I received so much good information from the board members, that I would like to thank you all and contribute a bit.
We took delivery of our b-class in early january; from Oregon to Hawaii where the local dealership has not made the car available for sale despite its long beach and vegas dealership offering the vehicles there. I presume they don't have a battery technician here, and so it is a bit of a risk.
That said, the car is driving great. We went from a Nissan Leaf to this car. Couple of things of note are as follows:
a) the B definitely has a more aggressive regeneration system in the Auto and D- modes compared to the Leaf.
b) the battery is huge. The leaf usually charged in 12 hours on a 110v outlet. Our B monster takes 30 plus hours and a 110 charger is infeasible.
c) I took over the dryer plug, and bought and built a OpenEVSE 50a charger. If you have any small background in electronics at all, it is an easy build. There is a chap in vegas that will sell these preassembled. The charger is amazing for our B because, as you know, the only way you can tell it is taking a charge is by the click of the battery/charger in the vehicle. The OpenEVSE charger has a nice bright LED screen that shows the progress of the charge. Also, it has a built in timer that works like a charms, and unlike the leaf, the B has no timer.
d) overall, the B is a more refined vehicle and is not as peppy as the Leaf. The Leaf was like a street legal golf cart. Even in D+ mode, there is a governance in acceleration that is better than D Auto, but not as free as the Leaf in its acceleration.
e) It is all Mercedes. The auto assist, blind side detection, rain sensor, Comand system with DVD player, the led lit dash - all make driving a pleasure.
f) Range: I was quite concerned at first about the range of the vehicle. Maybe it is because of the aggressive regeneration, but we actually get more miles per charge than the leaf. That said, I'm not sure if I'm dumping more kwh into the B than the Leaf, but the EPA ratings of 80miles/charge are mightly simliar. However, this is a 30kW battery so you would expect that it is gulping down the electrons.
Ok, that said, anyone know the correct codec for the video? I put a mp4 video on a thumbdrive and it is running through the video but with no sound. Anyone know the settings? Also, anyway to kill the video while driving mode without paying $200 for the software hack?
Thank you.
We took delivery of our b-class in early january; from Oregon to Hawaii where the local dealership has not made the car available for sale despite its long beach and vegas dealership offering the vehicles there. I presume they don't have a battery technician here, and so it is a bit of a risk.
That said, the car is driving great. We went from a Nissan Leaf to this car. Couple of things of note are as follows:
a) the B definitely has a more aggressive regeneration system in the Auto and D- modes compared to the Leaf.
b) the battery is huge. The leaf usually charged in 12 hours on a 110v outlet. Our B monster takes 30 plus hours and a 110 charger is infeasible.
c) I took over the dryer plug, and bought and built a OpenEVSE 50a charger. If you have any small background in electronics at all, it is an easy build. There is a chap in vegas that will sell these preassembled. The charger is amazing for our B because, as you know, the only way you can tell it is taking a charge is by the click of the battery/charger in the vehicle. The OpenEVSE charger has a nice bright LED screen that shows the progress of the charge. Also, it has a built in timer that works like a charms, and unlike the leaf, the B has no timer.
d) overall, the B is a more refined vehicle and is not as peppy as the Leaf. The Leaf was like a street legal golf cart. Even in D+ mode, there is a governance in acceleration that is better than D Auto, but not as free as the Leaf in its acceleration.
e) It is all Mercedes. The auto assist, blind side detection, rain sensor, Comand system with DVD player, the led lit dash - all make driving a pleasure.
f) Range: I was quite concerned at first about the range of the vehicle. Maybe it is because of the aggressive regeneration, but we actually get more miles per charge than the leaf. That said, I'm not sure if I'm dumping more kwh into the B than the Leaf, but the EPA ratings of 80miles/charge are mightly simliar. However, this is a 30kW battery so you would expect that it is gulping down the electrons.
Ok, that said, anyone know the correct codec for the video? I put a mp4 video on a thumbdrive and it is running through the video but with no sound. Anyone know the settings? Also, anyway to kill the video while driving mode without paying $200 for the software hack?
Thank you.
