My First Mini SE Road Trip in SC, and Maybe my Last...for Now

I'm curious about this sudden change. I have not seen this behavior in my SE. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but when you turned the car back on, did you forgot to put it into GREEN mode? That would easily subtract 10 miles from the GOM. If it was in GREEN mode, I wonder if something happened while the car was "resting". Was it hot enough for the car to cool the battery while you were seeing the sights?

The GOM in the SE is leaps and bounds above the one in my old 2012 Leaf. That car would start out saying 80 miles (it was rated for 73 miles when new), drop to about 60 within 5 miles of driving, and then down to 30 in another 10 miles. Then from 30, it would subtract about one mile for every 5 miles driven. Then it would flash "Low Battery Charge", and not even provide an estimate, for at least 20 miles. I never did get it to turtle. It was the most range-anxiety-inducing GOM you could imagine.

 

To answer your question, I never turned the car off (actually, never even got out to walk around) -- just turned around to return home. I was in green mode the whole time.

Similar behavior of the SE's GOM has been rather hotly recounted in a YouTube video, which I found / saw after my trip when trying to understand what had possibly happened. I hope this is a truly rare situation / malfunction. But, if not, be careful.

 

I wonder if perhaps the SE decided the batteries were getting too warm and that's why the GOM adjusted the range. It could also explain the problem @Nigel Warnes saw in his video?

Not that I want to make excuses for the GOM. If it is something like battery temperature, there should be some sort of message on the display that the range calculations are being altered.

 

The battery heat theory might hold up some consideration here in the TX heat, but (IMHO) not in the UK, and not really in the weather that was described in the YT video. Either way (and as you point out), the driver deserves some warning -- particularly in the light of the magnitude of the changes in the GOM calculation. And, even then, MINI has to field an EV into the broad consumer marketplace that absolutely minimizes such vagaries and doesn't require the vehicle's driver to have to adjust to sudden, material drops in range expectations. One cannot start a trip -- city or otherwise -- without high confidence that the vehicle can complete the intended drive, especially with a paucity of charging opportunities in many places.

Once again, I repeat myself -- I absolutely love my MINI SE, and it will be my "go to" vehicle for fun transportation in the city environment. Outside the metro area, well, I am not so sure now.

 

If it is due to battery conditions, that could be a tough problem to solve. MINI chose to provide limited battery conditioning to keep costs down and maximize range, so it may be unavoidable to need to adjust calculations during a trip. Since the SE has a relatively short range losing 10 miles is a big deal. Teslas, by comparison, are notoriously off on their range but since it is a longer one it has less impact on a single trip.

And we are at the early stages of the EV era, the charging infrastructure will only improve month by month.

 

If the calculations aren't (or more likely are too much) taking into account the temperature, it would explain my hideously inaccurate GOM. Over in Oz, our summers rarely dip below 30C (at night), and the GOM was at its hideous best. 155km indicated, 251km actual. Now that I am driving in a more hoon-like fashion (for those who aren't up with the Aussie slang, a hoon is a person who drives much faster than they should) having abandoned economical driving in favour of fun, ironically, the GOM has increased the predicted range (to 170ish) and I am only getting 233km actual. The temperature has decreased to a lovely winter temperature of around 20-25C during the day, and between 10-15 at night.

To be honest, I only look at the GOM now when I finish charging for a bit of a laugh. I go by 30km/segment - or approx 2.5km/percent if I am getting low. I use 2.5 because it is easier to do in your head.

 

That's basically what I do as well (except using US customary units ), and is likely the best way to get a consistent idea of range.

 

UPDATE TO GOM SUDDEN CHANGES POST: After once again viewing @Nigel Warnes video and now all comments to it, it seems possible that the common trigger for this sudden (negative) change in the GOM range estimate might have been the resetting of the vehicle's factory sat-nav system (no iPhone, so I can't use the integrated CarPlay option), which I did when I turned around to head home. (Like Nigel says in his video, it isn't because I didn't know the way (especially over the identical route I had just driven but making a return trip), etc., but I like seeing the data of miles remaining, etc. generated by the sat-nav). (Nigel indicated that he also reset his factory sat-nav when he experienced this GOM range change problem too.)

Anyway, I think the factory sat-nav may start on a clean sheet of paper for each and every trip, every time, and ignore vitally important information such as recent vehicle mi/kWh, topography, recent vehicle speeds, outside temperature, accessory use (such as a/c) and the like and use very pessimistic assumptions for all of these things in computing its new GOM range for a given trip, even one which the car just successfully made. (Although I do understand the usefulness of a "better safe than sorry" GOM range philosophy!)

 

Don’t know if this is the official Road Trip spot but here’s some info on my first road trip with the Mini:

I don’t really road trip outside of visiting my parents and in-laws a few times a year. Recently, I went to visit my parents and brought my two year old along for the first road trip with the Mini.

The trip is a touch over 200 miles one way with about 90% on major highways like I-95. In an ICE I would do the trip with a stop halfway for a break/food/bathroom for the family which would be around 15-20 minutes. Granted, these trips were pre-covid and the little one wasn’t walking yet. I could do the trip in about 3 hours plus time for traffic and the break, let’s say 3 and a half hours. It would take about a half tank of gas in our little SUV. Then, multiply everything by two for a round trip.

My plan: Be conservative -
-Don’t want to get stranded, especially with the little one. So, I didn’t try to squeeze in just one charging stop.
-Don’t keep speed low, I feel being slow on 95 in a tiny car is pretty close to a death wish. I also didn’t draft behind any trucks.
-Don’t sacrifice AC, the average temp was about 93 degrees so I ran AC the entire time. I used Mid for the whole trip as well.

I planned two Electrify America stops which were roughly equidistant. A Better Route Planner gave suggestions for what to charge to at each stop. The charging stops were both expected to be between 20-30 minutes.

The Trip There:
Left the house at 100% and ABRP said I should have 33% left at the first stop. This leg was about 70 miles which was mixed with city driving and highway driving. I pulled into EA with over 40% battery left. Spent 24 minutes there to get to 88% and it cost $5. No one else was charging.

Second leg was shorter, about 60 miles but all of it was I-95. I put cruise on 72 (which I think is actually 70mph but whatever) and accelerated as needed to get around slower traffic. Showed up to the EA with about 40%. This was around 10% better than ABRP predicted. There were two others charging and one broken stall so I took the last open spot. Charged for 18 minutes and got to 84%. Cost was a touch under $4.

Last leg was about 70 miles to get me to my location with an estimated 10% remaining. There was a decent amount of traffic, some of which was stop and go (shoutout to one pedal driving for making that less frustrating). Pulled in with 28% remaining.

Overall, the average was 4.3 mi/kwh. Total time was about 4 hours and 15 minutes. Traffic delays hurt that total and of course the charging took 42 minutes. Cost was about $9.

Return Trip:
Left with 100% and reset the mi/kwh. There were heavy winds against me which really dragged efficiency down. Averaged about 3.3 mi/kwh. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t panic watching the GOM plummet. Pulled into EA with a little over 30% left. No one was charging (the broken one was fixed too). Charged to 89% which took 26 minutes and cost a little over $5. At this stop my daughter spilled her drink all over herself so we had to do a whole wardrobe change at the charger, but the whole time the car was charging so the time wasn’t ‘lost.’

The next leg I had the wind at my back which was great. Pulled into the next EA and charged for about 21 minutes to get to 86%. There was one car charging. Cost was about $4.50

The last leg had me pretty nervous because the wind changed again and my GOM was off from my distance by only a few miles. For about an hour I GOM-watched as the gap hovered between 5-6 miles. I decided to chance not stopping to charge and once I exited the highway my gap between GOM and miles left ballooned from 7 to 15+. I ended up back home with 18% left (which the GOM only predicted at 18 miles). Final was 3.7 mi/kwh.

Takeaways:
-Honestly, not that bad. I actually enjoyed the stops because it gave my two year old some breaks which made the actual driving easier on me. In an ICE we’d probably need those breaks for her anyway. Taking five to ten minutes of sitting in an air conditioned car in between driving north of an hour is also a pretty pleasant experience.

-Electrify America was flawless. Each charger I pulled into worked the first time, no need for replugging. There was always an empty spot for me. Cost was good, about $18 for the whole trip (not counting my starting charges which were at home and at a free charger).

-If I wanted to be more efficient, I should have tried to keep the fast charging below 80% since the speeds from 0-80% are the fastest, but I was conservative for my first time. That would have probably shaved about 10 minutes off each way.

 

Yes, totally official. Thanks for the report. It helps encourage range-anxious homebodies like me to venture further.

 

Fantastic, thanks for that report!

One thing to keep in mind with an EV is the consumption is uniform, so at 18% you're going to use the same amount of electricity per mile as at 88% (assuming same conditions). My experience from years of driving is that fuel gauges never drop at such a uniform rate; it seems the last 1/2 tank goes away faster than the first half.

 

Sounds like you had an uneventful trip. Thanks for sharing!

My experience with EA has been pleasant in the Mini, less so in the Bolt. The Bolt has some connector issues that make the initial handshake flaky. I haven't had any such problems with the Mini.

ABRP is a great planning tool, and generally conservative (which is a good think IMO).

I'm looking forward to getting in a nice 300+ mile road trip this fall. Other than that, I can't take the Mini because I need 5 seats for the family.

 

Ditto for me, but one has to take note that the satisfactory experience of @Whosehouse depended pretty heavily on the availability of fast-charging DC stations along his route. For many of us, the state of today's charging infrastructure development is such that at best a standard L2 charger or a standard 115V plug (either of which take hours, not minutes) is all that can be reached on a road trip. Both Plug-share and ABRP are great planning tools, but even they can't plan road trip stops at charging points that don't yet exist.

All of that said, I (like @insightman) will continue to "venture further" in my MINI SE and hope that (especially) reliable (and reasonably-priced) DC fast-charging will become more available away from only certain Interstate highway corridors.

 

I'm actually willing to alter my route by scores of miles to reach an optimal charging network route. Right now for many it's a lot like train travel, you have to follow the routes that exist. But I do believe in the early days (actually up until the 1970s if memory serves) of automobiles the same condition of limited fueling stops existed.

 

I'd be fine with a longer route but currently don't even have that option... I can go west or I can go west and only on one specific road, no chargers to the north, south, or east are in range.

I grabbed a screenshot of an Electrify America video showing their rough planned 2025 chargers and there's still a giant hole around me in the center of Oregon but it looks like maybe I'll be able to go north in 4 years lol

 

I'm on the tip of the branch that ends near Lake Superior (actually it's the eastern edge of the Twin Cities). I basically have to drive to Chicago to "engage" the rest of the EA network. But if you use A Better Route Planner you might find alternate fast charging options. But I have seen incredible improvement in the 11 months since I got my SE, so time is going to be kind to us.

 

It could be nice, but like all things Tesla I wouldn't put much into it until it actually happens. Timeframes are not a strong suit for Tesla.

 

Here's a video of a roadtrip from Albuquerque to Denver in an SE (Electric Collection with moonroof), which is not a densely-populated route. The first half of the video focuses on the range capabilities of the SE, the second half is more about the ups and downs of charging.

Bottom line, the SE worked great along the mountainous route, exceeding the official range. I particularly liked this video since I drive that route and badly want to take my SE. Now I know it can be done.