Friday, August 14, 2009

Heat And Humidity - Not Just Icky For Us


The past few days we have had some hot and humid days in NJ. This is pretty typical for a NJ summer but it has been unusually cool and I have not yet seen how the MINI E handles uncomfortable days. I am not referring to rainy days, we have had plenty of those and the MINI E did fine.

I'm happy to report the AC works great - nice and cool. However, what I am noticing is a big decrease in my range, yes the AC takes some extra juice but not this much. I have used the AC before and not seen as much of a drain as I am on these days. So I tried to turn the AC off and sweat it out to see if my range would tick back up to what I was accustomed to. Besides the idea that MINI USA may not want the car back after my sweat it out AC experiment (bad thing - naaah) my range increased only slightly, I was still below the norm and it was definitely during these two hot and humid days, AC or not.

To make matters more challenging I am having extreme difficulty charging the MINI E with the 110 cable (I'm still on the 110). Whatever is going on it is effecting the charging. What is happening is the cable breaker pops every 15 minutes - maybe I get a little longer but not much. This has never happened before and it is definitely happening on these hot and humid nights - the time I do charge the MINI E. Could it be related to the humidity - maybe. Is the gold box water proof - I don't know, are the batteries water tight - I don't know.

FYI - I stopped by Openroad Morristown MINI for a catch up charge - they were happy to accommodate me and their coffee was pretty good too.

They are having a heat wave in the LA area but that is a dry heat and us New Englanders know humidity gets into everything.

So to wrap it up what about today - it was hot but not so humid. Guess what, my range was pretty good today, when I got home I plugged in to recharge, no problem. At around 8:30pm it began to get pretty muggy again and guess what else, yup you nailed it, the breaker on the cable began to pop. I don't think it is the cable.

I would like very much to now if any other Pioneers are seeing anything odd with their car during these humid days.


UPDATE: Observation, noticed a slight layer of moisture around the plug, both cable and car side, when it happened again during a muggy night. Today during the day I have no problems, yes it is hot, but not muggy.

2 comments:

  1. No problems for #269 in S.Orange. I charge in my garage which stays pretty cool and dont really drive around mid-day. It sits in a garage in Manhattan during the crazy times. Maybe I will do an experiment this weekend. It is supposed to be hot again

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  2. Thanks Michael, I'm ok today, it is hot but not muggy. By the way there will be a small MINI E gathering in Montclair Aug 22nd 1pm. Hope you or anyone else that reads this can make it. I will post details today.

    #250, Tom, is arranging it at his restaurant.

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