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Friends, Neighbors, Countrypeople,

Exercise your constitutional rights and vote today!  No matter your political persuasion be proud we live in a country where we're asked for our opinion from time to time.  Peace and Goodwill to all today...

What the dealerships DO tell you

The dealerships, in selling these electric vehicles, will talk up several things, including:

• the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electric vehicle;
• the free or nearly free electrician who will come to your house to hook up the faster charging system

Both of these things are true - and are good selling points.

What I was unprepared for is the extent to which your privacy is compromised because of the newness of the technology and the research going on in this and other countries around the electrical usage.  You must give up certain amounts of your privacy in order to obtain some of these goodies.

The dealerships will give you the link to this site which is where you begin your journey into the EV world.  Here you will sign up to see if you qualify for the ecotality project to put a charging station into your home.  If you qualify (that depends on the state of your home, evidently) an electrician will set up a time to come look at your site, check your electrical connections, ask you questions about your wi-fi capabilities, then schedule a time for someone to come out and install a charging system.  If they need to do some extraordinary amount of work, they can charge you extra for the extra work, but I understand it is a nominal charge.  I was lucky and they didn't charge me anything extra.  They will install what is known as a Level 2 charging station - 220v that can take 4-6 hours to recharge your battery, instead of 8-12 hours using a trickle charger.

There is something known as DC Fast Charging (440v) but you cannot install this in your home.  This charges your battery in minutes, not hours.  You can find these chargers around Portland and on I-5.  I haven't used one yet, so I don't know much about them.

My charger was installed about two weeks after I got my car.  I've used it twice, and it's never taken longer than 3 hours to charge my batteries.

Leaf, continued

Alright, with Pearl as my inspiration photo, I am going to explain some things that my dealership didn't tell me.

First, your energy sources.  These cars come with a charging system called "Trickle" charging - you can plug it into your 120v outlet in your house.  Of course, it's called "Trickle" because it takes awhile to charge using 120v.  The preferred method of charging is to install what is known as "Normal" charging - a 220v system.  That takes an electrician to hook up your house with a 220v system.

We had read about all the different charging stations around Portland on the internet and on our first day owning this car, David and I came up with a plan to drive to Lloyd Center, plug in the car to charge at one of their 220v stations, then we would shop and see a movie.  By the time we exited, our car would be recharged and voila!  we wouldn't have to do the trickle charge for hours at a time.

So, we drove to Lloyd Center, found the EV stations on the Northeast corner, top deck of the parking structure, pulled into one, took out the plug-in and stuck it into our car.  Nothing happened.  We looked at the charging station and read the instructions - we couldn't charge up without a card, even though the charge was free.

Lesson #1:  the EV charging stations are not uniform for these cars, yet.  Sometimes, you must get a card to access all the publicly advertised stations.

So, no problem, we took home the car and figured out the trickle charging system.  As long as you have all night to charge, this works fine.  And, btw, there is a 100 mile range on these cars - although some people report it's only 80 and some report closer to 110.  Well, I've never gotten it below 20, so I don't know how far Pearl will take me, but I know that I don't drive all that much (mostly to work and back, to the grocery store and back) so I'm not that worried.

I bought a Leaf....

It's a 100% electric car - no gas engine.  First things first.  I LOVE MY CAR!!  It is awesome - I've never had a car this luxurious before.  It has a backup camera that also shows me how to parallel park if I need it.  It has seat warmers and a steering wheel warmer (not sure I will use either, but ok!).  It has GPS and maps so I can find addresses whenever I'm driving around hunting for something.  But here's what I like most:  I don't go to the filling station anymore.  No oil.  No gas. 

And she's pretty.  Her name is Pearl.  And so far I enjoy everything about her - from her pick up and go, to her quietness (I read a review somewhere that complained that these cars had a high speed whine sound....really?  I don't hear it - maybe I'm old and deaf, but compared to my gas engine Toyota, this thing is dead silent).

There's a lot of things the dealerships don't tell you about these cars, so I thought I would fill in the blanks for anybody interested in buying one of these cars.  I'll post a few posts today with what I've learned - if anybody has questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do what I can to answer. 

Finally, my friend Beth turned me on to this car - and she has been a wealth of knowledge to me.  If what I post is helpful to others, great! But I must give credit where credit is due.  My friend Beth - who steered me toward my first job at OHSU and 15 years later I am still there - has been my inspiration and greatest help in buying this car.  I trust Beth because she is sensible and scientific (she hasn't been in research at OHSU all these years for nothing).  If Beth says it is so, you can trust that.

I also want to keep the momentum up to keep this technology moving forward - different ways to move around are good - it's not good to be stuck on one technology to the exclusion of progress in other sectors.  More about those thoughts, later. 

A Bench for Omaha

Hi folks - how about a bench for our park? Here's a rustic bench design that we can have for free. We would put this out in the parkway for the summer and evaluate how it is in Fall.

Any thoughts?