Monday, March 19, 2012

Charge Anxiety is back


I'm sure you have all heard of 'Range Anxiety' - that's when you think you will run out of range before you get to your destination. Then what is 'Charge Anxiety'?? That is when you you are not getting enough charge back into the battery so you can take another trip in your EV.

When I had the MiniE it was a constant issue...I was on the 110 (120v) for 4 months and the MiniE had issues with the current in my town so the breaker would often pop, effectively stopping the recharging process...my town is notorious for surges or fluctuation in the current. This often happened in the middle of the night and I found myself waking up during the night just to be sure the MiniE was still charging so I had enough to get to work and back.

I've been on the 110 with the ActiveE for almost 3 weeks and never had an issue...until last night. Sometime around 4am, best guess, the breaker tripped and shut down the ActiveE charging as well as part of my house. It was a simple resetting of the breaker but I lost a nights charge. With the amount of driving I need to do today and tomorrow I do not have enough time in the day to charge enough now...so I need to use my diesel SUV for the trip. There are no public charging stations near enough to me.

Well bummer! I'll be off the 110 soon but this bites. Oh well, having an EV is indeed a lifestyle and takes some adjusting, an adjustment I find worth it.

5 comments:

  1. Painful!

    You need to see what else is also on that breaker, maybe something else is pushing it over the limit?

    MPT

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  2. Indeed it is. It is not a dedicated line but there is not much on it...this was some surge in town and it was enough to pop the breaker on the panel...with the MiniE it was popping the breaker on the 110 outlet so I had no clue except to look at the car to see if the little orange light was blinking.

    In this case I noticed my media system was off....so that is what clued me in

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  3. What kind of 110V charger was it? Brand, model?

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  4. I am not sure of the model but the 110 is made by Lear for BMW - they manufacture these kind of chargers for a number of EV manufacturers

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  5. Ya its Great job thanks for sharing all that good information. I would love to drive this new BMW series! It sounds and always feels wonderfull! i really want informetion about activeE

    BMW auto service

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