The Institute for Energy & Sustainability had a dedication event today for their new EVSEs thanks to  Coulomb Technologies, ChargePoint, and NationalGrid.  The event started in the parking lot:

And then moved inside the Lasry Center for Biosciences, Clark University, Worcester, MA.  A number of industry and political attendees were present including Congressman James McGovern, the President of Clark University David P. Angel, the President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Dennis D. Berkey, and the President of Quinsigamond Community College Gail E. Carberry, Ed.D.

There was also a nice showing of cars including a Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt (hogging the charger!):

And the soon to be released Mitsuibishi MiEV:

But the Massachusetts BMW Active E owners and local dealer (Wagner BMW in Shrewsbury) put them to shame with five cars attending (sorry - mine is off frame right):

Cool thing I found out on the Leaf - the model the East Coast is now getting is the 2012, which has the battery warmer and cold weather package.  When it launched in 2011 it wasn't available here but - this feature pack is why!

After a nice afternoon out getting things done, I had my first unfortunate EV event...

ICEd at the Chili's in Lowell, MA : Two pickups blocking both ChargePoint spots! >:-(

In there defense there was no signage saying "Electric vehicle parking only" - so I see this more as a public awareness issue for now....

Luckily the Chili's in Westford, MA was close, and when I got there both spots were open so I got in my charging and pre-conditioning, and came back to a nicely warmed up car :-)

But the second spot was ICEd by then with an SUV someone left their little white dog in - ugh!

Going to have to find a way to deal with this... of to the BMW forum to post for advice :-)

Approved the quote and got the charger ordering process started.  Ends up a bit more than half the original Aerovironment quote, but I get a much nicer charger! B-)

Site visit from DK Power today - nice, easy, quick... should have a quote back soon! B-)

Went off on two very important errands today, and stopped again at the Pru to charge. This time I watched the ChargePoint web site live - you can see how much power the car is consuming.

Wanting to beat traffic out of Boston, I got a bit antsy and left before the car had finished charging.  On the highway home it was EXTREMELY windy, and even though I tried to moderate my speed it still chewed up a bunch of juice.
When I finally got off  the highway, I looked at my miles remaining on the NAV computer and charge percent remaining and it was just about 1-to-1, so I made the decision to skip the Chilli’s at that exit that had a charger and head for home.

I ALMOST made it :-P
I learned several VERY IMPORTANT lessons today:
1) Don't count on 1 mile for every 1% of battery left, especially under 20% on WINDY days! :-\
2) BMW Road Side assistance is not going to save you when you live in farm country like me so...
3) Always have a backup plan: AAA Gold ;-)
4) If you end up at 0% battery and "reduced" drive mode, pull over and save your power so you can get the car in and out of NEUTRAL for the nice flatbed tow truck driver that comes to save your ARSE! ;-) LoL

Only took me about 3 hours to get that last mile to my house.... SO CLOSE!

Email from the distributor (Green Power Technology) and installer for my area (DK Power) - setting up the appointment for a site review this week.

Got back to the car after dinner and noticed this on my phone:
"The station at which your vehicle is charging, PRUDENTIAL CTR / P1-RED LEVEL D, has detected that the vehicle is drawing very little power. This typically means the vehicle is fully charged, but may mean it is configured for delayed charging. The vehicle has accepted 16.326393 kWh and has been plugged in for 03:35:11 (hh:mm:ss)"

I'm really liking the "brain" in this Coulomb unit :-)  I think it's going to be handy to have at home given how far along the MyBMW app seems to be :-P