kw, reducing the charge time by almost 30%.)

So, now I have learned a new anxiety that EV drivers face, one that causes more stress than range-anxiety.  This angst, that nobody seems to be talking about, is probably best called charge-anxiety, and has more to do with not knowing how you are going to manage to recharge your battery before you need it again.  The level-2 charger is a great soother of charge-anxiety because you know that during your sleep, however short that might be, you can fully recharge your battery.  (While level-3 chargers work much faster, they don’t finish the job – they stop once the battery reaches 80% charge to avoid over-heating and over-charging the battery pack.)  How can you reduce charge-anxiety when you are stuck with a level-1 charger?  Find a nearby public level-2 charging station (at a store or parking garage), plug in for about two hours, then return home to finish the job using your level-1 charger.  I am fortunate enough to have several public level-2 chargers close to home, but that is not the case for most folks.

Gasoline prices drop

Based on a price of about $4.00 per gallon of gasoline, I ran some calculations to compare the cost-per-mile of driving an electric car versus the cost of a gasoline powered car.  The result was that it costs roughly 3.6 cents-per-mail to drive my electric car and about 19 cents to drive the same mile in a gasoline powered car.  That made my savings after driving 10,000 miles about $1,540.  This assumes an average price for fuel of about $4.00 per year.  In California, the last few years have seen prices fluctuate between $3.40 in the winter and $4.60 in the summer, so the $4.00 makes a reasonable (and convenient) average. 

What happens when the price of fuel drops substantially lower in the winter months?  Some recent oil-market manipulations have dropped the price of gasoline to about $2.55 per gallon.  Assuming that the summer price swings by a similar amount to $3.75 per gallon, the average price over the year might be $3.15.  How does this substantially lower price affect the per-mile cost of gasoline-powered travel?  Using the assumptions that I listed in my earlier post titled “Only 3 cents a mile”, the new cost-per-mile is 15.5 cents, or about 3.5 cents less per mile.  So, the money I would have saved during this abnormal year of relatively low fuel prices will drop by about $350.  Does this mean I lost this money?  No … my own costs are determined by the cost of my electricity (which was $0 last year, thanks to the sun).  It means that had I not bought my electric car, I would have been paying less per mile this year to drive a gasoline powered car (which lowers my hypothetical “savings”).

My biggest concern here is that the lower price of gasoline will motivate more people to purchase bigger, heavier, gasoline-powered cars, trucks, and SUV’s.  These larger vehicles require more power to move them, which demands a larger engine.  And, to compete in the race for ever more horsepower and faster acceleration, these bigger vehicles need even larger engines to be able to keep up.  All of this generally means that more people driving these vehicles will burn more gasoline needlessly, without much concern for how the emissions from these larger engines impact our planet.  High gasoline prices were actually helping to slow the rise in emissions by motivating people to favor better fuel economy when it came time to buy a car.

My home charger dies

What a shock!  (pun)  I plugged my car in, activated the charger, and then went to bed.  In the morning I needed to take a short trip and was surprised to see that the car had not charged at all.  I was running short on time and had to drive on the remaining charge in the battery.  When I returned home, I again connected the level-2 charger and activated it.  It came on for about three seconds, then shut off.  This repeated about five times until I abandoned my attempts.  I decided to drive to a nearby public charging station to determine whether my car was at fault.  I connected and the car began charging without any problem.  So, now I am faced with two problems:

First, I have to charge using my level-1 (110-volt) charger until I am able to install a replacement charger.  This means that I must plug in the car the moment I return home from work in order for it to charge fully before I need to leave in the morning.  It should take about 13 to 14 hours to fully recharge after my drive, and plugging in at 8:00pm gives me just enough time to accomplish this.  By working from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can plug in even later and expect a full charge before noon.  So, the level-1 charger is working for me, although just barely.  I really do need to replace the level-2 charger.

Second, I have to find a level-2 charger that meets my needs.  My charger is installed outdoors, so this means I need a weather-proof enclosure for the charger.  I also have a 220-volt outdoor outlet with a weather case installed, which means I cannot easily adapt to a hard-wired charger.  These two requirements eliminate most chargers from consideration.  And those that do remain have only a 12-inch receptacle cord, which is not very compatible with an outdoor installation.  My old charger has a 3-foot cord to plug into the wall and I was able to mount the opening to the weather-protecting box on the bottom side.  To accommodate these new chargers, I will need to remount the box (and outlet inside) so that the hole is on the upward side.  I’ll also need to add an O-ring to the cable to further block any moisture.  (It seems that new national electrical standards require that the wall cord be 12-inches long.)

My original level-2 charger by EV-Charge America

I did try to have the two-year old charger repaired, but apparently I was one of the luckier customers of this charger.  Many customers never received a charger (or a refund), and others received defective units that never worked (and were leaking a black ooze).  My charger worked flawlessly for 31 months before giving up the ghost, so I guess I should count my blessings.  While researching repair information, I found a few articles mentioning law-suits against the manufacturer and a jail sentence for the company's owner.  The irony is that I felt that this product (when working) was superior in many ways to the competition.  It is just too bad that EV-Charge America could not have found a way to bring this product to market successfully. 

I’ll let you know what I buy as a replacement.

First trip up the mountain

After driving the i-MiEV for several months, I wanted to test its capability and range under more unusual driving conditions.  I knew that the car used more electricity driving uphill than on a level surface, and it had been a while since my last visit to the mountaintop winery near me, so I decided to head up the mountain.  The first thing I checked was the distance to the winery from my home.  The routing suggested by Google Maps was the obvious and most direct route.  This route starts off with 11.2 miles of freeway (each way) which would draw down the battery by about 7kwh round-trip, or a little less than half the charge.  That left more than half the charge to get up the mountain and back down.  It was another 3.5 miles to the start of the mountain climb, and 4.3 miles up the mountain (about 1,500 feet of elevation change).  I figured that if I could make it up the mountain on 6kwh, I would get home safely.  (That amounts to 0.72 miles per kwh, which is terrible.)  So I decided to go forward with the trip.

Google Maps' proposed route up to Ridge's Monte Bello tasting room

As I started driving, I created turn-back thresholds for the battery consumption in my mind, beyond which I would have to turn the car around and head home before reaching my destination.  This is the sad impact that range anxiety has on us poor fools who overthink or over-worry about their electric cars.  Of course, it’s better to be prepared for failure than to deal with the consequences of going too far up a mountain road.  As I reached the base of the road up the mountain, the charge meter showed that I had used four ticks (which amounts to 4kwh), as expected.  So, I continued up the hill.  You can imagine my shock after driving the first mile and watching another tick (1kwh) disappear from the gauge.  Still, at this rate, I would make it to the winery with energy to spare, so I trudged on.  The second and third ticks disappeared with less of a shock as I noticed the rate continued at about 1kwh per mile.  Finally I arrived at the winery with about a half a charge remaining.  The drive home would use less energy, so I knew I would make it home safely.

After enjoying a modest wine tasting and giving my body a little time to process the tasty stuff, I left the winery for my drive home.  Much of the drive down the mountain required very little energy, and often times I was regenerating while the road sloped downward.  Nearly as shocking as watching the first tick disappear while driving up was watching the first tick reappear on the way back down.  This time, the shock put a smile on my face.  By the time I had reached the bottom of the hill, I had regenerated about one and a half ticks (1.5kwh).  Now I was faced with driving the remaining 12 miles on the highway with the 9kwh charge remaining in the battery (about 30 miles of range), which I could do easily.  So, in all my worry about getting up the mountain, I forgot to factor in the regenerative effect of driving back down the mountain, which changes the amount of charge needed to complete the trip. 

So, here is the mind game about driving an electric car with regenerative braking up and down a mountain.  I used about 3kwh of electricity to drive about 9 miles up and back down the mountain.  This rate of energy consumption is a little worse than it is when driving on the freeway.  But, the trick is that without at least 4kwh of charge in the battery, I never would have made it to the top of the mountain.  I needed more than I used on the whole trip just to get half-way.  It is conundrums like this that have me thinking I’ll stick to being a flat-lander.

Level-2 chargers arrive at work

When my company moved me to its consolidated location, I was no longer one of the only electric cars on site.  It would seem that there were nearly a dozen of us.  To accommodate the need to recharge our electric vehicles, the company allowed the electric cars to make use of the various landscaping outlets that could be found around the campus.  These few 110-volt plugs were in high demand and provided very little distance to anyone who connected late in the day.  In my case, six hours of charging would give me about fifteen miles of range, so most of the time it was not worth the effort to hunt down an open outlet.  My employer even made an effort to install three new 110-volt outlets by the main entrance to the facility (which was over ½ mile from my desk), and these three outlets quickly became the most popular on campus.

Then, Tesla released its Model-S sedan and electric cars became fashionable accessories for the executive set.  Two level-2 (220-volt) charges were installed in close proximity to the executive offices, allowing four cars to get a reasonable charge.  One was installed in the small parking lot just outside the executive offices, and the other was installed in the guest parking outside of the new executive reception center.  Neither of these level-2 chargers was convenient for the rest of the workers.  Still, I was able to walk the ten minutes and climb the four levels of terraced buildings to be able to plug in my car.  Even after 4:00 (when the early chargers would rush home), I could still get in about 2.5 hours of charging giving me an extra 25 miles of range.

Luckily for the environment, electric car popularity in Silicon Valley boomed and more electric cars were showing up at work.  Unfortunately for me, that meant fewer opportunities to charge.  At about the same time that my office was moved closer to the original level-2 charges, four new level-2 charge points were added to the campus, bringing the capacity to twelve electric cars charging at the same time.  They also installed solar panels on all the roofs to generate clean electricity.  And, to ensure greater access to all EV drivers, they imposed a limit of four free hours of charging, with subsequent hours being charged a fee (fine?) of $10.00 per hour.  The idea is that the company would help you complete your trip, not provide all of your driving electricity.  Now there are more access points on campus, two of which are fairly convenient, and I am usually able to find a vacant spot after 4:00 for when I could use the extra comfort-zone for my drive home.

Eco versus Drive

Although the electric car comes with a transmission (and a shifter), this is not your traditional transmission.  A gasoline engine cannot stop turning, and its range of efficient operation is more limited than an electric motor.  To work around this, gasoline cars had 2-speed transmissions in the 1950’s, 3-speed transmissions in the 1960’s, 4-speed transmissions in the 1980’s, and so on to the point that Chrysler has released a 9-speed automatic transmission.  All of these transmission speeds (or gears) are designed to improve how a smaller gasoline engine can work harder when needed and slack off while cruising.  To back up, the transmission includes a gears with reverse threading to turn the wheels backwards.  The automatic transmission also includes a slippage mechanism that allows the vehicle to remain at rest while the engine continues to run, costing it low-speed efficiency. 

By contrast, the electric vehicle has just one speed that is always engaged.  This is possible because of several factors.  The electric motor can start turning from a standstill (without a slippage mechanism), and it requires no complicated change of gears to get up to speed.  Also, direction can be controlled by changing electric polarity to the motor, so there is no need for a separate gear for backing up.  So, in an electric car, most of the transmission functionality is handled virtually via an electronic controller.

The "shifter" on my Mistubisih I-MiEV in its usual position (Eco)

Of course, maintaining a familiar set of levers and knobs to operate the electric car makes it easier for most people to adopt.  The Mitsubishi i-MiEV includes a traditional shift lever for selecting the different operating modes (just like a conventional transmission selector) and includes positions for drive (D), economy (E), and brake (B).  These three modes affect the programming of the electric motor controller and how much electricity flows between the motor and battery.  In drive (D), the motor is delivered maximum electric current, but regeneration when not braking is minimized.  In economy (E), the power delivery is slowed, smoothing out accelerator pedal response and reducing energy consumption while increasing the regenerative effect when not braking.  Finally, brake (B) combines the drive (D) mode responsiveness with stronger regeneration than economy (E) and is most useful when driving on long hills.  Note that regeneration is the same in all modes when using the brake pedal.

I usually drive using economy (E) because my route is mostly level and this mode results in a smooth delivery of power.  In addition to increasing my driving range slightly, it makes for very comfortable acceleration and makes it easier to maintain a steady pace on the freeway.  In drive (D) mode, the motor response is more punchy, with more immediate response at slower speeds and making it harder to maintain a steady pace on the freeway.  For nearly all driving situations, economy (E) is the more comfortable, predictable, and economical mode for driving.  This changes the moment I get into stop-and-start traffic on the freeway.  Because regenerative slowing does not light the brake lights, I do not feel safe relying on regenerative slowing in heavy traffic, so I switch to drive (D) whenever traffic gets slow on the freeway.  This way, I communicate my slowing clearly to the drivers behind me.

 

Now that’s quiet!

I remember buying my 1982 Mercury Capri RS 5.0 with its V-8 engine and sport-tuned exhaust.  I went to a lot of trouble to select a top-end Yamaha car stereo unit, Alpine speakers, and thick cabling and spent a long weekend wiring it up.  It sounded great in my parking space as I turned on the unit for the first time.  Then I started the engine … and I learned my first important lesson about car audio.  It doesn’t much matter how good the car stereo sounds if you cannot hear the music with the engine running.  I rationalized that the music did sound better than the factory system and I would be driving the car a lot on long-distance trips.  And the amazing sound of the V-8 engine rumbling through the sport-tuned exhaust had me forgetting at times about the stereo system I had just installed.  If I wanted to really enjoy music in this car, I would have to park and shut off the engine.  (I did that a few times.)  I learned my lesson well and never again replaced the factory car stereo unit.

My 1982 Mercury Capri with its sport-tuned exhaust

When I bought the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, I was happy that my model came with a CD & MP-3 player.  It’s hard to make a bad sounding CD player, and with the MP-3 setup, I simply stick in a disc with 10 hours of my favorite tunes and leave it in there for when I tire of commercials on the radio.  I still run the factory stereo, but that has more to do with cosmetics than acoustics.  For the first time, I can hear many of the details and nuances of classical performances while driving (as opposed to filling in the drowned-out parts from memory).  Sitting at a traffic signal, there is no noise from the car (beyond the ventilation fan) and you can hear every detail.  This holds nearly true while driving around town.  It is only at highway-speed that the road noise starts to drown out the music, nearly as much as with a gasoline powered car (without the sport-tuned exhaust).

The car is so quiet, correction … peaceful when stopped that traffic lights do not annoy me the way they once did.  I used to hate to sit idling at a traffic signal for three or four minutes during commute hours waiting for my brief green light.  I would worry about the gasoline being wasted, the extra pollutants, and the build-up of heat during the summer months.  (I started turning off the engine at these prolonged intersections.)  But eventually, it was the noise that got to me.  Now, when waiting at a red light in my electric car, there is no noise, no exhaust, and no waste while I am stopped.  I can hear every detail in my music and I feel more relaxed.  Of course, without my engine running, I can hear other people’s conversations too that were once more private.  So, now days, you really need to look around you before you start yammering about anything embarrassing.

Creeping along in very slow traffic can also be a major source of noise, both for the drivers and the neighbors living within earshot of the congested roadway.  But, I was able to experience the congestion of the future at a recent electric vehicle rally and parade nearby me.  Some 500 electric vehicles were to assemble at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning, the logistics of which resulted in a traffic jam extending ½ mile on the main road to the campus hosting the event.  In this particular traffic jam, with the windows down, there was no engine roar from surrounding cars, and better still, there were no choking exhaust fumes.  It was by far the best traffic jam I have yet to have the opportunity to get trapped in.  I now look forward to traffic congestion of the future.