Fortysomething Geek

I started my morning with an average range of 101 miles. Some days it can go as high as 111 miles. The car has an EPA range of 88. However, it has surpassed my expectations.

After driving it 15 miles, I still have around 100 mile range and 89% capacity. Folks, this is the effects of regenerative braking. Stop and go commute will do wonders for the batteries.



Most importantly, this car has changed my life. Simply because of the perks. Driving in the solo diamond lane, I save a lot of time from my commute. I get to spend more time with my kids. In the morning, I am generally less grumpy. Pictured below is a daily scene. Commuters stuck at the Toll plaza; waiting as long as 30-40 minutes while solo carpoolers like myself just whizz on by. On average, I am saving more than 45 minutes each way. That time simply adds up. I save money on bridge toll. I get to pick up my kids earlier from day care; saving me those costs as well.

I've had my electric Fiat 500e for over 5  months; totaling 5,000 miles. Since then, I have not once visited a gas station. My overall "fuel" cost to drive 5,000 miles is less then 120ドル. That 120ドル would only last me two weeks in my Range Rover Sport. Is that amazing or what. What other car can go that far on 120ドル?

So what do I have to report?

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My first week with my Fiat 500e was rather interesting. After the second day of ownership, I got a flat tire via a nail puncture so I was immobilized for a day. This is not the fault of the car. After that fiasco, I began to enjoy the fruits of driving a 100% electric car. Every concern you may have came into play - range anxiety, charging, awkward driving. Hence, I decided to make this write-up for those interested in venturing into EV land.

The first day of commute was rather pleasant. I was able to remotely start the climate control system of the car while I was in bed; getting ready to go to work. The car can be pre-conditioned for two ten minute intervals via the smartphone app (both iOS and Android). You can either heat your car up in the morning or turn on the A/C while it is in the blistering sunny mall parking lot while you shop. This ultra cool and handy!


Range

My commute is exactly 50 miles round trip which includes errands and detours. Pre-heating the car in the morning killed the range by ten miles (unless you are plugged in charging via 240V). Sloppy driving will kill the range. This cause a bit of range anxiety. I know the car's battery will degrade over time and it won't hold it's charge over the years so this is a real concern of mine. However, this range anxiety has been really hyped up by EV critics and media. At the start of my commute the range dropped by 10 miles. However, after 15 minutes of driving, I no longer needed to run the heat at 84 f. I slowly regained those 10 miles back from regenerative braking. Going up an incline will drop your range by 3-4 miles. Going down an off-ramp and braking will regain those those 3-4 miles and maybe even add a few more back in. For example, going up the new Bay Bridge, I saw an immediate drop of 4 miles with my range at 60 miles. As I approached the first off-ramp with a steep decline, I got back 3 miles. Driving through a few city streets, I ended up with a 69 remaining miles as I pulled into my work garage. In the end, it all even out. Obsessing over the range is un-necessary if you know you have a cushion. In my case, it is 30 plus miles. I obviously know and understand the limits of this car. I also an ICE car as a back-up.

Over a period of a few days, the numbers all worked out. As you can see in my morning commute, after a drive of 21.9 miles, I still have 69 miles of range left. Indicating, I was getting 90 miles or so per charge. This is regular San Francisco commute with the heater on at 5-6AM.


It also tells me that I need around 1h 20 minutes to top it back up at 240V L2 charging. So roughly, my daily commute will require less than 3 hours of charging per day on a L2 charger. I'll discuss charging further.

My average MPGe (Miles Per Gallon equivalent) is roughly 141.6 MPGe on this trip. This really doesn't tell anyone anything because MPGe is pretty convoluted on how the EPA worked that out. California has high gas prices and electricity rates so the EPA's MPGe formula is out of whack to me. The more important measuring stick is how many miles per kWH I am burning. This is what I care about and this is what you should consider when buying and driving an electric car.

The smartphone apps is pretty handy at telling you. You can punch in your numbers of how much you pay for gas and electricity. On that last trip. My ride burned 5kWh of juice. My average miles peer KwH was 4.2 which is decent. At 87 mile range, the m/kWH is around 3.5. I've seen people go as far as 5 to 6 miles/kWh if they drive like a grandma. The Fiat has a 24 kWh battery. So if I continue to drive at 4.2m/kWH, I would get a real range of 100 miles. At 5m/kWh, I would get 120 miles. The EPA rating probably got 3.5m/kWh (3.5*24)=87 mile range.

Doesn't this make more sense? Then when you see how many kWH you are burning, you can see your true cost to operate. I plugged in the .30 cent a kWH which is around Tier 2/Tier3 PG&E. This is considered pretty high. That trip cost me 1ドル.50 at that high rate. Now, if I change my charging habits and PG&E rates, I could get it down to .10 cents a kWh; making this trip 0ドル.50 cents. The same trip in my Range Rover at 15MPG would cost me 6ドル.21. So even at the high PG&E rate, I am still saving quite a bit of money. But if switched to a TOU (Time of Use) PG&E rate, I could save even more. Actually quite a bit more but it requires some consideration.




Driving and Charging

After about two days, the range anxiety goes away. I don't even try to drive like a grandma anymore, I just drive. I know I have sufficient range for my needs. However, charging was pretty problematic the first few days. Charging 110v takes a long time. It takes 23 hours to do a full charge. However, since I am never running on empty, my charge time was 12-13 hours the first few days. That meant when I got home, I had to plug in right away and let it charge over-night. This meant no side trips or anything as I could use my other ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars for errands. There were times where I wanted to stop by some local L2 quick chargers. One hour of L2 charging would be the equivalent of 5.5 to 6 hours of 110v charging. I figure I could do some Christmas shopping for 2 hours to top myself off to 80-90% pretty quickly.

Now, I have a L2 charging station installed and it takes less than 4 hours to do a full charge from empty. Average charges take an hour to 2 hours depending on my needs. If you plan to have a 100% electric car, 240v L2 charging is an absolute requirement. My wife's car can get away with 110 charging since it is a plugin, extended range electric hybrid.

Driving the car is a bit interesting because the range meter fluctuates on how you drive and the roads you take. It also accounts for weather. Some mornings, I get 96 mile range, Some days, I get a predicted 88 mile range. I'll drive for a few minutes and the car will drop 6 miles just going up an incline and regain those miles as I coast along city intersections. The faster you drive, the quicker you burn up the kWH of battery juice. All in all, I think the EPA's rating is very fair and accurate for this car. The car, as many professional media reviewers noted, consistently matches the EPA's 87 mile range. I'm sure, you'll have some outliers claiming they get 100 mile or so range. Sure, it is entirely possible to even break 110 miles or so but it will be painful with no air-conditioning and driving in the slow lane.

Here was a very good day for me. 79 mile range after driving 21.9 miles. So I pretty much have more than 100 mile of range on this one charge.




Public charging is interesting. There are a bunch of companies competing for EVSE charging stations. Chargepoint is one of the biggest. You really have to study what they charge at each location. By the hour, at 1ドル.00 is pretty fair in my book. With a 6.6 kWH charger, that comes out to roughly 15ドル cents a kWH. Unfortunately, at this one particular Chargepoint, they changed from hourly to kWH charging. At .45 cents a kWh, you are better off charging at home. An hour charge here costed me around 3ドル.00 which simply was not worth it. This particular station gets no use so there were a bunch of bystanders with the look of befuddlement as they saw me plug in.

At other locations, I like the fact I get front row access to entrances. In Emeryville, the IKEA Blink stations charge 1ドル.00 an hour at the free parking spots. Now, compare that to the next lot for Bay Street Shopping at 3ドル an hour, that is a bargain. In two hours of shopping, I'll top off my range of 40 or so miles. So whenever I go to Emeryville, I'll park at IKEA and make a short walk to Bay Street shops. The stalls are also widely space so you don't have to worry about parking lot dings. Another great plus!



There are no guarantees you will have a spot available so all the EVSE companies have smartphone apps to tell which are available and which are in use. I suspect all EV drivers are pretty much smartphone aware by now. I haven't run into any problems but I have notice a few ICE cars parking in stalls where they shouldn't be and some EV squatters who definitely hog the spaces without charging.


Other impressions


This car's braking system was designed to be seamless. Unlike some other EVs, you don't really feel or know when you are regeneratively braking. From what I've read, this was the intent from the engineers. Still, it feels kind of weird compared to other EVs. I want to feel like I and putting energy back into the car. However, I guess this should be good for most people. There are many obnoxious EV drivers who continually brake their cars, forcefully coast from stop sign to stop sign; holding up traffic so they can squeeze in some extra juice. Those drivers may be pleasantly disgruntled to expect that feedback from this car.

Compared to my wife's car, this car doesn't feel like it has all the necessary tech. Each car will have a different set of software and UI. I think I simply like Ford's implementation better as it gives you a lot more data and coaching on how to drive. The instrumentation panel is rather simple for an EV. On the right side of the dial, it either goes red up when you are burning too much, green in the middle for ECO, and blue when you are regeneratively putting energy back in.

I think I'll give more comparisons to the C-Max Energi in a dedicated post. There are lots of Chevy Volt versus Nissan Leaf comparisons on the Internet so it might be fitting to have a Fiat 500e versus Ford C-Max Energi from a real owner who owns and operates both.





I really like how stealthy this car is. Mine is black-on-black like all my other previous cars. There really isn't anything to tell a bystander that this is an electric car. Sure, there are some badging here and there but you really have to be look and be acutely informed on electric cars to know. There are a few outlandish color schemes orange with white fender that have in-your face orange accents on some 500es. I'm glad I went with a more conservative color scheme. I park in a garage in San Francisco full of Mercedes, Audis, Porsches (nice ones like the GT3, C4s), Range Rovers, and a few Teslas and the valets seem to be genuinely more interested in my car. They also know I've gone through half a dozen or so new vehicles in the past decade and sort of expect me to have a new ride. Yet, they seem to be fascinated with this one more so. I guess they're interests lies in the fact that the Fiat is extremely affordable and within reach for many.


Link: Fuel Economy Stats on the 500e

I decided to take the plunge on a new commuter car, a Fiat 500e. Voted best Electric Car for 2013 by Road and Track, this car is now in my possession for the next three years.

First of all, let's not confused the Fiat 500e from the other legendary Mercedes Porsche built 500E (capital E) from the 90s. This is no speed rocket of a car. The "e" stands for "electric."This will be an interesting car for me as it is my first 100% electric vehicle. This post will be the first in a series of blog posts about the 500e on my blog.

There were a few reasons why I picked up this car. First, my wife's C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid proved to be economical and convenient. Her commute is the same as mine so the mileage range was feasible. Secondly, I just turned in a lease on a 2010 Mini Cooper and needed a replacement. Lastly, my main car, a Range Rover Sport was costing me around 300ドル a month in fuel. The Land Rover is a very thirsty vehicle and I was thinking of trading it in for a new sports car. However, for the time being, I still needed a commuter car and the Fiat 500e hit all the right notes.




The 500e is a California "Compliance" EV car. This means, it was built to meet California's strict mandate that automakers sell a percentage of zero-emission cars in order to sell in California.
So basically, my 500e subsidizes you guys who want to drive those SRT8 500 horsepower Dodge Challengers in California. As a result, most manufactures take a small loss. It has been reported that Fiat/Chrysler loses around 10,000ドル per 500e sold. Thus, the 500e is only sold in California. To move inventory, automakers are pushing heavy incentives and it is a win-win for consumers. At 32,500ドル before subsidies, the Fiat 500e is almost double the price of a base gasoline powered Fiat 500 pop. To ease the sticker shock, there are crazy lease deals for EV cars in the state of California.

Most geeks like myself would never buy a 500e as leasing is the way to go. Who knows how battery technology will progress in three years? Worst, we don't know what the battery loss will be like after thousands of recharge cycles. Hence, leasing an electric car is the smart thing to do. Worst case scenario, I can walk away in 36 months. Furthermore, the economics of leasing makes sense for my usage. "Compliance" cars get a bad rap by EV purists but it is a big plus for California consumers. 999ドル down and 199ドル (before tax/docs) a month gets you a 87 mile range EV car.

Now, lets look at some of the math:

199ドル a month (216ドル w/ tax) = 7776ドル (total lease). My particular lease is a little bit more (225ドル w/tax) due to the fact I negotiated higher miles and added a 1000ドル sunroof option. However, the true cost of this lease is much, much, much lower. I get a California EV rebate of 2500ドル. Subtract the EV rebate from the lease gets you total 5276ドル before docs, tax,etc. This equates to an effective lease of 146ドル.55 a month over 36 months. However, there are more incentives. You get HOV stickers which gives you discount to bridge toll. Normal toll is 6ドル during commute, carpool rates is 2ドル.50. This saves me 76ドル a month. Subtract that from the lease, the end cost to me to have this car is roughly 70ドル-75 a month. I would pay toll regardless of what car I have but here, I rather put that 76ドル a month toward a car than the transit authorities. In the end, this is cheaper than a cellphone subscription plan for me. This doesn't account for the savings in gas by using electricity. I'll be saving close to 3600ドル a year in gas. I got a good deal. Chrysler/Fiat also throws in 12 free days of car rental each year (totaling 36 days) that I can use for long business trips and long drives to Tahoe or Los Angeles.

This car is insanely cheap and an incredible deal for California consumers who's driving habits align with an short/medium range electric vehicle.

Since I got this car, I'm still feeling it out and will write a bit more later.