Season 2 House of the Dragon

 

Summer 2023 solo Cross Country trek in a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt!

June 11 to July 8 Cross Country Drive in a 2019 Chevy Bolt :)Welcome to my 2023 summer cross country drive blog! 

Back in May 2023, overcome by constant stress at work, I tried to quit my job for mental health break. My work offered a 2 months leave of absence as a compromise, and I decided to go on a cross country trip. What could be better way to de-stress than going on a 6,000+ mile trip in a small EV? Right? Right!

My plan was simple. I had three must see destinations: 

1. Visit Longmont, CO to see my good friends Tom and Donna; 

2. Visit Lawrence in Arlington, VA who's fighting stage 4 cancer; 

3. And see Kate in Deer Isle, Maine to see a potential retirement option.

Everything else would fall into place based on charging need (and there were plenty) and see friends and family along the route. 

Below is how the map would have looked if I had the gift of flight:

East Bound route

It's been 30 years (1993) since my only cross country drive from NY to Southern California in a 1990 Nissan Pathfinder. That trip took 5 days with my college buddy Bernard.

As I'm quickly approaching 60 and closer to retirement, I wanted to see what a full time life on the road with an electric car would be like: 

    1) Would it be practical to do the drive in a non Tesla EV?

    2) How reliable is the fast charging netwrok (DCFC) and their availability?

    3) What about the charging cost?

With minor modification to my car (front passenger seat removed, added 72" x 24" x 5" foam mattress by GoTo Foam on top of a RTIC 52 Quart hard side cooler which lined up nicely over folded rear bench seats.

Elevation map of East Bound route

BP's Deep Water Drilling Strategy - from Forbes, April 2, 2001

I don't recall how I came across this issue of Forbes magazine, but I was interested to read more about larger-than-life CEO of BP, Sir John Browne (knighted in 1998). I worked in petroleum industry from 1993 to 2000, 5 of which were working at Texaco (and JV companies with Chevron then Shell). My last job was buying crude oil for Texaco's Los Angeles Refinery.

BP started the formation of "Super Majors" with it's acquisition of Amoco, followed by Arco. Not to be left behind, Exxon acquired Mobil, Chevron took over Texaco, and smaller mergers followed such as ConocoPhillips.

You can Google John Browne to find out what led to his downfall at BP, whose biggest legacy of ruthless cost cutting led to numerous accidents at BP owned facilities, and most likely set the culture that led to the latest disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Below, in its entirety is the April 2001 Forbes article, "Going Deep" written by Daniel Fisher. (Clicking on the picture will enlarge it for easier reading...)

And just in case you were curious about historical crude oil prices and BP's stock price, here they are...

Motor Trend Korean edition - August 2009 issue

My cousin KC Park was one of the first test driver of MINI PIG #017 - he drove the E on my first full day with the vehicle. We drove in and around UCI and Newport Coast for about an hour, stopping frequently for photo ops. Here are the scanned pages from the Korean edition of Motor Trend. KC contributes to MT as well as GQ on a regular basis.

I'll translate the text and post as time permits.

MINI PIG 017 journey is coming to a close. But wait, there's more...

Yesterday marked another milestone on this EV journey that had its share of bumps and bruises. Rue Phillips of Sunpower Electric Inc. came by to chat, remove the Clipper Creek wall box charger, test drive 017 and plan our meet in 2 weeks at the Plug In America's Long Beach meeting.

Rue is a great guy, very experienced in EV charger installs going back to EV1 days and even longer. We chatted for about an hour regarding the MINI E program, his new projects, and other topics. Rue terminated the wiring and installed a box for any future 40 Amp requirement. Perhaps there will be another BEV or PIH vehicle in my future.

Here's the data on the SSN 017 to date:
Duration of lease - 41 days
Miles driven - 1,854.9 miles
Average speed - 36.3 MPH
Guest drivers - 27
Guest riders - lost count
Electricity used - see below (no TOU meter, so data is an aggregate)
June (9 days of E): 334 kWh (249 & 240 past 2 years: +89 kWh). Bill was $14.01 w/ $26.68 SDP* discount.

July (31 days of E): 511 kWh (274 & 226 past 2 years: +261 kWh). Avg usage 17.62 kWh per day. Bill was $26.65 with - $51.16 SDP discount.

Including free charging at work, that's effective cost of 1.62 CPM (cents per mile), compared to 16.2 CPM for my 2000 LR Disco and 13.7 CPM for my 1993 BMW e32 (740i).

So what's next? I'll be shopping for a replacement car as well as follow up on ODU's poorly designed connector for the MINI E. Each topic will have its dedicated blog thread.

*SDP: Southern CA Edison offers Summer Discount Plan - they have control of my central A/C and I receive a sizable discount on my electric bill. In my case, I signed up for maximum discount.

ODU's connector for MINI E - is this a robust design?

***WARNING***
Boring, technical connector discussion below...
***WARNING***

Yes, I worked for 7 years at a connector manufacturer ITT Cannon. I'm dangerous enough to know key details about connector designs...

Take a look at the ODU connector photos below (click on them for larger image).


ODU touts its proprietary hyperbolic contact design to increase the mating cycles of connectors. What they are NOT designed for is "hot-plugging" or mating/unmating the connector under load. These pictures are from connector I had at home, attached to the Clipper Creek's 240V, 32 AMP wall box charger. Here's a direct quote (via email) from ODU:
...Regarding the damaged Springwires inside the contact: The connector was not designed to be hot plugged…we see similar damage on test sets that have been disconnected under load. BMW is aware of this and has indicated this in their manual. This issue will be resolved in the 2nd generation of connectors for EVs...

Fair enough - and it goes to prove the design weakness of the connector. While BMW/MINI was toiling away with ODU for the MINI E connector, SAE has been working on connector standards (J1772) for future EVs or Plug-in Hybrids (e.g. Chevy Volt). So what does that say about BMW/MINI? We know June 30th 2009 was a hard target date mandated by CARB if BMW wanted to maximize its ZEV credit. It appears that SAE's J1772 timeline didn't allow BMW to participate and meet the 30 June 2009 deadline - and who really cares if the MINI E program is strictly a one year "Field Trial Program" and all the cars are going back to the mother ship in 2010, right?

Customers? Day-to-day workability of the connectors? UL Listing BEFORE the charge box/cable/connector is rolled out to hundreds of homes? Details, schemetails - cars will be gone before anyone notices something is amiss. Who cares indeed...

Other connector companies (mainly Amphenol) design multiple safety features where load is interrupted before customer can unplug the connector. They also incorporate a bayonet style feature on connector engagement where you have to rotate the connector clockwise or counter clockwise. This serves several functions, mainly positive feedback to the user that the connector is fully mated. Here is the picture of the Amphenol connector in Tesla Roadster's application (notice also the hefty backshell that protects the connector shell from abuse).



ODU told me that they went ahead with straight plug method to prevent connector or charger damage in case someone drove off with the vehicle while the connector was plugged in. However, MINI E cannot start while the connector is mated - which supports my assertion that there's been poor communication throughout this program and parties which results in poor planning and execution across the board.

Who's running this program again? No, I'm not bitter - just returning the arrows that are stuck on my back :)

This isn't what I signed up for: 130~140 MINI E giveaway

So none of the Pioneers care that nearly 3rd of the MINI E fleet is going to cities, utilities, law enforcement, businesses (non-profit and for-profit) at $10/month? I'm not being petty here - this isn't the MINI Cooper Pioneering spirit I signed up for. On Nov 2008, the application process stated 500 Pioneers, all paying $850 per month to gauge viability of an EV.

I can live w/ 50 going to Berlin and 10 going to NYC (announced in January).

I cannot tolerate the recent fire sale of MINI Es in both coasts. By my account, we're up to 130~140 MINIs at $10 per month. I'm going to use my week off away from the MINI E to decide what to do next.