Electronautics

/i-'lek-trə-nôtks/ n.
1. the science or art of ascending and traveling on the roads in electron powered vehicles.
2. the technology or art of driving electric vehicles. — elecronaut*, n. — electronautic, eletronautical, adj.

*"A BMW ActiveE driver; one of 700 adventurers and explorers. A front runner of innovation, and an advocate for sustainability. A surveyor of the present, and a proponent of the future — the future of mobility."

ActiveE

ActiveE

Thursday, March 22, 2012

It's Elementary, my dear Wattson!

And when I say elementary, I really mean as in the joy of driving a car powered by those subatomic elementary particles called electrons!  Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus and Christmas this year came on a very warm mid-March day in New England.  The elves deep in their headquarters in Bavaria have been busy and the product of their effort is a pleasure to drive.  Now that I am officially an Electronaut, there is no going back... oh wait, yes there is... i.e. I need to go back and finish the upgrades on my VOLTSwagen, so that we can start using it more often and maybe even as a second full-time commuter car.  The whole experience of getting to today has reinvigorated my efforts there as well.   Lots to do, but that's a different blog...



Although Heisenberg stated that you can not know precisely the position and energy, after spending lots of energy not knowing when I would enter the adventure as an Electronaut, the stars aligned today as not only was I able to pick up my ActiveE, but my Level 2 charging equipment was also installed today.  Thank you, ChargePoint America!  The system is working fine, has allowed fast charging of my ActiveE at 6.4 kW via a J1772 and is ready again for the road tomorrow.  The ActiveE is next to my VOLTSwagen in the garage and they are getting along nicely.  It's cool having 2 all electric cars in the garage!

As far as first impressions, the car handles very nice and seems plenty peppy enough.  I didn't have a lot of time to learn the in-and-outs of the car, but that will come.  I do hope that BMW fixes the MyBMW Remote app, because the features like timed charging will be very important once I have Time-of-use metering installed and can charge at $0.057/kWh, a further savings over our normal $0.136/kWh from Sterling Light Company.  Stay tuned for more details as I get more into the car.  P.S. My wife doesn't like the car stickers very much, but my 4 year old daughter loves them and thinks the car is very cool!

1 comment:

  1. Watt-son! VOLTSwagen! Hahaha, I see what you did there! That's some brilliant pun usage. I think it's pretty cool that you've got your hands on an excellent electric car. Cars that run on electrons may just be the future of automobile. Who knows, maybe their popularity can even save the environment in the future.

    - Prince Moss

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