3 weeks into it, 3k miles already

So I dumped my gasoline car for a BMW i3, and it was a journey into the unknown from the first day.

This will document my experiences as a way to show pure electrics are not only useable.., they are perfect for very long range commutes.

I wanted an electric car for a while now... I tested an EV1 back in 1998 but didn't qualify to the stringent GM's fake standards, since they hated that car and wanted it to be burned and destroyed as documented in "Who killed the electric car".

So I waited and then appeared a Tesla but its stratospheric price tag and reliance on brute force more than anything (i.e very very large battery) made it unappealing to me.

Enters the i3... just as I am learning to fly planes and get to appreciate cutting edge aerospace components (not that general aviation planes are cutting edge, far from it, but I digress).

So in the middle of March 2015 I make the jump, and what a jump it was, in cold water with no prior experience nor any guarantee, a chance into the unknown.

Why? because I have a 100 miles each way commute between Murrieta where I have flight lessons, and Santa Monica, where I work in Silicon Beach.

A grueling experience where people ask me why, but I save quite a bit on housing and I can translate the 3k per month I am not paying for a small place in West LA (or 2k if I have roommates) to paying way less and other perks of an area with less smog and more space.

My work also offers flexible hours and I do carpool too.

That aside I woke up that morning and decided to never ever rely on the black goop from the ground, as it is 2015, the 21st century, the future we are owed to be way better.

That evening I did hectically scramble to figure our where the charging stations were, and I did see there's quite a few of them, 7500 to be exact.

And the following day, a Monday, I drove halfway to a cluster of dealerships on the 5/91 merge where I found out online there is a few charging stations.

My carpool partner picked me up that day. First 60 miles extra on the odometer.

That evening found out I didn't press the right button to charge the car, which I left by a dealer there and got lucky it wasn't towed.

So I spent the night in it as it charged. The following morning I drove it to Irvine where my coworker was carpooling with someone else from the office and I left my car fully charged in his complex.

That evening I came back home. Not too sure if is was such a good idea. By then I hit my first  200 gas free miles.

The following few days I got to know some other EV owners as I tried a few more station and embarked on a journey of exploration and adjustments.

I was too busy doing that to start a blog like this... but that's when I realized I may have a quite unique experience to share.

My fear slowly subsided, and my death grip desire to go back to a gasoline car eased. It took a while. One cannot just disregard a couple of decades of gas burning and the comfort of a 300+ miles range, not to mention refueling up in a few minutes, not 4 hours.

There were days when I had to sleep in the EV, so the enjoyment of the design interior made at least made that bearable. I think the long recharging is what is the hardest to learn to manage, but once one figures out how to charge while doing something else, the convenience is the same as that of refueling a gasoline car.

The second week, on a Wednesday, I made the jump. A non stop journey from Murrieta to Santa Monica.

It was very very scary at first. As the indicated range, in eco pro +, was way less than the 100+ required.

But as I hit stop and go traffic, it increased, gradually.

I like the navigation system which I got to know inside out since I am spending so much time in the car, and I initially adjusted it for the 5/91 charging station I go to.

Then a few miles from it I entered the Santa Monica area where I work.

A few long seconds waiting for a verdict... as the car will quickly tell me a destination is out of range with a big red line asking me to find a nearer location.

But it took hold... I was 34 miles from it and I had 35 miles of range. A whopping 1 extra mile. Surely I would sweat bullets near there, but my current selfish self disregarded the potential stress to inflict on my future one in an hour, and proceeded on course.

Generally in gasoline cars the range estimate is fuzzy in the last miles, so I made a quick mental estimate of how far the charging stations I scouted near Venice could be reached... but then I realized Venice was even further than Santa Monica on that shortest path I selected up the 5 and then West on the 10. Bummer.

I crossed my fingers and took the chance.. and it worked.

I was relieved to see the range get some distance with the destination distance... finishing at 10 miles apart by the time I reached my work.

There are charging stations there, but I now park myself at a dealer nearby where I can fully charge as opposed to a valet supervised time limit of just 2 hrs.

Sadly pure EVs are not appreciated compared to the crop of hybrids and plug-ins that sometimes get a worst fuel economy than a diesel car. So everyone is in the same line, and indeed I can have a rightful gripe against hybrids who are more poseurs than real disruptive technology adopters.

My car, if there is an mpg figure to give to tell the vast majority conditioned to using gas of a figure, gets 120 mpg pollution and energy equivalent.

And so here I am into my 4th week, with close to 3200 miles on the odometer.

I not only managed to adapt quickly to a different animal but also cut down dramatically my driving expenses. Even factoring in the higher cost of the car.

The only unknowns are how long will the battery let me drive 100+ miles, given I push the eco pro range of the car to the limits.

My routine is simple: Get a full charge in the mornng after plugging it in at a nearby charger, if I am lucky that a Tesla I always race with to get there hasn't taken the spot already, then fully charge  at the dealer near work, then recharge on the way back home in the evening, as the range seem to drop on a hotter battery and be closer to 95 miles after a whole day in the sun.

Sure there are sacrifices compared to a black goop from the ground sucking contraption, but frankly if billions of people will have a car one day, this is what sustainable is: an order of magnitude less energy available to go from A to B.

And those who get used to it now will be prepared for a world where solar and wind only furnish a few percent of what non renewable fossil fuels do.

The strange thing is my commute is now better, because of the advanced technology that lets me just steer the car in stop and go traffic without any pedal input, and the simpler one pedal driving in other situations when regenerative braking replaces the usage of regular brakes.

Less is more and I am happy to have made that jump.

Here's a few pics to make a point.