Electric Car - Phase 1: Plugin Hybrid

Our car is recharging. It's in the driveway, a pulsing green light on it's nose, attached to a complex cord that plugs into the wall. It's gathering electrons. It's going to need those electrons when we drive down for Mother's Day Brunch tomorrow.

This is our new 2016 Audi A3 Sportback e-tron. It's a plugin hybrid with about 20 miles of electric-only range, and a total range of about 500 miles. It's Florett Silver on the outside and almost all black on the inside.

A few years after we traded-in our 1999 B5 A4 Avant 2.8 quattro (also silver on black -- or, Aluminum Silver on Onyx), we are back in a car that feels like an offspring of that wagon: solid, competent, useful, and slick as a German mechanic can make. The interior design is clean and simple; it's a pleasure to be in that space.

So the basic math is this, best case scenario: the car should get about 35mpg on gas alone. My commute is 25 miles each way each day. But I can re-charge at school, so I should be able to get the same electric miles in both directions. I'll still need to use gas for 5 miles of each leg; in seven legs, or three and a half days, I'll have used a gallon of gas to travel 175 miles. And since we have solar panels generating the energy at both ends -- well, this is about as green and carbon free as I can get for now. And even if I get half the mpg's, I'll be happy.

In any case, it's on a three year lease, after which we hope to be in a new Tesla Model 3. That'll be Phase 2.

And a hearty congratulations to the Audi Sport Team Joest car number 8, who won the World Endurance Championship race at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium this weekend with the e-tron's much bigger brother: the Audi R18 e-tron Quattro.

UPDATE 1 (May 22): Our first tank of gas: 8.895 gallons for 665.1 miles, or 74 mpg. To be honest, I thought number might be over 80 and close to 90, but a couple of highway trips actually dropped our mileage, cause the car used the battery less. Still, a big improvement over the 28/29 mpg that we typically got in the Civic (which never really got to the 31mpg that is was supposed to get).

UPDATE 2 (June 10): Our second tank of gas: 8.762 gallons for 829.4 miles, or 95mpg. Pretty darned good. Total for both fill-ups: 17.657 gallons for 1494.5 miles, or 85 mpg. And about three weeks between gas stops. Also, now that the level-2 charger has been installed, short-hop style trips will be more EV and less ICE, since we can charge more often and faster.

UPDATE 3 (July 3): Our third tank of gas: 8.01 gallons for 794.8 miles, or 99mpg. Total for all fill-ups: 25.667 gallons for 2289.3 miles, or 89 mpg.