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.