It carries a lot

Sometimes buying a car is as much about what it can hold/carry/haul. Since this is my only car I prefer to drive it everywhere. I don't like it when I have to switch cars with my wife although I think she likes the Silent Running (see future post). So if you're concerned that a hatchback is not large enough to hold your stuff, below is a list of the items I took on our last weekend campout. The round trip drive was 65 miles so I could have done it without recharge but plugging into the parking lot light provided a nice buffer for the ride home @75 mph.

1 Folding tent cot
1  Tent
1 Folding chair
1 Adult
2 Teenagers
2 Medium sized ice chests
3 Sleeping bags
3 Over night bags
4 Sleeping mats (I'm old and need 2)

So it's a tight fit but it does fit. I might add that it's not as tight a fit as it was in the Escort Zx2 that I traded in on the Leaf. On the to-do list is the purchase and installation of a trailer hitch and bike rack to be able to easily take the bikes to ride the trails.

The daily load for the commute:

1 Adult
1 Trumpet
2 Teenagers
2 Art projects
3 Laptop backpacks/school bags

Everything fits just fine into the "trunk" space. Everyone is comfortable and the kids enjoy the heated seats. SUV's are not required for weekend trips or daily commutes but they are nice for the family vacation. Let's see, the trip to Yellowstone in 2009 with a minivan was only $35/day+gas. No need to drive 20 mpg for 1 week events. Just rent for the rare times the electric just doesn't work.


Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience

Around town again...

So the frequent check of the ChargePoint and PlugShare maps show an increasing number of electric vehicle charging stations. I've mentioned on the mynissanleaf forum that as far as I can tell there are three main supporters/implementors of EV charging points. KCPL put in 10 which I understand was assisted in support by federal funds. Walgreens put in around a dozen at various stores around the metro. The Johnson County government has also been adding their support. Even better both the network maps are starting to cross reference each other so both maps are becoming more accurate.

Below are the pictures taken at the Johnson County offices built back in 2006. I also looked inside and was pleased to see the building acquired a LEED Gold standard. It is nice to see tax dollars at work for both business, environmental, and constituent use. The two stations in the complex plus the libraries, DMV (highly appropriate), Health and Human Services, and shared with Olathe bring the county count up to 8.

One note, the 15 minute parking sign is for the space next to mine. It goes 15 minute parking, then EV parking, and then motorcycle parking.

Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience.

A trip around town

Today's post is all about my car. Well so most of the posts are about my car but today is about my car at the charging stations around town and include the pictures.

In the Kansas City metro area there are approximately 40 different charging locations. Here are pictures of my visits to some of them. Here we see ...we see...well when I signed up at the Nissan owner portal I had to pick a nickname for my car. Below is Prince By-Tor, Centurion of Evil, the Devil's Prince as he's being charged at the Westar office at 83rd and K-7.

The employees at the office were genuinely curious and polite the first time I plugged in and were glad to see that EV's were out and about. They explained that their company policy is to only purchase Chevrolet vehicles and had several Volt electric-hybrid vehicles in their fleet. I checked the web more and found that all Westar offices have public EV charging stations. Thanks Westar. I would like to reciprocate but the local utility for me is KCPL but the office where I work is a Westar customer.

About six miles south of here there are a pair of charging stations at the county Youth and Family Services building. It's a beautiful new building and the parking lot is very interesting. There are signs in the lot for car/van pool parking, handicapped parking, low emitting and fuel efficient vehicles and also the two electric vehicle charging stations. The median is filled with native plants which gives it a slight over grown weedy look but the more I looked at it the more it grew on me. Really the only problem with the lot was the SUV parked in the low emitting and fuel efficient vehicle parking.

In what universe would any SUV be considered a low emitting or fuel efficient vehicle? I guess compared to an M1 tank it's fuel efficient (1.5 gallons to the mile).

My oldest son even commented that there was a special parking icon on the asphalt just for me.










Around the corner and down the street a couple miles is the Olathe City Hall with its parking garage. The first time I visited this station one of the stalls was ICE'd (filled with internal combustion engine vehicle). The second trip both stalls were empty and I pulled right in to place.

Then around the corner and further down the street on Santa Fe is one of the several Walgreens Pharmacy stores around town with electric charging stations. They definitely have me sold as a customer from now on except the one by us doesn't have a station. I checked with the manager at the location in Olathe asking what she felt a reasonable purchase in the store would be for a person to charge from their stations while eating at the surrounding locations. She said 'anything' even a pack of gum. I found her attitude refreshing and she was genuinely curious about the vehicle. On the flip side they do need to repaint the asphalt.


The last trip of the day was across town from Olathe into the heart of Overland Park and the county library on 87th Street. The parking here is different from everywhere else that I've seen in that the parking stalls are nose to nose instead of side by side. I'll have to get down to the library out south to see how they're doing on adding signage.


Note...I checked a few days after I started this draft and the signs were still not up on the library out south on 151st Street.

These spots are not only near the library but are within easy walking distance (aka same parking lot) of a McDonald's and an Arby's.

Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience.

It's a video game part the second

This post is to follow up on the video game posting. I beat my high score this morning. Four trees were grown thanks to efficient driving over 40 miles.

Now if I can only keep the miles/Kwh to 5.5 then I'll beat that score too. I beat a different kind of video game on it today too. The north wind was blowing so hard that doing 55 mph on the interstate I ended up gaining 2 miles in charge over a 5 mile drive because of the tail wind and reduced wind resistance. It was really strange today. But then you can expect bizarre weather in Kansas when the high temperature happens at 9am.


Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience

It's a giant video game

Today I'm going to talk about why my Leaf is just a giant video game. If you stop at the local Dave and Buster's restaurant and walk down the aisles you will see all sorts of video games including driving games that you can climb into, grab the wheel, shift the gears and drive the course. When you do this you're trying to beat the high score, beat your personal high score, drive for the longest time, oh and in general have a good time.

When you climb into the Leaf there is no key to turn. You just press the start button, just like a video game. Then you put it into gear, just like a video game. In the top left of the dash you can see how efficiently you're driving and watch the car build little pine trees indicating how well you're driving. How many trees can you build on a single trip. So far the answer is two. I haven't been able to hit the magic three yet.

Press the zero emission button and the energy usage appears. Can you beat last month's miles/Kwh? Last month was 5.1 and right now I'm at 5.7. Can the trend continue? I hope so but it will probably drop as soon as I get on the highway I'm sure. It sure beats the 3.9 miles/Kwh I had during the first month of ownership.

Can you break the 100 mile mark in a single charge? How far can your make a trip? Check out my trip to Abilene when I get it done and find out how far you can go in a day.

Can you treat an electric as a "normal" car? Just get in and drive? Absolutely but where's the fun in that. The last four months of fiddling with the car have been tons of fun. I've learned a lot about cars and electric vehicles and batteries and met a great bunch of EV enthusiasts.

But it's still a giant video game.


Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience

Today's entry is short.

Happy 2nd Annual National Plug In Day. As advertised on the Nissan Leaf Facebook page, over 100 million gas free miles and 3975.6 of them are mine.

So that's roughly 42.74 miles per day. At an average miles/Kwh of 5.1 in turn gives you roughly $.022/mile energy cost or a total of $.94/day cost in energy to drive.

If I were to use my wife's brand new Prius instead that would be a daily fuel cost of almost <insert current price per gallon>. She gets just under 50 miles/gallon so I'm saving almost 1 gallon of fuel per day. I passed a gas station and a convenience store today and gas here is $3.79 and $3.85/gallon.

For a difference of:  $2.85/day. So for a full year that would be a difference of $1040.25. Interestingly enough, electric cost here is going to drop from 11 cents per Kwh to 10 cents per Kwh soon when we change from summer to non-summer rates. So I won't have to watch the fuel costs because it's really already determined and stable.

Well, at least until I get solar panels but that's a different post.

Again, happy Plug in Day America. I enjoyed mine did you enjoy yours?

Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience.

Range Anxiety...or not

Oooga booga... rrraannge annxiety...aiigh, please don't scare me.

'Range anxiety' is the term created to imply that ownership of a vehicle and the very nature of the vehicle will cause the driver concern about being stranded an unable to arrive at his/her destination. The only time I have ever encountered this term is in a negative connotation where the thrust of the comments were driven (pardon pun) to maximize the fact that an EV has limited range. 

So let's borrow Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine and with my trusty boy Sherman at my side we will travel back in time to 2004. 2004, a time when gasoline vehicles roamed the prairies. I was driving westbound on I-70 just west of St. Louis in a 2002 Saturn SL when suddenly my low fuel light brightly illuminated the interior of my car. Despite the presence of my sleeping family I recklessly disregarded the illuminated warning and proceeded briskly down the unending ribbon of asphalt. Five miles. Ten miles. Twenty miles past the last gas station. Ever closer to the brink of despair as each drop of precious gas exploded into a miniature fireball and a noxious cloud of vapor propelled the car further into the heart of misery (pun intended). 

This is range anxiety at its finest. I truly began to be worried that I wouldn't make it to Columbia, MO where I knew there was a QuickTrip with that precious liquid to continue on our way home. I intentionally continued past a point where a reasonable person would say "Don't you think you're pushing it?". I went about 80 miles on 2 gallons of gasoline. As I got closer to Columbia I was truly concerned that I would be stranded on the interstate with my family and no cell phone.

Now to return to the present. I intentionally purchased a vehicle that has the following:

1. Limited range

2. Extended time to "refuel"

3. A limited number of possible locations to "refuel"

So based on the previous experience I should have a flaming case of 'range anxiety'. But I don't . Everyone has experienced the low fuel light and a low checking account light at the same time and continued to drive hoping the car makes it until payday. After a while you know how far you can drive. With my Saturn and my last job I knew that if the fuel light came on when I left the office that I could safely make it home and to the office and then back home again without worrying. With my current job and my old Escort I knew that if the fuel light came on that I was good for 2 full days.

Now with an all electric vehicle I live in the world of 'your fuel light is on' but it's always on. I really only have to worry when not only the Low Battery warning is sounded but there is also a Very Low Battery warning and that is followed by Turtle. I know that I'm only going to be a limited distance from the house so I know that it won't be a problem to get home. I also now have 3 months experience with the car and I know exactly how accurate/inaccurate the GOM is. Have I used range applications on my smartphone to check if I can go a measured distance on the available charge? Yes. Have I been concerned that an extra trip would deplete the battery? Yes. Have I done it more than once? Yes. Will I do it again in the future? You betcha. It's kinda fun in a twisted sort of way. Almost every day you can see someone on the side of the road because they ran out of fuel. So far I haven't seen a single electric vehicle stuck for lack of fuel.

The bottom line is that all cars have limited capacity to get you from point A to point B, C, D.... The fact that my Leaf lives in the short range is not a flaw in the vehicle it is simply one aspect of a car and an aspect I am willing to accept to free myself from the shackles of imported oil and environmental pollution.

When you get right down to it, learning the in's and out's of an electric car is fun. Right now everyone knows how to drive an internal combustion powered car. Everyone knows 'turn key, press pedal'. The opportunity to learn something new and play with a car is a lot of fun and in a future post I'll be discussing the 'video game' aspect of owning a Leaf.

'Range Anxiety' is a myth. There is only anxiety when you don't think about what you're doing and when dealing with heavy, fast moving vehicles you should always be thinking. I will leave you with this dirty little secret that is never mentioned by anyone on either side of the 'range anxiety' debate. Nissan Leaf's include at least 3 years of roadside assistance that includes towing your vehicle to the nearest charging station or the dealer. It's still embarrassing to run out of juice (I guess) but there is no anxiety as you know you're not stranded.

Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
-------------
Try reading a book, it's a novel experience.

<<EDIT>>
So it was interesting this afternoon. On the way to pick the kid up at school what should I see stranded in the middle of the road? Yes, a Jeep had run out of gas two blocks past a BP station and half a mile from a Phillips station. I bet he had some range anxiety building until that last second when the car refused to run.