Tag Archives: Cars

Chevy Bolt. Tesla Killer?

The Chevrolet 2017 Bolt EV

2017 Chevrolet Bolt

From what I’ve seen of the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt it is an impressive car.

A price tag of less than $30k  after tax breaks, 200 plus miles of range. Fold flat seats, lot’s of safety features and a rear view mirror that doubles as a rear view monitor. What’s not to like?

 

But will it kill the elusive not yet produced Tesla 3 as many predict? I doubt it. Contrary to popular belief, range isn’t everything.

What Tesla has that Chevrolet, and every other EV manufacturer doesn’t, are the following:

  • Supercharger Network.
  • Direct Sales
  • Their only cars are EV’s

Why is that important?

You can have a 200 mile range but if you don’t have anyplace to charge the car at a reasonable cost, and in a reasonable amount of time, the only thing that 200 mile range does is let you get farther from home before you have to stop for the night to recharge.

Most franchise dealers either don’t want to or don’t know how to sell an all electric vehicle. If you don’t walk into a car dealer asking to drive or buy an EV they won’t even tell you they have one. Try walking into a dealer some day and tell them you’re looking for something that 99% of the time all you do is drive to work and back and usually less than 70 miles a day and see what they tell you to buy.

What it will do, make Tesla up their game on standard equipment. The Tesla 3 won’t be able to sell less car than Chevrolet. But neither will any other EV manufacturer.

But, that brings me to another question. How many and in what States will Chevrolet actually make the car available? Do they really want to sell this car? Is it just another compliance car?

While California residents will probably buy the majority of Bolts, it will put Nissan on notice. The Nissan Leaf is getting old. Even with the new 110 mile battery it’s still like a 4 year old iPhone for the price of a new one.

The Ford Focus EV is still the best buy in my book and with an improved range of 100 plus miles and DC Charging will make it as useful as the Bolt and if it keeps it’s $30k price tag with all the standard equipment it has now it’s a far better deal than any other EV out there.

My favorite pricy EV’s are still the VW Golf SEL, Kia Soul EV and Mercedes B Class. They are going to have to make the interior of the Bolt really nice to compete in that market. Even VW had to unload a bunch of SL Models for $99 a month for 3 years last December. Stripped down models don’t sell well anymore.  The Leaf S is like buying a flip phone at a smartphone price.

I see some real deals in the near future on other EV’s when the Bolt comes out. If like most people, 80 miles of range works for you, like it does for me.  A similar featured compliance car like the Focus at $20k after Tax Rebate will be the better deal.

The biggest problem GM will have is that EV buyers usually know what they need and know how to do the math. And how many EV buyers “want” a Chevrolet? Lot’s of them want a Tesla. I know I do. They just haven’t made one that makes economic sense for the average person.

What it might do is help them sell more Volts. A car that is similarly priced, has suitable EV range for 99% of the time and can drive cross country once every few years to visit grandma.

 

The 2016 V.W. e-Golf, my opinion.

This weekend my wife wanted to go to Los Angeles for the weekend. While we did the Star Tour and some of the tourist type things, one of the reasons for me to go was to drive a couple of EV’s.

Living in Arizona and not a C.A.R.B. State I can’t just go down to the local dealer and test drive any EV. Even the EV’s like the Focus and Benz really don’t ship many cars to non CARB States.

So here is my take on the e-Golf. It’s a really nice car. It drives like a Golf. Nice tight handling, nice ride and quite. It has a very tight turning radius. There is no torque steer like the Focus or Rav4 EV.

You can find the main differences on the V.W. website but here are the main ones.

SE. Cloth seats, no nav and slow charging (3.6kW) even on level 2 and no DC charging.

None of these things would stop me from buying the $7k cheaper vehicle if the only places I needed to charge was work or home. If you don’t need to add range quickly and the 70-80 miles of range is all you need then go of it.

With one exception, and for me it’s a big exception. It doesn’t have cruise control.  If you want to get the best range out of car then a cruise control is the best way to get it.

A few other things it missing besides the luxury upgrades. There are no steering wheel controls at all. No phone or radio controls at all.

I does interface with Apple Car Play and Google ver nicely. So there really is no need for the onboard navigation or any of the other proprietary radio garbage of most automakers.

If my choice was a Nissan Leaf S or the e-Golf SE I think I would choose the e-Golf. If I could buy a Leaf SV or SL vs the e-Golf SEL, I would buy the e-Golf SEL.

I still think the Ford Focus EV is still the best value out there for what you get but it does have its drawbacks.

If you are in the market for an EV and live in a State or near a State where the e-Golf is sold it’s definitely worth checking one out. I think you will like it.

It has plenty of room for a 6 footer in the front seats. A couple of kids in the back or an adult or two for a short ride to get lunch.

If you also want a peppy little car to zip around in that fits in some tight spaces and can cram a bunch of cargo in the back with the seats down this car might be for you.

When will car makers get serious about EV’s? Can Electric Companies Help?

There is a big promise by car makers being told, or should I say, sold.What is it? That the next generation or EV cars will get 200 miles or more of range and be sold for about $35k.

That only solves half the problem.

What good is a 200 mile battery when your useful range is really only 80 miles?

Why do I say only 80 miles? Because if you don’t have a place to charge where you are going then you have to turn around when you hit half you range.

But isn’t 100 miles half your range? No, not really. You can never count on 100% of your battery potential. There are several things that can change that. Going up hill, going over 65, and don’t  forget what temperature extremes can do to range. Then you have things like detours, construction delays and traffic.

Another problem that is brought up all the time is, how will people who live in cities or apartments who don’t have access to Level2 Charging be able to own EV’s. This is one reason GM and others aren’t looking past hybrids.

This is where Tesla has started to solve that problem. The Supercharger network. They have put chargers where people can go 200 miles or so and stop for 20-30 minutes and then keep going. Not going back home. These chargers are spaced across the Country so people can actually drive coast to coast or border to border. Not just to work and back.

They also have what they call destination chargers. They give chargers to hotels and some businesses where people might spend the night or stop for a while. Level2 Chargers but still, people will bring there Tesla’s there before they use other like businesses. Nothing like having people who can spend 100k plus on a car wanting to spend money at your business.

If the other cars companies aren’t willing to put in DC Charging in strategic locations, that 200 mile battery will still pretty much be an around town errand car, and not the once in a while drive to grandma’s or Disney Land for vacation.

I can do most of my daily driving and just recharge on 110v power. If I used my 75 mile range every day before i got home I would have to use Level2 charging to refill to capacity by the next day. Double the capacity of my battery and Level2 would be the minimum needed, not the exception.

Get enough 200 mile range cars out there and actual commercial charging stations could become financially viable. More so than hydrogen. Hydrogen stations are expensive. Yes, you might be able to fill up in 10 minutes or less but is that really what businesses want. There is a reason that Walgreens says it’s going to be at least 20 minutes to fill your prescription, even if all they have to do is grab a bottle and print a label. The longer you have to wait the more likely you are to buy something you don’t really need. Marginal Revenue.

QuickTrip and CircleK want to sell you food and Big Gulps. Candy, pizza and cigarettes. They probably make as much on a Hot Dog as a tank of gas.

Get enough EV’s out there with QC capability and that 20 minutes to fill up might just be perfect for Costco, Target or Whole Foods to colocate with Charging stations. Think of all the places people spend 20 minutes a day or two a week.

Those truck/rest stop restaurants might not be as filthy if more people actually spent 20 minutes filling up while they get a burger or a slice while on a cross country trip.

Instead of Electric Companies worrying about losing all their business to solar panels maybe they should start thinking ahead and getting the wiring in place for a few DC Charge stations. That way when the scales get tipped they are the new oil companies. Out with the old and in with the really old. Edison and GE predate Standard Oil.

I find it odd that electric companies will provide incentives to buy LED light bulbs and Energy Star fridges and AC units yet they have problems with people putting up solar panels. They preach conservation yet when it comes to the ultimate conservation they cry foul.

If you want people to buy more electricity then imagine a kilowatt sold per 4 miles driven. Do you know how much Americans drive? That’s about 10kW a day. Based on a 40 mile average. About 2600 kW a year. or about $364 a year at 14 cents per kWh. Multiply that $354 by 200 million and imagine how much that would add to the bottom line of the Electric Companies.

And most people consume that power during the day but fill up at night. Win, win. Add 200 mile batteries to the mix and all those solar panels will provide the peak demand the cars who can’t fill up at night need.

If I were the CEO of an Electric Company I’d be getting solar panels on peoples roofs now and building out the infrastructure to get ready to charge all those cars.

You might even want to give as much of an incentive to buy an electric car as you do to upgrade to a higher SEER AC unit.

You can help start the next great change in technology. Look at what Cellphone companies did to land lines. Look at how the internet is hitting TV and Newspapers.

You can be on the forefront by providing the infrastructure and shifting income from Oil Companies to Electric Companies. I’m still surprised you guys haven’t cashed in on internet services. You do have a wire going in to almost every house.

Why sell power to the refineries when you can cut out the middle man.

California, Arizona and Nevada. Lead the way.

 

 

Why a Tesla Should be your next car?

I was asked why I think a Tesla would be the EV to buy?

As many of you who have read my blog know I have a Ford Focus EV. I bought the Ford because it was the best overall EV for the price.

Yet it has it’s drawbacks. There isn’t a single Ford with a battery in it that was designed to have a battery in it. If you want either the Focus Electric or one of their PHEV’s, the battery takes up cargo space. In the Focus it takes up a lot of cargo space.

 

Ford Focus EV Cargo

 

 

The car also has a much wider turning radius than the ICE model Focus. You can’t make a u-turn on a normal two lane city street. You have to make a 3 point turn. Other than that it’s pretty much identical to the gas powered Focus with the SEL Trim Package. It has a real world range of about 75 miles.

Then you have the Mercedes B-Class EV. It’s a really nice looking car. Lots of room behind the back seats and the back seats fold down flat to create even more cargo space if needed. There is no battery in the way.

Mercedes B-Class EV Cargo Bay with Seats Flat.

 

This is a really a nice luxury EV that is not far off that $35k mark after the tax breaks. It has a pretty good real world range of about 85 miles. They actually designed the B-Class with using a battery for an energy source to begin with. Like the Tesla, the batteries lay flat under the cabin.

But then they go and screw things up by taking what is a really nice radar cruise control system and change the function of it. A radar cruise control should  keep your distance from the car in front of you and com to a complete stop if the car in front of you does. Instead if you start closing on the car in front to fast it applies the regenerative brakes so you don’t waste opportunity to recharge the battery by slowing down to quickly. That sounds like a great idea, right? Where they go wrong is now it won’t stop the car anymore if you are going to hit the car in front of you. I don’t know about you but I would much rather have a safer car than get that extra 2 or 3 miles from the regenerative brake system during a full charge.

There are also a few more compromises because while they did design this car with the batteries out of the way, they also designed it so they could use any of their powertrains. In Europe it is sold with both gas and diesel engines and they might also develop a fuel cell version.

The V.W. eGolf suffers from the same issues. While it accommodates the batteries without intrusion it doesn’t really have all the computer software and indicators that you want to see in a pure electric car.

This is where the Kia Soul EV actually has done a lot better job. But, yes their is a but. They take out the power seats. The top trim level has manual seats and very few of the new safety features available on most car today.

What all the companies out there have in common is that they compromise they EV’s to allow for different powertrains be they hybrid, Gas or Diesel. They are not betting the farm so to speak or going all in on Electric. Tesla is.

There is one automaker that has bet a lot on the EV, Nissan. Yet they have also made compromises. Unlike Tesla they decided that they would try to design an affordable EV from day one. It was really anything but affordable in the beginning and didn’t really get much traction until they offered the car at a sub $200 a month lease rate. Something that is starting to hurt them now as many people reach the end of their leases.

Nissan also suffers from the car being pretty ugly, fairly modest if not downright utilitarian as well as having bumps in the cargo bay.

Just like when the Prius started out you really had to want to be an early adopter.  I do find it interesting that now that the Prius has been on the market now for 15 years and within the last 3-5 years all of a sudden all the other car makers are coming out with some version of a hybrid car. And a handful after the slight and I say slight success of the Chevy Volt are now experimenting with Plugin In Hybrid cars. Most of the EV’s out there today are still nothing but compliance cars. Cars that allow them to keep making Internal Combustion Engine (I.C.E.) cars.

On the other hand you have Tesla. They first proved the concept with the Tesla Roadster. They proved a car could go 200 miles on a single charge and be fun to drive.

Their next car was the Tesla S. A car that was designed from a clean sheet of paper. No hedging their bets by having an ICE version. While it’s not a car for the mass market it is arguably one of the most successful cars in it’s price range. It’s also a car that is in the top safety, speed and has the most satisfied buyers of any car out there.

After the S we now have the X, the next car in the evolution. Also a very expensive car. Yet it does more than any other car in it’s class. I’m not sure there is any other car in it’s class.

But here are the reasons I really think Tesla is going to be the first to the really affordable car that everybody will want to buy.

They are now hard at work building the Tesla 3. A car that may have a 200 mile range. Seat 4-5. Actually carry some cargo much like the Mercedes B-Class or VW eGolf.

It will hands down have the least compromises with the greatest utility and look good doing it.

They will also have access to the Tesla Supercharger network. This is no small amenity. Even if GM or BMW builds a 200 mile car those batteries aren’t going to charge overnight in the average persons garage. Today an average pure EV battery is in the 24kWh range. With a 220 charger that takes about 5-8 hours. With a 110 it takes 15-20 hours.

Now double or triple the size of the battery and you need to double or triple the time it takes to charge. The only company that has the infrastructure in place to take advantage of a battery that size is Tesla. The only company that will allow you to take that car cross country is Tesla.

And while the eGolf or the B-Class Mercedes have enough range and luxury for most people and will also sell in that 35k price range they probably won’t be as desirable.

Many of you may have noticed I haven’t mentioned the BMW i3 yet. BMW did design the i3 from the ground up with the EV powertrain from day one. Yet they still have hedged their bet by offering a gas engine to extend the range. It’s either a work of art or really ugly. It’s really small and is really a two door car. And like every other BMW there is a big jump in price from the base model to the one that has all they toys you really want. For about the same price I would rather own the Mercedes B Class.

I don’t want a car that screams look at me. If I did I’d buy a Mustang or Corvette.

I don’t want a hybrid. They no longer get you in the HOV lane and are more utilitarian to drive than fun. Yeah, they get 40-50 MPG but the Mazda 6 gets 40 MPG on the highway and doesn’t suffer from being boring. Actually if you drive a lot on the highway hybrids might do worse than a Mazda 6. I know my Prius V does worse on highway trips. And around the city that extra 12 mpg isn’t really worth $10k more for the car.

I don’t want a plug in hybrid because the whole reason for an electric car is to eliminate waste and pollution. I don’t want a muffler, pistons and a fuel tank. I like never having to go to a gas station unless I have to stop and pee or need a 64 ounce drink.

And I really don’t want a Chevy Bolt. Smart Car or iMev. These cars are jokes. They aren’t even cute. To me they scream Bill Nye the science guy or Ed Begley Jr. They might be nice guys and I applaud their efforts to reduce pollution but, these are not two guys who inspire confidence or success.

There are a couple other things that make me think Tesla might just have what it takes to compete long term.

The evolution of Tesla is very much like the evolution of the Cell Phone. The supercharger network is very much like the evolution of the cell phone network by design. And the Tesla philosophy is very much like that of Apple and the iPhone.

I think every other car maker is going to be like all the other manufacturers who make Android Phones. Except they won’t have a cohesive infrastructure to support them. If they are going to rely on others to set up their charging networks they will fail. The average EV user, rarely if ever, charges anywhere but home or work and mostly at home.

That’s because the average driver rarely ever drives more than 50 miles a day. Only once in a while do they ever take that road trip everybody talks about that you need a 200-300 mile range.

And most smart people either fly or rent a car when going really long distances. If you breakdown in a rental you call the company and get a new car.

Rental companies make their money on people who rent cars locally. The people they know are only going to drive less than 50 miles in a day. You know, like the person who should really be driving an electric car. The person like you or me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does D.C. Quick Charging Matter.

For me and many others the answer is no. For some absolutely. But very few. If you need DC Quick Charging you should think twice about buying electric.

There are several different rates of charge out there for EV cars and Plug-in Hybrids.

This is the rate at which when plugged in the battery will replenish it’s charge or refuel so to speak.

If you own a gas burning car you probably never thought about this. You pull up to a pump and in 5-10 minutes you are on your way with a full tank of gas. If you have a 10 gallon gas tank like my Prius it might take longer to swipe your credit card and get approval before the pump turns on.

If you drive an SUV with a 30 gallon tank It may take 3-5 minutes. The maximum rate at which fuel may be dispensed in the USA is 10 gallons per minute. Costco claims that they change their fuel filters when the flow rate falls below 8 gallons per minute.

So now let’s transfer some of this knowledge to EV’s. A pure BEV (battery electric vehicle) has a 24 kWh (kilowatt hour) battery or that’s how big it’s “fuel” tank is. The fuel being electricity.

Most BEV’s today with the exception of the Tesla and Toyota RAV4 EV have batteries that size or smaller.

The capacity of the chargers in BEV’s and Plug In Hybrid EV’s  start at 3.3 kilowatts, which is the norm for 2011 and 2012 Nissan Leafs, later base-model Leafs, and all 2011 thru 2015 Chevy Volts.

Later model year Leafs above the base model increased that rate to 6.6 kilowatts, and the 2016 Chevy Volt is up to 3.6 kilowatts, which, GM says, is enough to recharge its 18.4 kWh battery overnight using a standard 120V home outlet.

Now it’s still a bit more complicated. The speed at which your car can accept the electricity is not the same at which the outlet and charger can deliver it. Many of you already know this if you have tried to charge an iPad with an iPhone charger. If you use an iPhone charger on an iPad it could take more than twice as long to charge it. The charger actually converts the AC current from the wall socket to DC current that the battery needs. The iPad charger does it at a greater rate. And so the same thing with the onboard charger that comes with most EV’s.

Then there are the charging cords and “The Brick” that come with the EV. The Ford, Leaf and Chevrolet come with 110v chargers that plug in to your standard 15 AMP wall socket. Using this charger can can take almost 18 hours to recharge a car that has about a 10% charge left.

If you are like many Nissan owners you probably sent your charger in to a company to have it upgraded to handle a 220v connection on a 30 AMP outlet like your dryer runs on. I did.

But it still doesn’t charge as fast as if you are plugged into a 40AMP dedicated outlet with a EVSE Charger made to handle the higher electrical load. What can take the 110 charger 18 hours can be done by the 30AMP charger is 9 hours and the 40AMP charger is 5 or less hours. As long as you have a 6.6kW converter on your car.

The 110 charger works for me 80% of the time. I actually didn’t use anything but that charger for the first 5 months I owned my car.

Now I use my 220v charger more often because I am using more miles per day. When I drive 70 or so miles a day it goes on the 220v. It also goes on that to get the lowest price electricity in the shortest amount of time.

I also have a house with my own garage. If you have to fill up at work or at public chargers you probably want the highest capacity charge connection available. There are DC chargers out there where if your car is capable you can charge your battery up to 80% in less than 30 minutes. The problem is these chargers are few and far between and many aren’t well maintained. I don’t think a person with a 24kWh battery is going to need one.

If you have a Tesla or large battery like most car makers are saying they will have in the future then you at least need the highest capacity charger and EVSE you can get your hands on.

Like airlines you need to choose a car that has the right range and battery capacity to do the route that you are going to use it on. Batteries are not just costly but heavy. Carrying around extra costs in range and dollars.

Most people will not charge on the road. They will charge at home, work or both. If you drive over 80 miles a day and can’t afford a Tesla the DC Quick Charge probably won’t be your answer. A car like a Volt will be.

A BEV with a 80 mile average range like most out there today are really urban commuter vehicles. They are not road trip cars and never will be Quick Charge or not. At highway speeds they get about 1 hour at full charge, not 80% charge. At 80% you’d be stopping every 40-45 minutes if there were chargers that close together. Then another 30 minutes filling up. Who has that kind of patience. On the other hand like a Tesla with about a 200 mile range at 80% and a 30 minute break every 3-4 hours on a road trip that makes sense.

If you live or work where you can’t charge at all don’t buy a BEV. If you can charge at home, work or both get the highest capacity converter on the car you want. Then if you need or occasionally need a relatively quick 5-9 hour charge  get a 220v EVSE charging cord for when you need it.

If you want to drive BEV as often as possible but can only charge at 110v get a Plugin Hybrid like a Volt.

In the next year or two when the carmakers introduce 200 mile 40plus kWh batteries your going to not only want but need the largest capacity electrical connections you can get to take advantage of the large battery capacity they will have. What good is a 100 gallon tank if the pump only delivers 1 gallon per hour.

And speaking of only pumping one gallon per hour. That’s actually pretty good for electricity.

My Ford has a 96 eMPG. If it takes about 5 hours to fill my battery at the fastest charge rate that means at it’s fastest charge rate I’m only pumping 1 gallons worth of electricity in 5 hours. The gas version of my car would need about 3 gallons of gas to go the same distance.

That’s why I fill up every day instead of every 3 or 4 days. But since I’m using electricity and filling up at home my electricity is equal to $1 a gallon gas.

If you own a Tesla most of this advice goes out the door. You have a big battery with the onboard capacity to charge quickly. The only limitation is your home electrical system.

Tesla X Falcon Wing Doors, Gimmick or Great Idea?

Maybe a bit of both?

Yes, you can put your baby in a car seat without having to bend over.

Yes, you can get out of the car in a really tight parking space. Or can you?

Last time I drove a car I sat in the front seat. Unless your freakishly tall I’ll bet you did as well.

And the front doors on a Tesla X open the same way car doors have opened for years.

I see a little bit of BS with their example of getting wedged between two cars and implying that it doesn’t matter.

It might be easier than crawling through the lift gate on the tail but still not the answer they are implying it is.

Since I haven’t seen a X in person maybe I’m missing something but from all the videos I have seen I don’t think so.

 

What if everyone started using electric cars?

In the U.S.A., what would happen if everybody started driving electric cars?

About 9 million fewer barrels of oil would be used each day.
If you  have a car that gets 28MPG and drive it 10k miles per year, you would use just over 300 gallons of gas and produce 5.6k  pounds of CO2.
My Ford Focus Electric gets about 4 miles to a kWh. The worst coal produces 2.17 pounds of CO2 per kWh. So 10k miles per year produces 5.4k pounds of CO2.
So whats the big deal? Looks like a wash, right? No. It takes about 6kWh to distill one gallon of gas. So burning the coal to produce one gallon of gas produces about 13 pounds of CO2. Multiply that by 300 gallons of gas and you get another 3.9k of CO2 a year just making the 300 gallons of gas.
So by eliminating the gas engine and the process of refining oil into gas, you eliminate a duplication of effort and excess CO2 production.
You also eliminate the extra toxic pollution from burning gas, and the production of gas produces all kinds of toxic substances on top of the toxins burning coal produces.
Produce the electricity with natural gas and you get less CO2, but, there are  still many bad side effects in the production of natural gas. Fracking uses lots of clean water and turns it into toxic water.
Produce the electricity with solar or wind and get rid of all the by-products of combustion of fossil fuels. Then the only pollution is from making the solar panels or generators.
Lets also take a look at how gasoline gets to market.
Oil is extracted from the earth and transported long distances by ship or pipeline. By ship requires burning more fuel to move the oil over long distances.
Once the oil is refined, it gets put on a tanker or pipeline again, to get to it’s next destination. More fuel is burned for transportation. And all along the way there are many opportunities for leaks and spills. That doesn’t even include the potential leaks, spills and disasters at the point of extraction. The Gulf of Mexico, Exxon Valdez, waste from tar sands piling up on the south side of Chicago. The list goes on and on.
Most Americans have electricity in their home. Most Americans drive less than 50 miles per day. All they would need to do is plug in their cars at home each night like they plug in their Smartphones. You don’t need to add a huge new infrastructure like you would for hydrogen.
If every car in the USA were electric we would use 374 million less gallons of gas per day. That’s 811 million less pounds of CO2. Wait, we figured that the CO2 burned in gas was close to the same amount used to produce the electricity needed by burning coal. OK, that’s a wash.
But, if it takes 6kWh to produce 1 gallon of gas and 2.17 pounds of CO2 is produced per kWh then the amount of CO2 produced is actually 6 times 2.17 or 13 pounds of CO2 produced or 13 times 374 million gallons of gas. Thats 4,862,000,000 more pounds per year of CO2 than our hypothetical all EV Nation needs. That’s a massive difference.
What else could go along with that. No oil changes. No air filters. No spark plugs. Fewer brake pads. That’s just a few benefits. No pollution controls needed on an electric car. No emissions inspections. I’m sure you could find a few more.
So lets sum it up.
Air polution, less.
Water pollution, less.
Noise pollution, less.
Oil Spills, less.
Carbon Monoxide deaths, less.
Burn Victims, less.
Lower Hospital Costs.
Fewer wars? Probably not?
Where’s the down side? Fewer gas stations? High School kids can’t put sugar in the gas tank of their  ex-girlfriend?
Next year almost every carmaker has at least one if not more hybrids that can actually run on electric 90% of the time.
If you can afford a car that is partly or fully electric you should buy one.
It’s time to actually conserve the resources we have.
It’s time to stop polluting our air and water.
This is not a political issue anymore. It is a financial issue. It’s cheaper to burn coal to make electricity to drive a car than to make fuel to drive a car.
It’s cheaper to  drive an electric car than pay for hospital costs for people with diseases related to air pollution or water pollution.
If you want make solar panels and wind power the political issue, go for it. It is still 3 times the cost of coal if you don’t price in the pollution and medical costs caused by coal. We are maybe 3-5 years away from cost parity with coal.
We are probably 3-5 years away from your next car being electric as well.
Maybe it’s time for electric companies to embrace people putting solar on their roofs instead of fighting it. But that’s a subject for another post.

Mazda MX-5 ND or Tesla X?

With the release of the new Tesla X why a I writing about the lowly gas powered Mazda MX-5 also known as the Miata?

Well, today I attended a Ride and Drive that Mazda invited me to. I’m not sure how I got on the list but since I own a 1999 Miata and a Mazda 6 as well as having  owned a 2011 Miata the odds are pretty good I’m on a mailing list somewhere.

The event was not well attended. In the 2 days and 12 hours they had about 160 people according to a couple of the employees I asked. BMW gets almost 10 times that number at their Ride and Drive events.

That could be because BMW lets people drive all their cars. The MX-5 has a small but very loyal following.

But the reason I am writing this isn’t because I think the Miata is a great car. It is. What it isn’t is an Electric Car.

Since I have owned my Ford Focus Electric car I am pretty much spoiled. EV’s are a just more fun. If what you want is instant performance and a fun driving experience you really need to go out and test drive one of the many Electric Vehicles out there.

Not a Hybrid like the Prius or Honda Accord where the electric motor is an afterthought but a car where the electric motor is the primary source of power. One where the gas motor, if it has one charges the batteries and you get all that instant torque.

There are quite a few today and many being added in the near future.

While most of us mortals can’t afford a Tesla and it’s Insane Mode along with its insane price there are many EV’s now days for less than 30k and even lest than 25k after tax breaks.

Walk in to your Chevy Dealer and try the Volt. Don’t like Chevrolet. Ford has the C-Max and Fusion Energy as well as the all electric Focus.

BMW. The i8 and i3.

While Volkswagen might not be trustworthy with their diesel technology they do have the eGolf. Maybe they will release their hybrid Golf in the States soon now that they can’t sell their diesels.

In the next few years even with cheap gas people will learn that electric cars are fun. They have lower costs to maintain and 90% of the time you will never burn gas in the Extended Range models.

If you are in the market for a new car give one a try. If you are in the market for a used car many are now hitting the used market and at ver reasonable prices.

Don’t try one because they are the environmentally responsible option. Try one because they are fun. Lots of fun. So much fun I have a Mazda for sale. Maybe two.

My next car will be a Telsa 3, That is unless there is another car make that can make an electric car I really like. Something like a Mazda 6 even a eGolf with a 200 mile range with a 35k or less price tag. At that price I wouldn’t even need a tax break. Just those HOV Plates.

 

Don’t let that test drive in a Prius keep you from trying and Electric car.

There is a trend of Prius owners who are not buying a new Prius Hybrid when they are ready to sell their old car. Why?

Have you ever driven a Prius? I have. A brand new one at that. A 2015 Prius V with every available option on it.

O.K. It’s really not a bad car. It’s actually a really nice car. It’s very roomy, especially the back seats. Even with me driving (I’m 6 feet tall) with the seat all the way back the back seat passenger has plenty of leg room and the back seats partially recline. Something most cars cant do.

It gets an average or 38 MPG. Compared to my Mazda 6 that averages 30 MPG doing the same kind of driving. The Prius V also can carry more cargo. I can get 4 18x18x16 boxes in the back of the Prius with the back seats up. I can’t even get one box in the Mazda. The boxes are to tall to even get them in the opening. The Mazda will fit 3 golf bags. The Prius V is all about the cargo room. That’s why my mother bought it. That and she really likes Toyota’s, she’s had one for the last 15 years. A 2000 4Runner. It was a very reliable and a great SUV for all those years.

Back to the Prius. The back seats are way more comfortable than a Rav 4. That’s probably why so many Taxi Companies buy them.

It also has one feature I really love. Adaptive Cruise Control. This is a great feature for driving on the highway. Set the speed limit you want and it keeps you a safe distance from the car in front of you.

But, yes, there is a but. I enjoy driving the Prius about as much as I enjoy driving a forklift. Yeah, I have one of those. It’s also a Toyota. The Prius is an appliance. It does what it’s supposed to do. It gets you from point A to point B efficiently.

It’s not fun to drive. It’s not peppy when you accelerate. And it’s not as cool looking or as nice an interior as my mid trim level Mazda 6.Both have fake leather but the Mazda has more soft touch plastic surfaces.

While the Mazda is not really a fast car with only a 2.5L engine it is really fun to drive. The Mazda does 0-60 in about 8.9 seconds. The Prius will get up to 60 in your lifetime, It also sounds like it’s going to blow up if you floor the gas pedal. What it does do really well is sneak up on people. If you are a teenager or the Von Trop Family you can get it down the block without making a sound without having to push it. As long as you don’t go over 15 MPH.

For some reason Mazda is not well received by the public yet it is highly praised by the automotive press. I really enjoy my Mazda 6. They have exceptional gas milage with their Skyactive engines and are fun to drive. There’s a lot of the Miata DNA in all of them.

As for the Green Cred of the Prius. The difference between 30 MPG Mazda 6 and 37 MPG Prius V is only $188.00 per year if you drive 12,000 miles per year and gas costs $2.50 a gallon. And the Prius costs almost $10,000 more than the Mazda out the door with comparable features. If you drive lots of highway miles you’re probably better off with one of the many Diesels out there. I really like the VW Wagon if a diesel is what you need.

Are you confused yet? I started out by telling you don’t let driving a Prius turn you off from buying an electric car. That’s because out of my 5 cars I like my Ford Focus Electric the best out of all of them.

Why? I find it is the car I choose to use the most. Not just because it has the lowest cost per mile of all my cars. Not because it can fit 2 adults, 2 middle schoolers and both their back packs, trumpet and snare drum. And not because it looks pretty cool with it’s 20 inch wheels.

It’s quiet. Really quite. It has instant torque when you hit the “gas”.  It handles well and is really a pleasure to drive getting groceries, picking up the kids at school and driving to work and back. Especially during rush hour as it’s ZEV status gets you HOV lane access plates if you are by yourself which I am most of the time.

Even if I didn’t get HOV plates, it is the most fun to drive. It’s almost as much fun as my Miata.

So if you are looking at a second car, go rent an electric car. A Leaf S or Ford Focus Electric can be had for about $20k or so new after tax credits and even less used.

The only way to see if one of these will work with your lifestyle is to rent one or drive one for a week or so. One or two days is not enough to let you realize that you really don’t get range anxiety when you own one.

If you really need a car that can travel 300 or more miles once in a while look at a Chevy Volt or Ford Energy. These cars have a reasonable all electric range where most people will hardly ever have to put gas in the tank if at all.

And the part you will like most about a car that runs in electric mode all or most of the time, they are fun to drive.

The most fun to drive all electric car is a Tesla. But if you wait till the affordable Tesla comes out in the next few years you will miss all the fun you could be having now.

What a difference 3 years can make.

One of the great things about the web is it’s really easy to find media reports from years gone by. That is unless it was you doing something in the past you want to forget about or worse want to deny so you can get elected to public office.

In this case I’m talking about a couple of episodes of AutolineNetwork (Click here to watch it) on youtube. This one from 2012 is trying to explain why the Chevy Volt is such a big disappointment. One guy is from the Wall Street Journal, another from a Conservative Think Tank and another who was an engineer on the EV-1 project now turned auto journalist.

Two of the guys are totally dissing the Volt. The other two have driven it and say how much they love it. Their only real issue they have with it is the price.

The WSJ guy and the Think Tank Guy have nothing good to say because all they see are political reasons to not like it. They don’t believe that the government has any business giving rebates and subsidies to help it along. They don’t believe it would exist without CAFE rules or CARB regulations. And while I might agree with the latter the former is reasons are just plain selective amnesia.

How many things do we have today because the Government took an interest in something. The internet didn’t just pop up in the mind of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. The Interstate Highway System wasn’t the brain child of Ford or GM. The Cellular Network and even the TV Broadcasting Networks were only built because the Government gave certain Companies assurances of exclusive license to build those networks.

We have seat belts and more crashworthy cars because of Government intervention or that hated word regulation. Something that all of the guest somehow like. Maybe it’s not popular anymore to say your against saving lives. Yet they still rail against CAFE standards and CARB rules. It’s not popular to tell people they should drive cars that get good gas milage. Why?

There is another episode with Csaba Csere, the former Editor-in-Chief of Car & Driver magazine and Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics. In this episode they once again talk about how great the Volt is and the Tesla. When you boil it down their only objection is price. Yet by listening to them you would think GM and Tesla had adopted a Marxist Ideology doomed to fail only to fall to the one true economy. The really high horsepower ICE engine that gets 20MPG instead of 12MPG.

Now fast forward to just a couple of months ago. On this episode they have on one of the main engineers of the Gen 2 Chevy Volt. They don’t have a single bad thing to say about the car. You would think GM hit a home run. It has yet to sell but now the car guys are coming around. I have no doubts if they invite back the WSJ guy his only dislike will be the $7500 tax credit.

I have said it once before. The EV is going to follow the path of the cellphone. And oddly enough the company that invented the EV-1 only to scrap it back when we as a Country also scrapped solar panels (bad move) will be the company that actually made the car that starts mass adoption of Electric powered vehicles. Not Nissan or Tesla. Especially not Ford.

While Nissan has sold the most EV’s of any car maker it is still a niche player. You really have to accept some major limitations to drive a Leaf. Think Apple Watch Sport.

Tesla proved that if you spend enough money and make something nice enough you can find enough buyers to spark interest. Think Apple Watch Edition.

The Gen 2 Volt on the other hand can get 50 miles on a charge. That covers 90% of most suburban Americans. The car gan go 400 miles on a tank of regular gas. That cover the other 10%. The only obstacle is the car is a Chevy. One body style. One company with a past of making bad decisions. The Volt is not one of them.

Ford may get caught sleeping on this one. While they have several Hybrids and a couple of plugins they don’t really seem to be taking the market that seriously.

Even if you don’t buy an EV or a Range Extended Hybrid like the Volt there is something you can do to reduce our dependence on oil.

It’s something else that has been around since the 1970’s but the auto press and automakers  has taken this long to finally accept the reality and benefits. Synthetic Motor Oil. Go back over the years and you will find hundreds or articles on why synthetic oil was a waste or even detrimental to your cars health. Today with automakers having to get better gas milage and people owning cars longer and expecting more reliability from their cars those same automakers are putting synthetics in their higher priced cars at the factory.

They have finally been dragged into accepting reality. When you use synthetic motor oil your car gets better fuel economy, runs cooler, last longer and is actually cheaper since you can run it for up to a year in most cars.

Amsoil Signature Series Motor oil can be run for 25,000 miles or one year in many cars. To learn more about extended drain intervals and Amsoil click here.