We're driving electric 100 miles a day.

For the past three years, Tom Moloughney has been lapping me with more than double the EV miles averaging 99 miles of electric driving per day, compared to my 43 miles a day  http://wotnogas.com/

Tom and His Mini-E #250

Being the competitive sort, I needed to figured out how I am going to match the EV miles of my good buddy Tom.   Some may call this cheating but, I enlisted my wife Julie to help  so we are now both driving EVs, driving 35,000 - 40,000 miles a year with no gas,  Julie  20,000 miles in the ActiveE and I, 15,000  miles in the Honda Fit EV.  Between Julie and I we will be at 100 miles a day on average!  (insert wimpy "you need your wife to fight your battle" jokes here)

So Tom, it's all your fault :) 

Our "family fleet" average mpg if gas models would be  25mpg, that's higher than the national average.  21mpg for the BMW 1 series and 30mpg for the Honda Fit.  For 35,000 miles of driving we would have used 1,400 gallons  of fuel at a cost of $5,800 annually to our family budget.    Having a paid off 6 year old solar PV system that generates 11,500 kwh per year, our driving cost on sunshine is essentially zero per year.
For fun, multiply that experience by 100 million American families and 20 or 30 years. 
...but i digress.

Having two electric cars, greatly increases the flexibility of uses. 

First, we have a practical hauler and a luxury sports sedan,  so who ever needs to haul stuff back and forth or do major shopping will take the Honda Fit EV.  It’s amazing what you can stuff  in that car.   In the evening it’s almost always the BMW Active E that we take out on the town. 

Second, we have doubled our electric range to essentially 200 miles a day  without needing to recharge in between.

Today (9/02/12) is a good example of how that works.

Julie and I  are driving the Honda Fit EV to go to church in San Diego this morning and then back home, 80 miles round trip.  The trip is to the south.

Around 1pm,  we will leave in the BMW ActiveE (the Fit EV will be charging in the garage) and head Northeast to Temecula for a light lunch and a visit with some fellow winegrowers and wine tasting,  65miles.  We will then go to Pachanga Resort and Casino for  a show, dinner, a little craps and blackjack, 15 miles.  While there for 4 hours or so we will plug into one of their 6 public chargers.  Finally, we will drive home after a fun night, 45 miles.

Today's trips will be 85% freeway driving at 75mph. we will total 205 sunshine powered miles, we look forward to a really fun day. 

This is a normal typical weekend for us.   We are usually somewhere out and about enjoying beautiful Southern California.

As you can see from our itinerary today,  electric vehicles are far more practical than just for the urban commute.  Julie and I use our BMW ActiveE and Fit EV for everything and they really shine on the weekends!  The cars have fit seamlessly into our lives with many benefits and no compromises. 

Update:    A really fun day of driving yesterday with 200+ miles. We arrived at Pechanga with a 30% charge and left for home with 90% charge.    Next to the ActiveE were two Prius plug ins.  I was surprised by how much larger they were compared to the ActiveE.   There are six free chargers at Pachanga Casino in Temecula.  Had these chargers not been available there are several more in Temecula and plan c was the BMW dealership in Escondido,  When relying on public charging it's best to have a plan B and if you can a plan C.  Most of the time plan A will work out :)


Cheers!
Peder
Future BMW i ?  driver.