Make no mistake. Todd Crook
loves his electric Mini E. But like anyone either selling or driving a nascent
generation of electric cars, going emission-free isn't as easy as a lot of
people think.
Crook, 41, who works for NBC
in Burbank, Calif., got his silver Mini E on May 30. Twice since then he has
had to take the car back to the dealer for repairs. Once he needed to have
the regenerative brakes, which
help recharge the battery when the car slows down, in for repair. Later,
when he punched the accelerator
the car just slipped into neutral so he had to take it in again.
But he is not dismayed. "I thought, 'Hey, I'm driving a test car,'" he said,
"So it's no problem."
The same can be said for just
about anyone driving electric cars. So far, the few that are on the market
are beloved by their green, tree hugging, econazi, owners and lessees. But
they are very expensive and
there are growing pains, making them a tough proposition for both carmakers
and consumers.
They're ahead of the consumer right now, and you have to believe at some
point there will be a breakthrough
in batteries. But I think some of these cars will go begging for buyers.
It will simply take carmakers
and the battery and technology companies supplying them years to lower costs
and work out some of the kinks. In some cases, there are minor reliability
issues. In others, consumers and
local power utilities have to install new hardware so people can charge the
cars at home. That can cost hundreds
or even a few thousand dollars.
But ready or not, a slew of them
are coming to market. Nissan is launching its LEAF electric car next year.
Mini, which is owned by BMW, just leased out 450 Mini E cars on one-year
trials.
General Motors has its Chevrolet Volt possibly coming next year.
Mini used its Euro chic and the
allure of clean, green electric power to lure 450 people to lease its
electric-powered, two-seat Cooper for $850 a month. But now that the cars
are on the road,
Mini has found some new challenges.
One of the first was making sure
that anyone who wants to lease the car has enough power and the
proper outlets in their house just to charge the car. Owners obviously know
how gasoline and diesel cars work,
but they have a lot of things to do with electric cars.
Not all Mini lessees have enough
power in their homes, or the hardware needed to recharge their cars.
If someone has a 32-amp, 220-volt system in their home, he can fully charge
the car in three to five hours.
But a 12-amp, 110-volt system takes 24 hours to charge the car so it can
go about 100 miles.
And people who live in cities can just about forget it.
No one is going to run a cord from a ninth-floor apartment to the car.
A Mini E lessee in New
Jersey, says his house had the juice for a faster charge, but he still had
to pay $1,500
for a new electric panel in his garage. Between that and the $850 a month
for two seats (the battery takes up
the entire second row of seats) it's not the smartest buy, he admits. But
he wanted to know what electric cars
are all about and loves the lightning-quick acceleration.
"There's no way to justify the car," he says. "We're doing it because we have
the money and because we want to."
For those people in older homes,
they need to upgrade their electrical systems to handle the load when the
car is
being charged. It can cost them a couple thousand dollars to upgrade. Mini
has been paying to install the charging
system in the garage of Mini lessees. That costs the automaker more than
$1,000 in every house.
Mini has also found that when it's really hot out, the batteries get hot and a warning light comes on.
Nissan will launch its Leaf
electric car in late 2010. The Japanese automaker says the car will go 100
miles
on a charge like the electric Mini. But some consumers may be disappointed
with the range. Mini is boasting
100 miles of range using a test that measures city driving range.
That could be problematic. Since
electric cars recharge the battery off the brakes, they do much better in
the
city than on the highway. If Leaf drivers get fewer than 100 miles because
they're on the highway more often,
or because they drive fast, they could be disappointed.
If someone drives a car only
on the highway, they could get half the range they expect in the city. Electric
cars
are the most sensitive cars to driver input. A Nissan spokesman said that
all cars can get a lower range of
mileage depending on how people drive them, so the company isn't worried.
The biggest issue remains the
cost of the cars. Tesla Motors' roadster, which sells for more than $100,000,
has been a technological success, but the company lost money on the early
models. In a June conference
call with the press, Chairman and CEO Elon Musk said the car will start to
break even not counting overhead
costs. But the technology, especially batteries, for all electric cars will
keep them from penetrating the
mainstream for years.
So far, their few fans remain undeterred. Despite a few glitches.
