A new way of driving

I was fortunate to be among the first dozen MiniE recipients, and have now had my car for about 10 days.  They take a little getting used to, so I thought I would help out you new owners a little by letting you in on a few of the things I have learned so far.

First of all, I have noticed that some of the blogs by new owners refer to the great handling of the car and the great ergonomics of the interior and how cute the car is.  These people have obviously never owned a Mini Cooper before.  They are ALL like that.  What I want to do here is focus on the things that make the MiniEs different from their petrol-powered road mates.

You will notice that there are two pedals used to control the electric motor.  The number of pedals is not unique, but their function is.

The right-most pedal, commonly called an “accelerator” in vehicles that haul around tanks full of liquefied dinosaurs, makes the car do two things – Go And Slow.  I like to refer to it as the G.A.S. pedal (pronounced “gas”).  As you apply pressure to the pedal the car will go; as you reduce pressure on the pedal the car will slow (and eventually stop).

To the left of the G.A.S. pedal you will find another pedal that Basically Removes All Kinetic Energy from the vehicle (which conveniently spells out another easy to pronounce acronym – “B.R.A.K.E.”).  When you use this pedal on the East Coast it will bring the car to a complete stop.  This pedal is not used in California.

One of the things I have noticed from the other blogs about the MiniE is that they are filled with statics – references to “charge” times, Kw per 100 miles, even the number of speeding tickets the driver has received while driving the MiniE.  While numbers might be important to some people I plan to ignore all of the numeric output from my MiniE’s computer (and only the DMV will know how many tickets I get).

One number is important, however, and that is your side scuttle number.  It says so much about your MiniE, telling you about its desires, Life Path and destiny.  My MiniE is number 19, suggesting that it entered this world with strengths allowing it to become a leader (like a 150Kw power plant).  It was also born with individualistic desires and significant creative inspiration, but that is true of all Mini Coopers.  I will let you know how my MiniE acts on those desires and inspirations as they manifest on this plane of existence.