Monday, March 25, 2013

It's been a while since posting, 10k miles gas free

Well it has been quite a while since I posted anything to the blogosphere. I would imagine that perhaps the opinion was that I'd quit. No, I've just been real busy reading everyone else's blogs.

Not too long ago I passed the first ten thousand miles in my wonderful Leaf. I would say still shiny new but with all the snow and a salt residue right now it's not so shiny. So 10k miles @ my old 25 mpg would be approximately 400 gallons of gas that I have not purchased. At roughly $3.50/gallon that means the cost of fuel savings alone is approximately $1400.

Now it's not really that much of a savings because my driving has increased because we're using the Leaf for family excursions around town instead of my wife's Corolla that we had been using before we got the new cars. The Corolla was getting about 35mpg and I don't have a good feel for the number of miles the family put on it. So for the sake of my math impoverished brain we'll stick with $1400 in gas savings. Or 2 car payments. Or a new laptop. Or new bicycles for everyone in the family.

And really, that's not all pure savings still. There was the cost of electricity to power my wonderful vehicle through the sweltering summer, the bitter cold of winter and the slush riddled streets of spring. The cost of electricity is much more reliable thanks to the cost estimator that is part of the CarWings application. Assuming the "OK" button was activated every, single, stinking time I started the vehicle (end of rant about the button), and using the summer electric rate year round the cost of electricity was $229.60. The reality is that the electric cost was less than that. The miles included the trip to Manhattan, KS which was free refills at public charging stations. It also doesn't discount the summer rate only applies June-Sept. The rest of the year is 1 cent/kWh less. I figure it's not worth splitting hairs over that much difference.

I must admit I also hit Very Low Battery warning again a couple weeks ago. However, given that there are more than twice as many public charging stations now compared to when I got the car, I wasn't really worried <bold and italics for effect>. The cold has affected the range significantly and that wasn't really expected but now I know what this summer and next winter will bring. This all equates to approximately 6000 pounds of CO2 tailpipe emissions that weren't emitted.

It's not much but it's a start. When I chatted with a local Leaf owner I found that I put more than twice as many miles on my Leaf than she had on hers.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get some solar panels rocking and fill it up for "free".


Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
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