2015.02.12 Electric Car: Day 009
Ah, the electric car. The very concept warms the RTG of my technocratic heart. Electric cars are the future.
And I think that should be understood literally. IF there is a future, and society outlives fossil fuels, electric cars will be how we do vehicles. And it may even be that, in order to get to a future, society will need to change energy useage such that electric cars are necessary.
But short-sighted monkeys that we are, that's not what anybody talks about with respect to electric cars. They talk about whether or not they like them. Usually experientially. Always with respect to contemporary internal combustion vehicles. Often with myopic misunderstandings and assumptions.
So, FINE. Here's some of my personal opinions about owning/operating a 2014 Mercedes B-class Electric Drive (so far).
Range
Haw far can it go? I honestly don't know. There's about 20 of us at Daimler in PDX with them right now, and the furthest anyone has dared to go on a single charge is about 90 kilometers. Mine usually claims it's got about 100 km range when it's fully-charged, but the range decreases much, much faster than the distance I actually drive. Because I drive like a giggling young jackass, reveling in the feel of the drivetrain. But more on that later.
The simple reality is that the purpose of this car, for my household, is commuting to my office. That's less than 30 km round trip. And it gets charged back up to full every night. Plus, for fun, I partake in the free higher-voltage charging at work. Even on the day when I also drove to the PIAS and also out to lunch, I didn't even get it down much past half-charge.
The majority of people commuting would probably never have to really worry about it.
BUT, it is also equally true that anybody who also expects to drive long distance will need to have another vehicle. The B-ED is clearly a 2nd car.
Cost
It costs too much, and I'm glad I didn't buy it. Seriously, 46-kilobucks is only going to appeal to people making a philosophical statement AND need to have something German. Luckily, the company lease deal is cheap cheap cheap.
And, well, I haven't gotten a new electricity bill yet. So we'll see what that looks like. But there's no possible way it will even come close to the fuel slurped up by the E-class in similar commuting duty.
Appearance
It's not pretty. It's too tall, and too narrow. While the interior is standard Mercedes quality, it is a painful juxtaposition to the plush, toy-filled, roomy appointment of the E-class.
That being said, it's not ugly either. A purposeful appearance, with a no-bullshit straightforward arrangement of car-ness all around.
But, good lord, who was the penny-pinching douchebag that decided to fit the infotainment system with a screen smaller than my old phone and a nav system that Garmin would have rejected in the 90's for being too clunky. It seems odd to dispose of a mediocre bespoke system for a truly shitty 3rd-party system.
Performance
First, let's have a reality check. This is the smallest, most economy-minded platform that Mercedes sells in NAFTA (other than Smart cars). It's front-wheel drive, on a narrow track, with high-efficiency tires.
OK?
It's the best traffic-carving car I've leased from Mercedes yet. By a wide margin. This is in context of having a much less stable platform than either the C-classes or E-class. The C-classes also had far superior cornering modulation and feel. Plus the B-ED is down on power by a lot.
How is it better, then? Electric drive.
The one thing that eternally caused me to froth bile in the other Mercedes leases was having to negotiate with a torque converter and an automatic transmission. It doesn't matter how mighty the luxo-barge is, if you aren't able to summon any of that power on a whim. Opportunities come and go in the blink of an eye in traffic. Sudden decisions inevitably produce a lull of pure panic, followed-up by an unseemly compensating surge to make up for the delay.
With the B-ED: fuck that shit. It goes when I want, how I want. And thanks to electric motors, the little bastard has all the torque that the turbocharged C-class had. Except, you know, actually available.
PLUS there's regenerative braking. Which means that lifting the throttle progressively can allow for nicely feathered deceleration. In addition to the nice bonus of harvesting energy that would otherwise be discarded.
Also, it has to be admitted that small size is a significant advantage in traffic.
Functionality
Uh, it's a commuter - as long as it carries my family short distances, it's golden.
I was pleased to note that Simon's bicycle fits in the back quite handily, which was always a bit of fuss-generating operation in the trunks of the sedans. Groceries seem to fit fine, too.
One amusing thing to mention is how utterly crippled I feel trying to back up this little car. The rearward and aft-corner visibility is poor. Perhaps "poor" isn't the right word. It's kind of shitty. Honestly, I had better rearward visibility in the Porsche. Meanwhile, the previous two lumbering sedans had back-up cameras - and it transformed them in to nimble reversing ballerinas. Rearview cameras should be federally mandated.
Also: I totally fucking hate the stereo system. HATE. IT. It is not inherent to the stereo, which is essentially the same fine system we've had on the other Mercedes. No, this is a circumstantial problem. Because Violet insists¹ that we listen to Electric Car or Let It Go continuously. CONTINUOUSLY.
¹ She is, shall we say, disturbingly persuasive.