I've been itching to take the Mini to Houston again but recognizing that a minimum of two charge stops each way is hard to justify I have held off. But now that gas prices are up so much, even in Texas, at least one factor swung back in favor of the Mini. For the relatively …
Category: Daily Life
Houston Road Trip Redo
A few weekends ago the right opportunity finally presented itself to take the Mini to Houston again. Our itinerary took us straight to the west side of the city and back: no extra trips around town or to the suburbs that would add charging stops. Several new charging sites have opened since my last epic …
EV Experience in the Heat
This Central Texas summer has been much cooler than expected overall. But that does not mean that we haven't had some stretches of 100+ days. Most of the conversation about how ambient temperature affects EVs centers around the extreme cold. However, any temperature outside the 50-85 Fahrenheit that most batteries prefer is going to have …
Home Charging Using Only Level 1 (120v)
I've touched on this subject in a couple of other posts, but many people may be curious about this specific subject so I wanted to devote a quick post to it. I charge my EV at home using only the mobile charge cord (EVSE) that it came with and a regular 120v wall outlet. I …
Road Trip! Taking the Mini Outside Its Comfort Zone
The Set Up We take a weekend trip to Houston averaging about once a month. I had that drive squarely in mind when purchasing the Bolt, but knew when I got the Mini it was mostly out of the question. At first I wasn't too bothered by that. On paper our Outback is great for …
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The Dream of Affordable EV Ownership Goes Up In Flames (a statistically small percent of the time) – the Bolt Recall
I got my Bolt on July 1, 2021. Less than two months later, on August 20, 2021, GM expanded the Bolt battery recall to include my 2020 model. For those of you who don't know, over a period of 6 or so months GM issued several recalls for the high-voltage batteries in the Bolts, eventually …
Living with the Bolt – I Love EVs!
I quickly fell in love with driving electric on a daily basis. There were so many little perks and conveniences to me. Even without a level 2 charger at home I could recharge overnight from my daily commute. That meant that during a normal week I was able to ditch the all-to-common experience of starting …
Miniwatt Auto 