2012/02/28

2012/02/22

Found out the price for the Aerovironment EVSE station if I want to use my own electrician:

With a 15' cable: $999, plus shipping ($49.95) and tax

OUCH!  I think I should keep shopping...

2012/02/17

So typical me - after joining the official BMW Active E forum board: http://forum.bmwactivatethefuture.com/

And posting a reading a bit, I've done a bunch of research on charging and have a few useful observations to share: 
1) The BMW Active E is equipped with the new standard plug for electrical vehicle charging in the U.S. (SAE J1772): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772/
2) For the size battery in the Active E (32Kwh lithium-ion), a normal household electric circuit (110-volt/16-amp) will take 16-20 hours to fully charge the battery (also called Level 1 charging in the J1772 standard).  At Level 2 (240-volt/32-amp), that's down to four to five hours.
3) The car's internal A/C current charging circuit will draw a max of 32A at 240V according to BMW's specs, which means the Aerovironment EVSE-RS unit is a pretty good match.... however:
   a) Max realized current on an A/C charging circuit is about 80% of the amperage.
   b) The EVSE-RS is rated 40A input, 30A output - so the car might not get the most it can draw.
   c) There are other cars on the market that can charge at higher rates (EX: Tesla @ 70A): http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric/charging/j1772-mobile-connector/

As someone who is very going to purchase an electric vehicle when this closed-end lease runs out, and it may have an even bigger battery (like the Tesla S), and since I'm still not even sure when my Active E will be showing up, I think I'm going to do some more research before just going with the Aerovironment EVSE-RS unit.

2012/02/13

2012/02/10

Upon returning from vacation, I found out 400 of the 700 cars were already allocated... YIKES!