Wednesday, September 14, 2011

November will be here soon.

November, the END of my Mini E Lease and the beginning of the next stage of this ALL ELECTRIC driving experience.

Nearly two and a half years ago I was privileged to be selected to be a part of the BMW Experimental Electric Car Research program and allowed to participate by daily driving their MINI E. I will always be thankful to BMW for stepping out and initiating this program, they were the 'Pioneers', they stepped up to the plate and took the Mini and converted it with then 'state of the art' tech and actually put more than 500 of them on the road for real world, every day testing.

Now with more than 25000 miles of wonderful, trouble  free, All Electric driving on mine, I am coming to the realization that the end is near, November almost here and I will have to decide to continue with the BMW Active E lease (next phase) or purchase one of the many new choices that didn't exist when I started driving the Mini E more than two years ago.

I'm in the process of analyzing what is available, the numbers, what makes sense, what doesn't - and why.

It's not easy.

I love the Mini so much, I hate to see it go.
It has proven perfect for my daily use, I could be happy just keeping it.

But I understand, I knew, that it was temporary, there would be an end, it's OK I'm really excited to see and experience what's next.

Not really wanting to be a Guinea Pig at my own expense, I think the lease is probably the way to go to continue to avoid the minor problems any new technology will naturally experience, also smooth out the learning curve of  technological advancement and avoid the pits that are going to naturally occur.

Think I'll let the Tech mature a little before committing my hard earned dollars, and keep leasing, happily doing this to reduce trips to gasoline stations,
really don't want to return to consuming that toxic fuel.

So bring on the Electrics, give me proven reliability, give me choices, I'm ready for ownership.