Mini E

German automaker BMW revealed that at least 200 of the VIP vehicles headed to London for the 2012 Olympic games will be of the electric-only variety. According to BMW, the key focus is to make London's Olympic Games the "greenest ever."

How far does an electric car go on a charge? The answer is determined more by perception than the vehicle’s battery capacity, according to a new study by a team of German researchers. In a paper to be published next month, “Experiencing Range in an Electric Vehicle: Understanding Psychological Barriers,” the team of psychologists from Chemnitz University of Technology reports on a six-month field study with 40 drivers of the MINI E all-electric car. “As far as I know this paper is one of the first that aims at a systematic understanding of the psychology of range experience, including stress-related personality traits, coping skills, and the ability to deal with ambiguous range,” said Thomas Franke, the study’s lead author.

I was recently discussing with a friend whether or not EVs should have the automatic transmission “idle creep” like internal combustion engine (ICE ) vehicles do. He wasn’t an experienced EV driver and when he drove my MINI E, he was startled by the fact that it rolls forwards or backwards if you are on a decline/incline—even if the car is in Drive mode. He didn’t like it. That's why I wanted to create a survey to see what our community thinks about these issues. Speak up, folks.