Background info

I guess I left out a few things from that very long first post. Namely anything about me and what the program is all about.

First things first: About me

I live in South Orange, NJ and am married with 2 daughters. I work in Manhattan in IT for a financial services company (non-US).

I got notified about this program some time late last year on an RSS feed from somewhere. I followed the link and proceeded to complete one of the most entertaining application forms I have ever seen. More about that some other time I guess. I will say that it took me about 5 tries and well over 2 hours to actually fill out the application. Which all I can deduce was by design.

I was interested in the program because it was new, and because I think the idea is a great one. There is no real option on the market right now for a commuter car (I do not consider the Tesla a commuter car). So this program filled a few of my goals.

1. get a car to drive into the city for work (did I mention I am not a fan of the train)
2. try out the whole electric car thing, see if it turns out to be feasible.
3. It was closed ended as the cars must be returned in 1 year.
4. I figure by this time next year hopefully there will be some option on the market if I decide that I like 1&2 after all, or go back to taking the train.

OK, what is this Mini-e

If you have not google'd it by now let me save you the trouble. This is an experimental program that is based in California, NY and metro NJ. It is a one year lease of a Mini-s (I think) with the back seat taken out and about 700lbs of batteries installed instead. All sounded great to me. You can go to the official site for the gory details.