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The first thing I noticed when I got into the BMW ActiveE was its leather interior. This model had a leather type steering wheel which was very nice and felt good and firm. Although most people are familiar with the traditional dashboard, learning how to interpret an electronic dashboard is fairly easy to understand. The driver’s assistant from the EV World show showed me where to look to determine how much charge was left in the battery, and he showed me how the instrument panel worked, which was very clear after he explained it.
After setting my side view mirrors I put on my seat belt and asked the assistant if he was ready for me to start the car. With his okay, I pushed the push-button starter. One only needs to have the keys within certain proximity of the BMW Active E in order to start it with the push button starter.
Once we were off, the features of driving the BMW ActiveE became more apparent. Even though we only drove a few blocks down the street, the BMW Active E has two modes, one is the regular mode and the other was the ECO PRO mode. In the regular mode the car will get 100 miles on a single charge while the ECO PRO mode allows a driver to increase the range of the car by modifying its features for even more efficient performance.
When activated, the ECO PRO mode lowers the amount of power delivered by the accelerator pedal — versus what’s used in normal driving mode — increasing the amount of regenerative braking and lessening the amount of energy given to the heating and air conditioning systems.
In this mode, the car’s regenerative braking worked just by getting off the accelerator. I didn't have to put my foot on the brake in order for the car to start slowing down; the car itself just started using the regenerative braking system, slowing it down. I found this quite interesting.
We drove within a 10 block radius which gave me enough time to accelerate a little, but not too much. From that short experience and what I had to work with I found the BMW Active E to have very good acceleration and braking.