It is full of some of my biggest pet peeves and I’m sharing it as a great example of what not to do.
My pet peeves experienced in this short video are as follows:
Speeders/reckless drivers – people who intentionally and regularly drive over the speed limit and/or tailgate others and use their vehicle as an intimidation tool. These people early have no regard for the safety of others or themselves and must be reported to the authorities ASAP.
Tailgaters – People who choose to drive inches off your back bumper endangering themselves, other passengers in their car, and everyone around them.
I am fully aware that many of these folks are just regular people who are late for school, work, a D&D game…whatever. To these people I offer up some advice: just leave earlier. It is just common sense.
Some tailgaters are just not aware they are doing it. Their minds are elsewhere – oblivious to what is going on around them. They may be distracted by their technology or someone else in the car, maybe they are putting on makeup or reading – yes, this is a thing! Yikes – driving is an activity that requires intense focus and awareness. If you fall into this category – then you should get some help or not be driving.
However, some of these folks are impatient, know-it-all-always-in-a-hurry-to-get-nowhere-fast types who believe they are the center of the cosmos, and totally invincible and/or more important than others. Here’s some reality – don’t be a dumbass and you are not in any way invincible or better than anyone else.
Some may be slick-suited business types in their high-end sports cars (gas and electric), and jacked-up toy trucks (see attached video) with over-inflated egos, expensive chips on their shoulders, and a desire to own the road and everything else. Grow up, back off, and have some respect oh, and BTW, you are not better or more important than anyone else – you are just another self-absorbed mostly naked bipedal ape with delusions of grandeur.
Some of these individuals may be speed junkies and/or “muscle car” drivers perpetually stuck in the Daytona 500 or some other race to get nowhere fast. Grow up and back off Speedracer – the road is not the track so go find a track and rent some time and drive as fast as you like.
Some may just be trying to read my bumper stickers – and if that is the case – maybe they need glasses and/or I need to remove the stickers.
And now for the not-so-regular people and their “reasons” for driving as they do.
It seems that some folks may not like my choice in vehicles or its fuel source and may even somehow be offended or somehow threatened* by my choices. Yes, oddly – this is a thing. But here’s another thing: I may not like their choice of vehicle or its fuel source and I may even be offended (with actual peer-reviewed evidence supporting my reasons to be offended) by their choices – but I’m not ever in any way going to endanger your life, my life, or the lives of others by driving like a total dumbass. I will, however, write about your lame vehicle choice and knuckle-dragging dumbass attitude in my blog. Yes, this is a free country but you are not free to freely endanger others with your dumbass attitude and garishly over-modified vehicle. Grow up and back off.
Due to piles of evidence such as the attached video as well as first-hand evidence I have observed on multiple occasions – I am mostly convinced that a significant portion of the people who aggressively drive inches off your back bumper do in fact drive trucks. Not everyday utilitarian-type farm, work, professional, or delivery trucks – but the stupidly huge, jacked-up, oversized, pickup trucks that have names like “Super,” “Power,” “Raptor” and/or “Cummings” etched/painted/wrapped in huge letters across their paint or windows – maybe as a way to either make their drivers feel somehow more special or powerful and/or to intimidate those around them. These tailgating trucks often come with high-intensity headlights and other oversized auxiliary lighting systems amounting to billions of waisted candlepower of “fog lights” on their light-encrusted roll bars – often all on “high beam” melting the paint off your car while their overly modified power-thrust-deep-throat-diesel engine growls so loud that it may soon suffer a rapid unscheduled disassembly – but not before it’s grossly oversized-must-be-compensating-for-something exhaust pipe vomits copious clouds of foul-smelling thick, black, toxically flatulent, particulate-rich, life-killing, effluent into the atmosphere we all share as they speed by you at 20 miles over the limit in a blind curve on a double yellow line in the fog at dawn or dusk while their driver is gesticulating visual and vocal profanities in your general direction when their hands should be on the wheel and eyes and brains should be on the roads…it is these tailgaters who really chap my hide – see attached video for a great representation of this kind of person. Oddly, these unusual vehicles may also include rather large representations of the testicles of a large bovine animal dangling low from their trailer hitch. What purpose do these bizarre items serve other than to somehow prop up the overly-inflated egos of the vehicle’s drivers?
Humorous and yet often accurately applicable over exaggerations aside – I am mostly convinced that these dangerously misdirected, toxically hormonal, most often young male, individuals driving these garishly loud, overly-modified, extra-large, toy pickup trucks are nothing more than the insecure, insult-spouting, pushing, and shoving red-faced little bullies from the elementary school lunch line/playground who have grown up physically but not in any way mentally. Is it possible that they have taken the big-wheeled plastic toy trucks (remember Bigfoot and Stompers?) they played with as a kid in the sandbox and have for some reason made them a reality? Did they do this because their fathers did it? Is it the only reality they know, understand, or choose to accept? Did they choose to stop learning when high school ended and refuse to learn anything more even when it is freely available to them? Are their tiny brains stuck in their tribally-locked past, mired up in the mud pit of the toxically competitive mentality of their youth but now so copiously soaked in testosterone that they have become a very dangerous drooling wild animal thing that sees everything in life as a personal attack on their manhood and/or competition for dominance over others. I do not know the answers but what I do know is these individuals are dangerous and should not be on the roads. Anyone who chooses to use their vehicle and emotions as a weapon is an endangerment to everyone around them.
Whoever you are and whatever the reason you feel the need to ride inches off my bumper remember this: I am driving the speed limit because I follow the rules. I am a safe driver. I care about the safety of others around me including your lame, hairy, knuckle-dragging, apelike, arse, and I left early so I’m enjoying my drive…well, I was until you started trying to drive your vehicle up my rear!
Tailgating for whatever your lame-ass reason makes the roads more dangerous for everyone and it makes you look like a childish, ignorant little bully.
Cars are people transporters for moving people around, and trucks are utility vehicles meant to be used for utilitarian reasons, they are not extensions of your manhood, political statements, weapons, or bully transporters. Sure, it is fine to personalize your vehicle – but do it and drive it in such a way that it is not attacking, insulting, frightening, or endangering other drivers.
Polluters/litterbugs – people that deliberately choose to litter our shared environment either because they do not care about the damage it causes and/or to “get their jollies.” This litter/pollution can take the form of deliberately/carelessly disposed of and/or intentionally distributed/vented garbage/refuse, waste, of a solid/liquid/gaseous or particulate nature (such as the bizarre practice of intentionally modifying a vehicle to pollute and/or bully others with “coal rolling” such as is shown in the attached video -and feel free to read my blog post about the times I have encountered this bizarre practice https://bluewaterleaf.wordpress.com/…/i-have-been-coal…/ ) – or a combination of all of these – onto the ground, into the water, or into our shared atmosphere. These individuals should be reported to the authorities asap – but be sure to have irrefutable evidence of their infraction because for some bizarre reason some of those who make and uphold the law choose to look the other way when it comes to polluters of the atmospheric variety.
Bullies. These are highly unstable, volatile, venomous, confrontational people who intentionally choose to belittle/insult/harass others in order to get their way and/or make themselves feel somehow more powerful/larger/more virile than they actually are. These individuals may be one of the following or a combination thereof:
Loudmouths: these are vocal/emotional bullies who use their voices filled with great volume often combined with many colorful metaphors – often accompanied by exaggerated representative gesticulations – to deliver loud and demeaning but totally empty threats and/or commands to those around them and/or to those who somehow threaten* their ephemeral positions of perceived power. These types of childlike, tantrum-tossing bullies are in fact, all bark and no bite and are usually not really very dangerous to you, but they do waste a great deal of their own energy in the process strutting around crowing like a rooster with a chip on their shoulder. In reality, they are just insecure and need to get some good therapy – or at the very least they should just go take a chill pill.
Physical bullies. These are the ones that take things over the line and into the zone of downright dirty, mean, and nasty often causing harm and sometimes death to those around them. They are like lit sticks of dynamite with very short fuses, always walking or driving around with a hair trigger that is very close to blowing up. These types are always looking for a fight and they feed on confrontation. They are truly dangerous and should be reported to the authorities asap.
Identifying factors of these unique individuals include but are not limited to:
They may wear business suits and ties, tank tops, Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts, camouflage, dresses, kilts, shorts, boots, shoes, flip flops, and stereotypically, excess leather and noisy/shiny/sharp accouterments such as chains, spurs, brass knuckles, – anything really – they can be anyone, camouflaged to look unthreatening – a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
They may have garish/threatening/tattoos (knives, skulls, wild animals, dragons in threatening poses, half-naked humans, etc) – or none at all.
They may frequently ingest large quantities of fatty, meaty, and processed foods, or be vegans.
They may ingest vast quantities of alcohol and may smoke tobacco products and/or “dip” and then litter the environment with empty cans/bottles, cigarette butts, and/or spit the effluent onto the ground or upon the shoe/property of a perceived rival…or they may not partake of any of these things.
They may hoard, fondle, and/or brandish weapons of many styles/descriptions…or they may not.
They may often drive large, petroleum distillate powered, overly modified, noisy, smelly, vehicles with large exhaust pipe orifices (and less often “rice burners” or electric/hybrid vehicles, motorcycles, and even bicycles) – oddly, these vehicles are often used in the attempt to make a personal or somehow even a political statement and/or in worse case scenarios – as a means to attack innocent drivers that are perceived as threats* to the bully (see attached video). Some may even intentionally park their large, smelly, expensive, noisy vehicles (and sometimes small cars) crooked in parking spaces and/or in the fueling stations of electric vehicles. (Read about many good examples of this unusual activity in my blog post: https://bluewaterleaf.wordpress.com/…/stuck-fast-in…/ )
They may have unusually large amounts of facial, head, and body hair…or be very well groomed, or have none at all.
They may be short, tall, thin, bulky – or somewhere in between.
They may have huge muscles, be beauty queens, or be “average looking.”
They may have many, a few, or zero body piercings.
They may wear hats – or not.
They may have pets – or not.
They may wave/wear/fly various flags, stickers, and insignia from their vehicles of choice, their homes, or even attached to a part of their clothes, that represent their chosen “tribal” affiliation(s) and/or toxic attitude…or they may not.
They may often loudly find fault with all other ways of life and living, places of origin, and personal life choices but their own.
They may often lay blame on everyone and everything but themselves and their predicament in life – even when the evidence is not in their favor.
They may be anyone.
Many if not most of these bizarre and self-destructive traits are exhibited by both of the drivers in this video. Yes, I said drivers with an s. While I do not condone the actions of the obvious bully in the video, I also do not support the actions of the other driver who was much too confrontational for my taste.
Therefore, IMHO this video offers many great examples of what not to do.
Grow up people.
Grow some respect.
Grow some consideration.
Don’t be a small-minded bully.
And if any of this enrages you – then maybe you are a bully and you should seriously consider getting some therapy and/or getting yourself castrated for the good of all the rest of us and everything moving forward.
Do only good things.
*possibly by their calm, quiet, unthreatening, self-assured, natures.
September 29th, 2020 was the one year anniversary of driving the Earthshine Nature Programs (ENP) Chevrolet Bolt EV – The “Mighty Bolt” as we lovingly call her – as our dedicated environmental outreach education and wildlife rescue vehicle.
Mighty Bolt meets young Eastern ratsnake.
3/31/21 Update: We continue to love our little Bolt EV and everything I noted in my earlier Bolt Report still holds true today. In the following video I go over all the things I like about the Bolt, a few of its odd points, and some of the modifications I have made to the vehicle to better fit our needs.
The Chevy Bolt Battery Recall: In the fall of 2020, 2017-2019 Bolt owners were notified by GM that their cars were under a recall. The issue was with the traction battery and apparently, a small number of Bolts had caught fire shortly after their batteries had been charged to 100%, driven a short distance, then parked. Chevy stated that in order to reduce the risk of battery failure/fire Bolt owners should only charge to 90% and/or take their cars to the dealership service department and have the battery limited to a 90% charge with a software patch. I did not opt for the software upgrade…or downgrade as it should have been called… since it intentionally limited the vehicles driving range. I just set my Bolt’s built-in “Hilltop Reserve” charge limiter to 90% and drove on. This situation was obviously concerning to me so for several months I rarely charged over 90% – just to be safe. Then, in March of 2021, I noticed via the MyChevrolet App that the recall had been rescinded for my specific vehicle’s VIN number. I called Chevrolet’s EV Concierge, they asked for my VIN number, and confirmed that yes, my Bolt was not one of the cars impacted by the recall issue. This was great news for sure. At least something went back to some kind of “normal” for 2021.
Since my previous blog post and the earlier video, I have also added a unique modification to the Mighty Bolt.
A 2″ receiver hitch.
Yes, that’s right – we are now able to pull small trailers with our Bolt.
We installed the hitch so we could tow our Sylvan Sport GO camper and it has worked perfectly. Fully loaded the camper weighs 1300 lbs. and the tongue weight on the back of the Bolt is only around 120lbs. – the little car can hardly tell the camper is back there. So far we have towed the GO all over western NC and even over the Smoky mountains into Tennessee – twice – without any issues at all.
While most of the trips are local – to and from work and visiting family in nearby towns – and a little bit longer with the GO – most are less than 200 miles before we return home and charge up over night. We have also taken our Bolt – sans GO – on a few long distance highway runs and it has performed admirably. On several occasions We have traveled to Chattanooga, TN, Murphy, NC, and Savannah, GA without any issue. This was possible due to the continuing build-out of the nation’s fast charging EVSE infrastructure as well a bit of route planning on our part.
Our camping set-up fully deployed with the Mighty Bolt EV charging from the campground RV plug
We truly love the Mighty Bolt EV!
Keep reading for some mighty cool “Mighty Bolt” fuel/charging stats from the first year of driving the ENP Mighty Bolt EV: Total miles driven: 14,356 That’s an average of: 1,196.33 miles per month. 299.08 miles per week. 42.72 miles per day.
Estimated Gallons of Hydrocarbon Fuel Saved: 613 Estimated CO2 Avoided: 12,153 lbs.
Fuel costs: For the 14,356 total miles traveled: $176.71 – or, $14.71 per month. $3.68 per week. $.52 per day.
So that breaks down to an average of $0.012 cents per mile for the Mighty Bolt’s electron fuel.
$0.01 cents per mile! I will let that sink in for a moment.
The math: 176.71(fuel cost)/14,356(miles driven) = .0123 (cost/mile)
Photo: Mighty Bolt meets Box turtle.
I have calculated that if ENP were still using a gasoline powered vehicle for our work, its fuel costs would have been around .13 cents per mile which would add up to around $1,800 for one year of use – and that is not including repairs, ”tune ups,” and maintenance costs! The ENP outreach EV is over 75% solar charged so its operational costs are lower than if it were to be charged only on grid power. Even if we had charged the Mighty Bolt EV on grid power alone it would have only increased our operational costs to: $433.017 – wow! Still a much better deal than anything powered by fossil fuels. The math: 4,330.17(kWh used to fuel EV) x .10(energy cost/kWh) = 433.017
Driving electric over the last year has given ENP an operational cost savings of over $1,600! No matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you have to burn – you must logically agree the choice is mighty clear: the Mighty Bolt EV is the best choice for ENP in getting from point A to point B!
A very revealing energy use chart for year one with the Mighty Bolt EV.
The Bolt truly is mighty. It is over 75% solar charged and therefore costs ENP only .01 cents/mile to drive, it has a very small environmental footprint, and it serves as a wonderful energy education teaching tool inspiring the next generation to think above and beyond the status quo.
The Mighty Bolt’s fuel station – the ENP classroom and office/Trails Science solar array!
SO COOL!
The ENP EV Motto: Drive electric to preserve nature, wildlife, and wild places. Drive electric for the health of you and your family. Drive electric for freedom from dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels. Drive electric for energy independence. Drive electric for a better future for all.
This EV is owned by ENP and is used primarily as the ENP company outreach vehicle. It is charged and fueled mostly with cleanly generated electricity provided by the ENP/Trails student-built classroom solar array. It also serves as an outstanding teaching tool for our Trails students, ENP outreach program participants, and everyone we meet.
SPECIAL THANKS to everyone who helped make the Mighty Bolt EV possible for ENP.
Darwinian Evolution is defined as: “descent with modification from preexisting species : cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leading to the appearance of new forms : the process by which new species or populations of living things develop from preexisting forms through successive generations” – From Merriam-Webster
In Automotive Evolution we might say the following: automotive technologies descend with modification and enhancement from earlier preexisting forms and technologies : cumulative inherited change of traits occur within a population of automobiles/automakers through time leading to the appearance of new and often more evolved/advanced automotive forms : the process by which new automotive systems and/or collections of systems – as dictated by necessity and/or markets – lead to novel and more advanced automotive systems and/or collections of systems developed from preexisting forms through successive generations often (but not always) leading to more superior technological adaptations : those forms and technologies deemed inferior by function/markets are quickly weeded out of the population by the process that drives both automotive and Darwinian evolution – Natural Selection. Those forms and technologies deemed superior and that perform at or above their design will survive and their technological traits will be passed down to future populations.
Recently, I made the EVolutionary choice and I EVolved my automotive system.
In late September 2019 I purchased a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt.
Yep. The days of the BlueWaterLeaf are over.
My trusty old 2012 LEAF “Elektra” served me well for a little over six years but due to her failing battery chemistry and resulting limited driving range of only around 45-50 miles – natural selection prevailed and I was forced to automotively EVolve.
Yesterday meets today.
The old LEAF found a new home with a wonderful couple in a nearby town. Since they only drive around 25 miles per day I believe it will serve them well for many years to come.
For my needs, I require a vehicle that will travel more than 50 miles per day and sometimes upwards of 200 miles at a time. I also needed a vehicle that I can afford to fuel, maintain, and pay for as a company vehicle. Now that we have EV’s I feel that it is not logical nor is it a good use of funds for a small nonprofit organization to pay large amounts of money for fossil fuel powered vehicles and their fuels. Essentially, using a fossil fuel powered vehicle for a nonprofit – or any business for that matter – is like lighting generously donated and/or hard earned money on fire, then tossing it out the window. It is not only a garish waste of funds but it also pollutes the environment – the very thing my organization is working so hard to protect, conserve, understand, and share.
So, after extensive research and planning, I decided to purchase a new 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV – Premier edition as a replacement outreach vehicle for my small, non profit organization Earthshine Nature Programs (501c3) – www.earthshinenature.com
I have owned the Bolt EV now for four months and during that time I have driven the little EV close to 6500 miles! It is a remarkable car that makes the old LEAF seem, well, – like ancient technology – or, in keeping with the EVolutionary theme – an earlier form of life.
The last solar charge for Elektra.
I really loved my LEAF but the primary reason I decided to go with a Chevrolet over another Nissan was mainly due to the ongoing terrible experience I had with Nissan HQ. Despite my detailed record keeping, sticking with the car’s dealer defined maintenance/warranty schedule, countless service visits/inquiries/emails/phone calls with Nissan HQ about my LEAF’s battery degradation issue, and even working tirelessly to promote the LEAF to many people online via this blog and in person via my nonprofit programming through EV education classes, and through the Blue Ridge Electric Vehicle Club at EV car shows during National Drive Electric week – all of these things lead up to many people I knew and many I did not who then purchased Nissan LEAF’s for themselves. Despite all this Nissan still refused to stand by their product and would not offer to replace my car’s degrading battery. Then, to make matters worse – just when I was about to consider the purchase of a new battery for my LEAF – Nissan raised the price by thousands of dollars as if trying to force owners of the first generation LEAF’s to upgrade to a newer car!
On top of all this madness, Nissan opted to forgo the implementation of an active battery management system that would extend the useful life of their EV batteries in favor of keeping the costs down so they could then sell more new LEAF’s using an out-dated technology while making a higher profit.
All these reasons pushed me over the edge so I decided that I was finished with Nissan and chose to look elsewhere. I looked at Tesla, Hyundai, Kia and then Chevrolet. Chevrolet already had several years of EV experience with the Volt and the Bolt’s technology was a few years old therefore giving them some time to weed out any major issues with the newer Bolt. Chevrolet also opted to go with a battery management system similar to Tesla’s that would keep the battery at the optimum operating temperature extending its driving range and its useful life. The bolt also has amazing driving range second only to Tesla (at the time) – at 238 it was a massive improvement over the old gen one LEAF which would only travel 73 miles before needing a charge. Another big deciding factor for me was the fact that at the time I was shopping there were some really nice end of model year deals on the Bolt so, for all these reasons, I chose the Bolt EV.
Taking ownership of the new “MIGHTY BOLT” from Walker Chevrolet in Franklin, Tennessee…interestingly enough only a few miles from where I purchased the Nissan Leaf in 2013.With the new Bolt at the Nissan HQ saying goodbye Nissan!
So far I love the little EV – although, it does have a few odd issues that need mentioning. These are issues that I believe need some real attention from Chevrolet – so let us get those out of the way first.
1: Ultra reflective dashboard deck. The windshield facing side of the dashboard (in my car) is light colored so it reflects sunlight onto the underside of the windshield making it almost impossible to drive without visual discomfort from the “flashing” reflections. This creates an unsafe and uncomfortable driving experience. During the test drive I did not notice this phenomenon – possibly due to the sun angle at the time – or I would have chosen a vehicle with a dark colored dashboard. To remedy the situation I purchased a custom fit charcoal black, non-reflective dash cover from Covercraft.com and the problem was solved.
2: Thin driver’s seat bottom cushion. I am a relatively thin person so the narrowness of the seats do not bother me as they do for some people. However, the thin cushion and adjacent plastic framework of the seat near the seat adjusting levers puts pressure on my left outer thigh region as I exit the vehicle. Over time this fact began to cause my left upper leg to ache. I fixed the issue with a simple pool noodle slipped over the plastic piece. It worked for me but GM should really work to remedy this problem as it may be a deal breaker for some buyers especially those who do not want a pool noodle flopping about in their new car.
This added pool noodle cushion ended all discomfort and is removable if need be.
3: Cargo space. For many people the Bolt will be perfect in size for town runs etc but I needed more carying capacity so I opted to install a roof basket.
This allows me to carry much more cargo when I take long trips and even lumber 🙂
Or bales of straw for the chickens 🙂
And even more lumber and conduit 🙂 !
Things I LOVE about this little car.
238 miles of range – and more depending on conditions! WOW! It is a real car!!
Range anxiety is a thing of the past!
Cool UI. I love all the data and functionality the UI provides and it is pretty.
One pedal driving – SO COOL!!! (and the brakes will last MUCH longer!)
Awesome stereo system with the option of SiriusXM.
Roof rack ready.
The three level cargo area.
Arm rest/drink holder in the rear seat.
Heated seats and steering wheel.
USB charging ports everywhere.
Qi/wireless phone charger.
Wonderful windshield wipers that really work well.
Deep, multi-level storage in center console.
Sliding sun visors.
Built-in rear-view mirror backup camera.
Surround view camera.
Automatic headlights.
Automatic Emergency Braking.
Lane keep assist.
Android Auto.
The hulkingly huge 60 kWH battery that lets me go for days without needing to charge.
The insanely low cost to fuel and operate.
In fact, lets look at some numbers on that last topic.
I am not bragging but I feel that I need to share this very revealing automotive data with you should you be considering EVolving up to a Bolt or other EV.
I have calculated the fuel costs to drive the car the 6500 miles I have traveled up to this point.
Are you ready for this?
Are you sitting down?
Here it is.
$119.71
Those costs come primarily from the five “quick charge” sessions I needed during these first four months of ownership. Those sessions resulted in a total charge of $77.95 or and average of $15.59 per charge.
The remaining $41.76 comes from multiple “Level 2” charge sessions on the road and from several overnight “Level 1” and “Level 2” charging sessions at home.
In summary, during the last four months, I have driven an average of
1,625 miles per month. 406.25 miles per week. 58.03 miles per day.
At a cost of –
$32.60 per month. $8.15 per week. $1.16 per day.
119.71/6500 = .0184
So that breaks down to be $0.0184 cents per mile for the Mighty Bolt’s electron fuel.
$0.2 cents per mile! I will let that sink in for a moment.
Those numbers are accurate as I keep detailed notes on all charge sessions/energy costs.
My EV’s electric fuel costs are much lower than many EV drivers since I am able to use locally generated renewably produced solar electricity as my EV’s primary fuel source. The largest percentage of my Bolt EV’s electron fuel comes from the classroom solar array my students, interns, volunteers and I installed on my nonprofit office/classroom.
For the average US homeowner without solar who is charging their EV at home using the local power utility energy mix (US average @ .12/kWh), their costs would be a bit higher than my numbers.
The fact remains that no matter an EV’s fuel source – fueling, maintaining, and driving an EV will always be much lower than anything powered by dirty, toxic, nature, life, earth, and future polluting fossil fuels.
It is very interesting and revealing to note that if I had driven those 6500 miles in my only remaining gas guzzler – a 2013 Honda Pilot – I would have needed to stop maybe 15 – 20 times to refill the gas tank (and change the oil and oil filter one and possibly the air filter once) and therefore my gasoline fuel bill (maybe we should call it a conveyance convenience cost) would have been a massive $812.50 or around 0.13/mile! …then add in the cost of the oil/filter change of around $50 and that’s $862.50!!
I do not care who you are, where you are from, or how much money you have to burn but you must logically agree with me – that is a CRAZY STUPID expense for anyone to spend just to get from point A to point B!
In fact, below is a photo of the gas pump the last time I filled up the Honda’s fuel tank…YIKES!
That $47 will push the Honda Pilot around 360 miles but it will also push the Chevy Bolt EV over 2300 miles!!!
Some Maths
6500 miles at an average of 20mpg = 325 gallons x $2.50 (per gasbuddy.com) = $812.50
Or 812.50/6500 = .125 (per mile)
(812.50 (gas) – 119.71(electricity))
That is a fuel only cost savings of $692.79!!
No one can deny the fuel savings of driving electric – but what about the grossly unacceptable downsides of driving EV’s:
THE DIRTY DOWNSIDES OF DRIVING ELECTRIC
Charging: What about the horrible inconvenience of charging my EV while I sleep…It is just so difficult and time-consuming to need to remember to plug in the car before going on to other things…oh the horror!
First quick charge!
Stopping: The painfully needling fact that when on a road trip I always need to stop driving every 200 miles or so to plug in my car while I take a break, read a book, surf the net, take a nap, graze on food, have a cold one, get some exercise, go shopping, fish for lunch, fly a drone, watch a movie, spend time with friends and family, listen to live music, rride a zipline, pet a dog, horse, pig, or goat, pick some fruit, or just smell the flowers (these are just a few of the terribly inconvenient things I have been forced to do or could do while waiting for my EV to charge)…I just can’t take this intolerable electric car life of any longer!
Gas Stations: What about the hot insanity of never ever again needing to stop at dirty gas stations*? I so greatly miss the ritual of waiting in line for a pump, grasping the infectious germ and “booger” covered gas nozzle, shoving it into my legacy vehicle’s fuel port, engaging the trigger, inhaling deeply of the toxic and highly flammable hydrocarbon fumes while watching other oil addicted users doing the very same – oh and sometimes some of them leave their engines running and/or are even smoking while fueling – WTF!!! All this time our tanks fill up and our bank accounts drain…oh and let’s not forget the great fun of shopping in the station’s store for low quality overly processed foodstuffs…oh how I miss those days. *Ok, so I do occasionally stop at filling stations – but only if they have EV charging stations and/or to use their bathrooms or squeegee my EV’s windshield 🙂 (Read one of my earlier posts about an earlier and most unusual filling station experience.)
Fueling up on electrons at a Dandridge, Tennessee Exxon station – maybe one day the pump locations will be reversed 🙂
Cash Flow: How about the fact that driving electric means you will never again be forever stuck in the endless “subscription to dependency” that owning and driving petroleum-powered vehicles truly is. Therefore, I will be FORCED to stop endlessly paying out loads and loads of cash for gas/oil only to just burn it up over and over again harming our individual lungs and our shared environment. Whatever will I do with all this extra cash???
Health: When my asthma and the seasonal ozone/fossil fuel pollution-induced respiratory inflammation and distress go away – I will shed a great and lonely tear of loss. What will I ever do with all this improved health I just do not know…
Maintenance: Then there is the unbelievable madness of having virtually no maintenance costs/repair downtime on the EV’s motor, battery, brakes, and drive systems…like the LEAF before it, this BOLT EV (and all EV’s) are virtually maintenance-free. I am going to really miss the time-honored ritual of raising the hood and/or crawling under my vehicle on the side of a busy road – in the rain, mud, ice, snow, and boiling summer heat (been there done all that many, many times) – to fix some failing component such as a faulty belt/hose/fuel line/fuel tank/plug wire/radiator/thermostat/clutch/carburetor/alternator/exhaust/intake manifold/”johnson rod” and on an on…and/or wiring up a broken exhaust pipe/muffler…and/or adjusting some broken or maladjusted linkage/shaft in 20-degree weather then bashing my knuckles on a cross member etc…or having my old beater car towed to a repair shop and then waiting hours or days for it to be professionally repaired and then receiving the huge charge $$$$$$ for all those frequent repair/labor costs…again, what will I ever do with all this extra money and time? Note: I really do love working on older, classic cars – especially with my dad. However, working on a classic car at home in the garage or in the driveway/yard on a nice day is a totally different animal than what I described above – which is a fresh hell I would not wish on anyone.
Efficiency: Oh, and what about the insanely stupid fact that EVs produce a portion of their own electron fuel through the process of regenerative braking thereby extending their driving range by hundreds to thousands of free driving miles each year and therefore lowering my fuel costs even more…how will I ever adapt to all this egg-headed science nerd tech geek madness saving me loads of money and making my life easier, faster, stronger, better?!
The first road trip from Franklin, TN to Chattanooga, TN – a Bolt and a Tesla Model 3 – so cool! Photo by Bob Harris of Black Bear Solar Institute
Sound of silence: How about the unbearable and unbelievably smooth, quiet ride? I just cannot handle all this calmness, comfort, and serenity. Oh, how I miss the endless internal combustion engine drone drowning out the silence and/or the nuances of my favorite songs, audiobooks, and podcasts. Then there are the random noises, sudden jerks, squeaks, rattles, bangs, parts falling off (yes, that really happened), and body wrenching lurches that used to assault my ears, muddle my thought processes, and often torque my spine in all my previous legacy vehicles…
…all this EVolved silence is just so unbearable – oh, the humanity!
Convenience: What about that ridiculous one pedal driving thing! It is just so bizarre and inconvenient to only need to use one pedal instead of two. Not having to step on the brake all the time means my brake pads may last over one hundred thousand miles – how will I ever adapt to all this efficient madness? What will I ever do with all the extra money that I would have spent on brake jobs? My foot really misses stepping on the brake all the time so sometimes I do it out of nostalgia.
High above my EV’s fuel refinery. Note how clean the air is 🙂
Safety: I am not at all comfortable with the increased safety of this car. It will automatically and without asking me to authorize it – put on the brakes to avoid a collision!! What a HUGE compromisation of my freedoms to stop whenever I want to and under my own power and control!!! …oh and then there are all the airbags – they wrap around me on all sides – and then there’s the seatbelts holding me down keeping me from flying through the windshield in an accident – I feel so invaded!! …and what about all the CAMERAS!!! Giving over control to the machines – we all know where that leads!! It all must be a conspiracy…a plot fabricated by the Russians or maybe the Chinese…NO it is the greenies working with the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans and the DUTCH!!!! (To be clear: I am not racist and this was not a racial slur – it was a cheezy reference to an obscure comedy movie series staring Mike Myers.)
Furthermore!
I will not stand for all the EV safety madness!!!!
Give me back my 1969 Vista Cruiser!!
That 70’s Show photo courtesy of Carsey-Warner.
Fuel: How about the garishly un-American ability to charge an EV’s traction battery with home-grown electron fuel made on my own soil – be that electron fuel renewably generated by sun, wind, water, landfill gas, cow farts, or even the dirtiest hulking coal-fired power plant.
It is all domestically produced American made energy that does not require dirty deals, endless wars, and the terrible loss of our brave loved ones in the service just to keep it flowing into our tanks.
Nor does all this locally grown renewable energy destroy the very environment that gives all of us clean air, clean water, healthy food, diverse wildlife, our own lives, and a healthy future.
Driving electric vehicles powered by renewable energy is obviously such an un-American, un-patriotic sacrilege that our founding fathers must be spinning like oil-soaked V8 crankshafts in their graves!
__________________________________________
Ok, so for those of you that somehow missed it – I absolutely LOVE my Chevrolet Bolt EV and I absolutely LOVE driving electric. I was attempting to be overly and intentionally sarcastic and humorous with my previous outline of EV shortcomings. From my point of view and over six years of EV driving experience – there really are no EV shortcomings.
Driving electric is simply a better way to drive.
Despite my bizarre attempt at humor aside, and despite all the mostly manufactured EV shortcomings you may encounter from the deniers, doubters, Luddites, and FUD generators – and those with money/politics tied up in the legacy automakers and fossil fuel economy – I fail to see how anyone can rationally dispute the massive cost savings of driving electric vehicles as daily driver commuter vehicles and soon, much, much, more…and all this before we have even looked at the significant reductions to toxic air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions saved by driving electric vehicles especially when they are charged by locally grown renewably generated 100% energy secure electricity – but that is another long-winded data-rich topic for yet another blog posting on yet another day.
Final Question:
How much does it cost you to drive your fossil burner 6500 miles?
Charging with my cousin the Chevy Volt
So, suffice it to say that I absolutely LOVE my Chevrolet Bolt EV.
I will keep you posted on my newly EVolved EV life with the “Mighty Bolt” EV and hopefully I will be able to offer you some insight into the world of the Electric Vehicle, renewable energy, and maybe, if you have not already, you will take the necessary steps toward your own automotive EVolution.
SPECIAL THANKS to Bob Harris of Black Bear Solar Institute, Jim Hardy, Catherine O’Neil, Jewell Mimms, Marian O’Neil, and the Blue Ridge EV Club, my awesome students, and everyone who worked with me to make all of this possible – you know who you are!
Note: I do not work for, receive compensation from, or own stock in GM, Chevrolet, Tesla, or any electric vehicle or electric vehicle supply equipment company or renewable energy technology or company. I do however support all of these technologies, companies, and ways of life as long as they stay focused on their goals and work to help more than harm and because they are all working toward a better, cleaner, more energy secure, lower ecological footprint, science-focused way of life that supports everyone everywhere.
Note #2: I have no control of, nor do I receive any compensation from, any marketing or advertisements you may see on this blog site.
Recently I embarked on another road trip adventure in my 2012 Nissan Leaf EV. Due to many factors in and out of my control, that adventure turned into a bit of a misadventure. In the following pages I will outline the trip and share with you the unfortunate series of events and factors that seemed to be compounding and conspiring against me reaching my destination.
Purpose of the trip: install a citizen science air quality
monitoring device at a remote location near Franklin, NC. This air monitor was to be part of the Clean
Air Carolina Air Keepers project that is working to build a statewide network
of private air monitoring stations that will help us all become more aware of
what is in our shared air. This network will
give us all better tools, data, and evidence in fighting air pollution in our
shared air.
Chosen vehicle for the trip: 2012 Nissan Leaf SL
This is my personal vehicle and my nonprofit organization’s outreach vehicle. Being a 2012 “first generation” Leaf it is now suffering from battery degradation due to a chemistry issue Nissan has been aware of for many years. Unfortunately, Nissan HQ has been zero help in repairing or replacing this failing battery despite their knowledge of and my extensive documentation of the issue. I dearly love the car, its technology – well, except for the battery chemistry that is causing the degradation – and all that it stands for as the planet’s highest selling all electric vehicle, however, I am extremely upset with Nissan on this issue and I am sure this fact will impact my decision making process when it comes time to buy a new electric vehicle for myself or for my nonprofit organization. That however, could change if Nissan would choose to support their end of the deal.
Day 1.
Weather: 45F rain and fog.
EV status: 92.1% SOC, 14 kWh available in traction battery
(yes, that is all it will hold – the car is a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL with a
generation one traction battery…oh how I miss those lost 10 kWh…)
Battery capacity bars remaining: 8
Beginning odometer: 70,609
10am – departed Brevard, NC bound for Cashiers, NC
Travel was slow going due to rain, fog, and slow traffic on
curvy mountain roads.
11:00 – arrived in Cashiers, NC at the Ugly Dog Public House.
Weather: 48F heavier rain.
EV status: 20% SOC, 2.5 kWh remaining in traction battery.
I plugged the Leaf into the Ugly Dog’s Clipper Creek L2 EVSE (the only public L2 in Cashiers), verified the charger was working, then I took a wet walk for about half an hour. Upon returning I discovered the L2 had died during my absence and charging has stopped. Red lights on the unit indicated a power/charging fault. In my almost six years of EV ownership, this was only the second time I have had an EVSE malfunction while charging. The first time it was a Clipper Creek EVSE at my workplace – good thing I had L1 “trickle” charging capabilities adjacent to the L2 so no worries. This time however was very different…and it was dumping down a cold winter’s rain.
Lucky for me the EVSE had delivered a 1.9 kWh increase to the
drive battery before it malfunctioned and the car now had a 32.6% SOC and 4.4
kWh available.
I visited the Ugly Dog pub and informed the manager of the station error and thanked them profusely for installing the only EVSE in Cashiers. Staff said they would inform their owner and would work to remedy the problem ASAP. I updated the EVSE error status on Plugshare and then noticed that other Plugshare users had reported charging issues for this EVSE in the past…then I asked myself why the *!@#%! didn’t I check Plugshare before I departed home…!
It was now noon.
Weather: 48F heavy rain.
EV status: 32.6% SOC, 4.4 kWh remaining in traction
battery…oh boy.
I consulted with Waze and realized that I had only two
options:
Drive the 21 mile, mostly downhill yet out of my way distance
to the L2 EVSE at WCU in Cullowhee and maybe get a battery boost from regen and
make it there…or…take the shorter, but steeper, 10 mile run to Highlands and
maybe make it to the Highlands Ugly Dog’s L2 EVSE. From there I could charge up a bit and then
roll downhill through the Cullasaja gorge letting gravity give me forward
momentum and some great regeneration and hopefully make it to my destination of
Franklin, NC. This time I checked
Plugshare and based on the good ratings chose Highlands as it was closer and
there was only a 730 foot elevation gain before I would reach the high point of
this next leg of the trip and could run on regeneration over the last few
miles. Based on my Leaf’s current 3.2
kWh/mile and 32.6% SOC, the regen, and some dumb luck – I calculated that I
would be able to make it to Highlands…but only just…what could go wrong…
I departed the Ugly Dog and went into full on power saving mode…or as some call it – “hypermileing.” I powered off all nonessential systems, turned off the stereo, seat, and steering wheel heater, dimmed the info-tainment display and instrument cluster lighting, turned off the defroster using my hand to wipe the windshield when needed…however, due to the weather, safety, and NC law I had to use the headlights and windshield wipers…and I set out into the cool, foggy, rainy winter weather bound for Highlands almost 11 miles up the mountain.
After an uneventful but wet, foggy, and slow drive up the
mountain I somehow made it to Highlands arriving with a 13.6% SOC and 1.4 kWh
to spare. I made my way through the
little mountain hamlet and up yet another hill to the Ugly Dog Pub #2…only to
find that their only Clipper Creek L2 EVSE was ICED – as it often is – DRAT!
Raining harder. DRAT! DRAT!!
I had to park the Leaf crooked and illegally hoping nobody
would notice the little bright blue EV blocking access to the recycling bins…
I made my way around the ICE car to access the EVSE – which, by the way had a nice sign stating “Electric Vehicles Only” – a sign that has been conveniently (or arrogantly) ignored by many ICE driving visitors to the area who frequently block access to it…so, I dragged the nice long charge cable around the ICE car to my Leaf and plugged it in. As I was about to head into the Ugly Dog to get out of the still heavy rain, the owners of the ICE car (a Porsche Cayenne) came walking up and moved their car…but not before I was able to nicely introduce myself hand then hand them a “If you are not charging then you are blocking” notice which was greeted by nothing but snorting attitude from the recipient – fat lot of good it will do I’m sure. I wonder how they would feel if I blocked their gas pump with my EV…hmmmm. I re positioned the LEAF into the EV parking space and plugged it back in, verified a bit longer this time that the car was going to continue to charge, and then made my way into the Ugly Dog pub where I had an ice cold Guinness to calm my rain soaked, hypermileing, inconsiderate ICE driver stressed nerves.
I charged the Leaf @ L2 for about 1.5 hours for a 41.5% SOC and 5.9 kWh, and jumped back on the road with my next stop in Franklin – it was all downhill through the Cullasaja gorge so no worries – lots of regen – and lots more rain and fog. As I coasted through the beautiful Cullasaga gorge I watched as the cliffs become waterfalls under the torrential winter rains and wondered, and a bit worried, about how much more rain it would take before more than water was going to come tumbling down the steep ridges into the gorge and the road I was driving on? Luckily no rocks, trees or mud joined me on the road and I made it to Franklin.
2:30pm Arrived in Franklin, NC at the Ingles L2 EVSE with 20.1% SOC and 2.2 kWh…and it was still raining. All five EV spaces were open and well-marked (THANK YOU INGLES!) so I rolled into one close to the EVSE and stepped out into the rain to plug in the Leaf. First I plugged the left cable into the car and…nothing. Tried again…nothing. I then tried the cable on the right side of the bollard and luckily it worked. I reported the faulty charger on Plugshare and to Ingles.
I let the car charge for 2 hours while I worked to install the air monitor at a nearby location then returned to pick up the Leaf. The two hour L2 charge session had brought the leaf’s battery up to a 70% SOC and 10.3 kWh.
4:30 pm. Departed for Cherokee, NC in yet more rain.
I drove over 441 in the rain, high winds, and fog and because I was driving on an expressway I was traveling at a higher rate of speed and climbing one of the steepest, longest grades of the entire journey – so all of these factors became a real battery drainer – until I drove over the top of the mountain and regenerated for several miles down into Dillsboro, NC. This regen boost pushed me on to the Cherokee Welcome center where I rolled in at 5:30pm with a 10% SOC!!
I rolled up to the site where the trusty Schneider L2 EVSE – that I have used many times in the past – only to discover that it was missing!!!! I looked around for it and found nothing but a metal plate on the ground where it used to be…DRAT DRAT DRAT!!! …
…again, why did I not check Plugshare before I left home…???…had I checked I might have noticed a comment by Plugshare user/Model 3 driver “Steven” who stated ““Please note the charger has been moved and is next to the main street now.” Because I did not check Plugshare I was not aware of this fact, and from my vantage point near the original location of the L2 EVSE I could not see the new location obscured behind some shrubs in the distance. So, due to my oversight – and my lack of sight – my only apparent option was to drive to the Oconoluftee visitor center 3 miles away in the GSMNP where there is a DCQC and L2 EVSE. Again I practiced my best “hypermileing” techniques, however, as it was now getting dark, still raining, and foggy I was again forced to use the Leaf’s wipers and lights and soon my car dropped into the dreaded “Turtle Mode” as I passed through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park entrance gate. I have only encountered the turtle once before and that was part of a controlled, good weather, safe, daytime test so I would know how the car performed when in an extremely low battery scenario (watch my video of that test here https://youtu.be/ZTNZchis_Fg ). This time however was not controlled, nor was it daytime, the weather was terrible and safety was most definitely an issue as a huge pickup truck was now riding my bumper. I could see my destination in the distance about ½ mile away and I was not about to pull off the road unless the car stopped dead. At the time of the initiation of Turtle Mode the car was moving about 30 miles per hour and as I made my way across the ½ mile distance to my destination the car started to slow down, getting slower and slower but still moving forward up the slight incline adjacent to the “Elk field.” As I topped the small incline I was able to back off on the almost nonexistent accelerator and let gravity help pull me forward…but it really did not help much as the vehicle was continuing to gradually slow down. Somehow, the EV was able to slurp up enough ghostly electrons to make it into the parking area at the VC at a little better than walking speed, I rolled past the main building, around the curve, and then, when I had the EVSE in my sights – the car just could not give me any more and it came to a dead standstill…about 50 feet from the EVSE. According to LeafSpy Pro the drive battery was sitting at an SOC of 6.6 with 0.3 kWh remaining.
We pushed the LEAF the remaining distance to the EVSE only to find the DCQC offline and dark – DRAT! DRAT!! DRAT!!! I tried the reset button a few times – no luck – still dark and offline.
The Greenlots L2 was online so I plugged in and left the car alone in the growing darkness to charge.
We trekked into Cherokee for dinner and later returned – 4.2 hours later – and the car was still charging but it now had a 76% SOC and 11.3 kWh. Still raining, foggy, dark…but at least it was not cold. I updated Plugshare with details of offline DCQC and drove to a friend’s home in a neighboring county for the night. I arrived at his home with a 32.5% SOC and 4.6 kWh. I plugged the Leaf into a wall outlet and bedded down for the night exhausted and personally out of a charge from all the discharging drama of the day.
The next morning, after trickle charging all night, I awoke to fine the Leaf still charging – yesterday was a long day for the little car and I did not plug in until around 11pm.
Morning stats: SOC 88.5% and 13.3 kWh available. Light rain and fog. I made my way back to Cherokee without issue and immediately found the new location of the Welcome Center’s Schneider L2 EVSE and laughed at myself for making such an obvious error the night before. Had I found the new location of the EVSE I could have easily avoided the dreaded turtle mode. I plugged into the trusty Schneider EVSE with a 35% SOC and 4.9 kWh and charged for 2 hours for an 84% SOC and 12.8 kWh. Before heading over Soco gap to Waynesville I updated Plugshare with the new location details.
I then unplugged and drove up, up and up over Soco in the rain and fog and on to Waynesville where I arrived at the downtown DCQC with a 25.4% SOC and 3.5% kWh.
I plugged the little old Leaf into the Greenlots DCQC and charged for 30 min for a 81% SOC and a gain of 12.5 kWh. After all the drama of the last day and a half I wanted a full charge before heading out on the last leg of the journey up, up, and up through the rain, fog and steep terrain of the last steep, remote ridge crossing.
When the DCQC finished I unplugged the L3 and then plugged in the nearby L2 for a further 40 minutes charging to top off the Leaf with a final full charge of 94.1% SOC and 14.2 kWh that would hopefully push me up and over Hwy 276 and back home safe and sound. As I sat there in the rain charging L2 I watched as an ICE driver in a red Nissan pulled hastily into the parking space opposite mine, jumped out, and ran off into the rain. It seemed to me that the driver had absolutely no idea that he had just parked in an EV charging location. He was in a hurry and failed to notice the signs…and the EV parked and charging 10 feet away.
I believe this is what happens in many of the innocent ICEing events – people are just not very observant of anything outside of their frame of reference. Maybe someone needs to come up with an ICE vehicle detector that, when deployed in EV charging spots, will detect the hydrocarbon based fuels/lubricants/exhaust used in ICE vehicles and, when detected, trigger highly noticeable strobe lights and possibly even illuminated signage indicating to the ICE vehicle driver their mistake. While many ICEing events are simple mistakes, others are intentional acts of aggression toward EV’s – but that is another story I have written about before in this blog.
After
charging I updated Plugshare.
As I set out on 276 it was still raining, but this time it was only a mist and the sky seemed to be clearing a little bit – a good sign? My drive up 276 and over the Blue Ridge Parkway was uneventful, and upon reaching the highest point of the last leg of the trip my SOC was 39.7 and kWh 5.7. With all the great gravity provided regeneration I pulled on the descent to home I soon arrived in my garage with a 28.9% SOC and 4 kWh remaining in my trusty old first generation Leaf’s ageing battery.
Against all the odds I had made it.
I plugged the Leaf into the nearby wall outlet and let it
trickle charge until morning.
I love my old Leaf even with its rapidly failing generation one battery. The Nissan warranty department – I do not care for them very much. Maybe one day a 3rd party battery manufacturer* will make a replacement battery for the first generation Nissan Leaf or, Nissan will drop the price of the OEM unit to something much more reasonable than the current outrageous and unreasonable price that is so egregious that I will not even speak of it here. I really hope one of these things happens soon so I can upgrade my old Leaf and give it a renewed range and a second life as my nonprofit outreach vehicle and daily driver. *Note: If you are the maker of such a battery please do contact me because we need to talk 🙂
Round trip statistics
Beginning odometer: 70,609
Ending odometer: 70,835
Round Trip Mileage 226
Charging Sessions:
L1 – 2
L2 – 5
L3 – 1
Time spent charging:
L1 – 6.0h (overnight), 8.0h (overnight), = 14h
L2 – .50h, 1.5h, 2h, 4h, 1.5h, .70h = 10.2
L3 – .50h = .50
Total charging time = 14 + 10.20 + .50 = 24.7h (14 overnight,
5.7 during lunch and dinner and down time, 2.0 while working and 3.2 on the
road)
It is important to note that my EV is a first generation Leaf. This simple fact means that it charges 50% slower than newer EV’s due to its 3.3 kW onboard charger which limits the speed at which it will charge from L1 and L2 charging sources. If it were a newer EV my L1 and L2 charge times would have been cut in half.
Electric fuel cost for 226 mile round trip: $6.72 (L3) + $2.00*
(L2) + .75(L1) = $9.47
*All but one L2 charge session were cost free.
kWh per mile = 3.57
kWh used for round trip = 62.8
Electricity cost/kWh from energy mix on the road = 0.04
(9.47/226)
Electricity cost/kWh – if I had used only electricity from my
home power grid = $7.53 (62.8kWh *
.12)
Electricity cost/kWh – if I had used only electricity from my
solar workplace L2 EVSE = $3.76 (3.76 =.06
* 62.8kWh)
MPGe = 120.4
MPGe cost for round trip = $2.64/226 = 0.01/mile WOW!!!
It is interesting to note that if I had driven this route in
my 2013 Honda Pilot I would not have needed to stop to charge but my fuel bill (maybe
we should call it a conveyance convenience cost) would have been $31.72 or
around 0.14/mile! (0.14 =
31.72/226)
That is a fuel cost savings of $22.25!! (22.25 = 31.72 (gas) – 9.47(electricity))
These savings add up rather dramatically when you consider
the following:
Even with all the charging station issues, the old EV battery
related crazy, and the garishly long charge times – you cannot rationally dispute
the cost savings of driving electric…and that is before we have even discussed
the significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions!
Those savings are as follows:
A total of 97.9 pounds of CO2 were released into the
atmosphere by using 62.8 kWh of electricity to push my EV on this round trip.
Therefore, by driving electric I prevented over 509.1 pounds
of CO2, as well as other harmful pollutants from entering the atmosphere. (607 – 97.9 = 509.1)
Where did I get the 509.1 pounds of CO2?
Had I used my Honda Pilot for this journey it would have used
over 31 gallons of gasoline which would have emitted 607 pounds of CO2 into the
atmosphere.
That is equivalent to burning 301 pounds of coal which would
generate 1,068.96 kWh of electricity.
This amount of energy would be able to charge over 35
thousand smartphones….
And…this next fact is mind-blowing…
This same amount of energy (1,068.96 kWh) would push my Nissan Leaf over* 3,816.18 miles!!!! *I say over because with regenerative braking it would go even further since EV’s make a portion of their electric fuel when slowing down, descending grades, and braking!!
WOW!!!
Here are the numbers so see for yourself.
If one gallon of gas contains 33.70 kWh of electricity and my
Honda Pilot would have burned 31.72 gallons of gas on the 226 mile RT trip
then:
If 33.70 kWh * 31.72 gallons = 1,068.96 kWh
And my EV will travel an average of 3.57 miles per kWh
Then 3.57 * 1,068.96 = 3,816.18 miles
The cost, efficiency, and environmental savings of driving electric cannot be rationally disputed.
Gasoline cost to drive my Honda Pilot gas vehicle 3,816.18
miles at the current average gas price in the USA of $2.43 = $431.32 (3816.18/21.5 mpg = 177.50 gallons *
2.43 = $431.32)
The route. Green indicators are L1 and L2 charge points, orange is L3. Turtle icon is where the dreaded turtle payed me a visit. Elevations along the route with EVSE locations.
Over the last few weeks, there have been several reported instances from all over the USA of a minority of pickup truck owners intentionally blocking Tesla Supercharger stations (aka Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE)/Electric Vehicle charging stations. This relatively small number of incidents has generated much attention on various social media outlets and from EV owners groups/clubs and other automotive-focused news outlets and on YouTube.
At first, I was hesitant to write anything about any of these instances because, in a way, writing about them is drawing attention to the small number of individuals who commit these crimes. However, I decided that – as a previous truck, 4WD, and current sport-utility vehicle and EV owner – it is my obligation to report on these thoughtless incidents and put these narrow-minded knuckle-dragging dunderheads in their places with the facts before they destroy the reputations of respectable pickup truck owners everywhere.
The Problem
For background I will share a few of these incidents below;
This is the first high profile incident that gathered nation-wide media attention – and from my home state no less.
The revealing thing is that the entire parking lot was practically empty…
It seems obvious to me this was an intentional act directed at Tesla and/or EV’s in general. The other obvious thing is the driver of the truck either did not care or was possibly not aware they were openly advertising who they were with the conspicuous company magnetic sign on the truck door – what a great invitation by EV owners (and others) to report their team member’s thoughtless EV charger blocking action to the company…oh and what a great reason to NEVER use the services of that company in any way. Good work Navarro & Wright, what a great way to make a name for yourself…
In another thread on Twitter, Nascar driver and Tesla owner Leilani Munter garnered some notice when Elon Musk and many others spoke up about this issue;
Recently from not far from my home a Hummer driver intentionally blocks two Tesla Superchargers as a “prank” – what a total wanker.
From this blogger’s point of view these actions do not appear to be accidents since the Tesla Supercharger stations are;
1 – Very visible being lit up with red lights on a white background.
2 – Well marked as TESLA charging stations…not Ford, not Chevrolet, not Dodge, not Toyota, not Jeep – but Tesla.
3 – Tesla EVSE stations are most often located in remote parts of the parking areas so as not to take up available parking spots for all other vehicles near the entrances of the nearby establishments where they are found.
In other words – in order for you to block a Tesla Supercharger charging station with your vehicle you would need to either;
1. Drive a Tesla and know where the station is because you have been there before – or you have used your Tesla’s navigation system to guide you to it for a charge.
or
2. You do not own a Tesla and have made a premeditated decision to locate the Supercharger station for the purpose of blocking it with your non-electric vehicle for whatever bizarre load of jollies that action would give you and/or your childish comrades.
or
3. You are a new Tesla owner/driver/borrower/renter who is unfamiliar with Tesla/EV charging etiquette and are unaware that after the car finishes charging you should kindly move it to a nearby standard parking space so the next person will have access to the charging infrastructure.
or
4. You are a Tesla owner on the bleeding edge of the lunatic fringe of Tesla/EV ownership. Perhaps you feel that – because you have the means to own a Tesla, that you are somehow above/better than everyone around and you now have the right to park your car in the charging space for as long as you like. If this is your reasoning – then you, my friend, are an entitled little bully and are no better than those who block charging access with their garish toy trucks. In my experience this type of Tesla/EV owner is rare, yet I have heard reports that they do exist.
So, aside from the occasional parking accident by the un-observant or uneducated – there is no real reason and no real excuse for parking a non-Tesla vehicle in a Tesla or any other electric vehicle charging station.
Misunderstandings Do Happen
As stated earlier, sometimes EV owners who are new to the world of EV’s and have not learned the appropriate EV charging etiquette might mistakenly leave their EV parked in an EV charging space for much longer than needed after the car’s charge is complete – I did this a few times early on in EV ownership and quickly learned my lesson. Most of these infractions are innocent mistakes that can easily be remedied with gentle education of the new EV driver either with a few words or an informational card/flyer left for when the driver returns.
However, some entitled EV drivers seem to be treating EV spaces as a pass to free parking, not at all caring about the other EV drivers who need to stop and fill up their “electron tanks” so they can get on down the road. In the following photo, we see a Tesla parked and not charging in an EV only charging space – how rude.
This is the same as filling up your gas tank, hanging up the gasoline nozzle, and walking off leaving your vehicle blocking the pump.
I have observed this practice on several occasions and when I do I always leave a nice note in the hopes of educating the parking perpetrator on the errors of their ways. In the above case, part of the error may be in the wording of the signage on the wall beyond the Tesla and it reads – “Electric Vehicle Parking Only.” This wordage may give some EV newbies the idea that they are able to park their EV here even when it is not charging. That is just not the case. and is bad planning on those who chose the signs for this site. Luckily, many charging stations now have signs that read “EV Parking only while charging.” Along with this fact many EVSE units will continue to charge you money if your car remains plugged in after the charging session has ended as an expensive reminder to be courteous and move your car so the next person will be able to charge.
Most EV’s and EVSE come standard with internet connectivity. This allows them to be easily configured to send a text to your mobile device when your vehicle has finished charging, therefore, you have no excuse not to move your car thereby opening the space up for the next EV needing a charge.
Bad Parking Planning
On several occasions, I have encountered non-EV’s blocking charging stations – most frequently (in my experience) at this downtown EV charge point supplemented with solar power.
While these non-EV vehicles are directly blocking one of the chargers, at least they are following the directions printed on the pavement and signs that state “EV Only.” In reality, this type of EVSE blocking will not limit the ability to charge an EV since the power leads are usually long enough to reach an EV parked in the EV only spaces nearby. However, the limiting factor here would be available parking. There are three EV chargers and only two marked EV parking spaces so only 2 EV’s would be able to charge when ICE vehicles are parked in the non-EV marked parking spaces. It seems that common sense would dictate that if you install an EVSE for EV’s, then the number of charge points and parking spaces should be equal.
How some Tesla owners may choose to handle EVSE blocking situations – but it is not at all recommended by this blogger…unless there is no other option I suppose.
Obviously, Teslas do have more than enough power and torque to handle any situation.
Another fun option for Tesla owners to get rid of EVSE blockers – this one is in Chinese but no translation is needed 🙂 Follow the link to view the video
So, what do I, as a previous truck/SUV owner and current Electric Vehicle owner and driver of over 5 years, what do I think of this recent practice of some truck owners intentionally blocking Tesla Superchargers with their pickup trucks?
Before I get into my answer I must first note that it is in my humble opinion, based on over 35 years of driving and many more years of life experience, that the perpetrators of these thoughtless acts are a very small percentage of overall truck owners.
So let’s call them the: lunatic fringe.
The vast majority of pickup truck owners I know and have met are good, respectable people that own and drive pickup trucks because they serve a utilitarian purpose in their lives – you know, hauling stuff, pulling stuff, doing work, and having fun outdoors.
These good, respectable truck owners would never intentionally block access to another person’s fuel source and would never think to use their vehicle as a bullying tool/weapon in the attempt to make some sort of misguided personal, political, or anti-environment statement. They just drive their trucks and use their trucks – and that’s it.
I say this because not only is it common sense and fully supported by evidence – but I also have a bit of experience in this area. In my over 35 years of driving, I have owned, driven, and used the following vehicles:
My first truck – a 1978 Chevrolet C-10 step side.
My first 4WD vehicle – a 1965 Land Rover Series 2a 88″ – before the restoration.
After I personally restored it.
On the trail with friends.
It was a wonderful 4×4, and my favorite, that I drove daily and used for the purpose it was intended – an all-terrain, go anywhere utility vehicle – truly the world’s best 4x4xfar (that may change when Bollinger Motors starts selling their game-changing B1 and B2 SUT’s to eagerly awaiting truck-o-philes everywhere 🙂
I sold my first Land Rover as it was just too nice to drive on a daily basis and then purchased a very well used 1966 Land Rover Series 2a 109″ ExMoD Field Ambulance. I modified this classic old aluminum workhorse into an overland camper and drove it for several years as my daily driver and on many on and off road-trip adventures, wildlife study and conservation expeditions. When gas prices started to climb I was forced to sell it to continue paying for my college education…
…then came the 1987 Suzuki Samurai – a wonderful little 4×4 that took me into remote areas for my wildlife conservation work and more.
It was a great little 4×4 that served me well for almost a decade. It was my daily driver, my wildlife study and conservation vehicle, and my firewood acquisition vehicle making use of the custom winch and bumper to often pull trees weighing more than the vehicle out of the woods for later processing into firewood.
And it was fun, fuel efficient, and reliable off-road…but after over 250,000 miles it began to show serious signs of age so it found a new home and along came…
…a 1999 Toyota 4Runner – a great 4×4 that served me well.
And finally, my most recent 4WD is a 2013 Honda Pilot SUV (random internet photo) that we use for hauling the family around and hauling/pulling loads.
As you can see I love the utility of trucks and 4WD vehicles and I would love to have another one day to make my life and my job easier and more productive. As soon as the all-electric trucks, vans, and 4WD’s hit the market – I will be driving one daily as my company/commuting and utility/wildlife conservation outreach vehicle – and that day is approaching faster than you may think.
Back to the Question
With all that out of the way, let’s get back to the original question:
What do I, a seasoned truck/4×4 owner, driver and aficionado of many years AND an Electric Vehicle driver of almost 6 years think of the recent practice of some pickup truck owners intentionally blocking Tesla Supercharging stations?
Tesla’s at a Supercharger – photo credit Tesla.com
I could relate to you how unbelievably childish, small-minded, knuckle-dragging, infantile, non-sensical and stupid it is while tossing out many colorful metaphors, however, I will refrain from that level of thinking and offer my answer in the form of the following thought experiment:
What would YOU do, as a gas/diesel vehicle driver looking to fill up your vehicle’s fuel tank with refined hydrocarbons, if you arrived at your filling station of choice only to find an EV driver intentionally blocking your gas/diesel fuel pump with their electric vehicle?
Hopefully, you would think the same way I would: either they had made a mistake or…they may be potentially unstable and may even be dangerous – especially if they insulted and taunted you with vulgar language and gestures as some of the perpetrators are being reported to have done.
Why would you think these things?
The common sense answer:
The evidence is blocking the fuel pump.
Due to the obvious fact that the owner of the pump blocking vehicle is driving a vehicle that does not ever need access to the fuel source it is blocking, then evidence and common sense would dictate the following:
1: They may have blocked the pump accidentally. After they have been respectfully informed of their error, they should not hesitate to move their vehicle to the correct nearby charging point. However, being an EV driver I would highly doubt that this would be the usual scenario as EV drivers do not often make the mistake of blocking petroleum-based fuel pumps if the vehicle they are driving is theirs and if they are at all familiar with it. (If you are driving a vehicle of any kind you had better take some time to read the instructions and become familiar with it – all the more so if it is a state of the art high-speed low drag Tesla aka: Intergalactic SpaceBoat of Light and Wonder or any other EV.)
Similarly, the vast majority of respectable gas/diesel vehicle drivers would never think to intentionally park their vehicles in front of EVSE stations and/or intentionally vandalize EVSE units and/or intentionally taunt/insult drivers whose vehicles operate on fuels other than gas/diesel…until recently that is…
2: They may have committed this pump blocking act intentionally. Furthermore, if they were taunting/insulting you or your vehicle/fuel of choice with rude and/or hateful colorful metaphors, it would be even more evidence that their actions were not accidental and they might not be entirely stable individuals – you know, those on the lunatic fringe.
How should you respond?
The safe approach would be to er on the side of caution and be very wary of their actions because no thinking, rational person with even a gram of common sense and decency would ever commit such a blatant act of intentional bullying unless they had an over-sized, unstable, reactionary chip on their shoulder and/or were intentionally looking for a dangerous confrontation.
Suggestion: before you take matters into your own hands in regards to option 2 you should be absolutely sure the situation was not an accident by a person unfamiliar with driving an electric vehicle – possibly something like in the video below where the driver may have borrowed the car from a friend and/or the owner of the car was playing a joke on them.
Once you rule out an accidental parking maneuver, the next step would be to report the thoughtless, possibly intentional fuel pump blocking action to the nearest authorities, step back to a safe location, and wait for the police/tow truck(s) to arrive to remove the disruptive perpetrator(s) – be they an EV blocking a gas, diesel pump or an ICE vehicle blocking an electric fuel pump.
ICEing
Those of us that drive plug-in electric vehicles refer to the act of accidentally or intentionally blocking charging stations with Internal Combustion Engine powered vehicles – “ICEing” or being “ICEd.”
For clarity: ICE = Internal Combustion Engine
Most of the time, when an ICE driver blocks an EV charging station it is an honest mistake made by someone either in a hurry or simply not being observant enough to see all the signs denoting the space as EV use only.
These innocent people should be excused from their mistake and politely educated either in person if possible, or if they are not available, with an informational flyer placed under the windshield wiper – many EV drivers carry these for events such as these.
As an EV driver I encounter ICED EVSE stations frequently – in a recent incident, I was sitting in my EV while it was plugged into a Level 2 EVSE and charging during a heavy rain shower. As I sat there in the rain reading a book and charging up the LEAF I watched as an ICE driver pulled hastily into the parking space opposite mine, jumped out, and ran off into the rain. It seemed to me that the driver had absolutely no idea that he had parked in an EV charging location. He was in a hurry, whipped into an open space failing to notice the signs, the two EVSE units…and the EV parked and charging 10 feet away.
In another recent incident I stopped in a local parking garage to plug in my EV only to find both charging spaces ICED…despite the fact that there were several empty parking spaces in the garage…
…and despite the signs and EVSE (charging station) on the wall in front of them – there they sat blocking access to the charging stations and neither of these vehicles were plug-in electric vehicles. I left respectful notes on their windshields and then later encountered the owner of the Prius. She was very nice and seemed totally unaware of her mistake. Hopefully in the future she will be more observant and leave the EV spaces for the EV’s (If you want to get technical: it’s not like there is a shortage of non-EV parking spaces, it is the other way around – there are plenty of standard parking spaces with EV charging locations remaining in the minority – which means blocking them creates an even bigger negative impact – so please, use some common sense here and just don’t do it.)
I believe what happens in many ICEing events is that many ICE drivers are just not very observant of anything outside of their comfortable, daily frame of reference. They are unfamiliar with EV’s and they do not use the EVSE charging network so they do not see the signs and the equipment – they just find an open slot, park their car and run. Maybe someone needs to come up with an ICE vehicle detector that, when deployed in EV charging spots, will detect the hydrocarbon-based fuels/lubricants/exhaust gasses used in/produced by ICE vehicles and, when detected, trigger highly noticeable strobe lights and illuminated signage indicating to the ICE vehicle driver their mistake. If their mistake is not rectified, the system would automatically either: identify their vehicle sending them a pricey ticket and/or notify parking authorities so they can move the blocking vehicle, and in repeat offenders/intentional blockers – place a wheel lock on the vehicle and have it impounded.
This past winter I encountered yet another form of ICEing…with real ice.
The evidence suggested that the snow removal crew chose to pile up the snow in both of the marked EV charging spaces. This is as irresponsible as blocking the spaces with an ICE vehicle especially since there was ample space nearby on the grass surrounding the parking area to pile the snow where ALL drivers – no matter the fuel that powers their vehicles – would then have access to parking. Yes, it may have been an accident, but due to the perfect blocking of the only two EV charging spaces in the parking area – I cannot help but wonder if the individual(s) that did this did it on purpose possibly as some sort of statement against EV’s, their charging infrastructure and/or the people that drive them. Hmmm, I wonder if these snow pushers also block “handicap” spaces with huge piles of snow…
Accidental ICEing aside, the thoughtless act of intentionally blocking electric vehicle charging stations with ICE vehicles (or blocking gas pumps with EV’s for that matter) should never be excused and should always be reported to the authorities as soon as possible in the attempt to stop the madness before it gets out of hand.
Speaking of intentional ICEing, I would like to share a couple of unusual examples with you. The first one is an absolutely bizarre case. Apparently the owner of this highly modified and obviously entirely powered by fossil fuels “street-rod” – complete with huge engine, visible gasoline tank, and dual exhaust pipes – has attached a fake J-1772 charge connector to the side of his vehicle to try and gain access to electric vehicle charging locations.
Does he actually believe this ludicrous tactic will work? It is no different that if I parked in a handicapped parking space, hung a fake handicapped tag from my rear view mirror, hopped in a wheelchair and rolled off thinking I was somehow the smart one…riiiiight.
Then recently another “ICEhole” has been intentionally blocking a local EVSE and leaving threatening notes to EV drivers as seen in the below photos.
In the first photo he is parked in a spot where ICE vehicles may park – but only if the rest of the parking lot is full as the below sign reads…
…and it hardly ever is…
…so it is obvious to everyone that he is parking in this location intentionally as an instigator/bully. Another problem I have with this image is how far over he parked into the EV only space to his left. It seems as if he parked this far over on purpose with the intention to instigate a response from the EV owners that use the charging station on a regular basis.
The sign in the adjacent parking space reads as follows:
The true revelation of his intentions came in the form of a venomously worded, hand written letter stuck on the inside of his windshield…
It is obvious that the owner of this vehicle has intentionally ICED this EVSE space even when there are several open parking spaces in the parking lot where the EVSE is located. Why? What are his motives? A few weeks later the Jeep owner even went so far as to again park in the same space and affix another childish sign to his vehicle…
While he would be legally parked if the entire parking lot were full and the space he has chosen to park in was the only one available – that is not the case as there were several open spaces in the remainder of the lot. It seems that Mr. Ledford has intentionally chosen to park his vehicle in this spot in the attempt to instigate a response from EV/PHEV owners. Evidence suggests that he is a bully pure and simple and is looking for a confrontation.
In this type of situation the best action is to report the parking perpetrator to the authorities. However, before reporting the perp, it is probably a good idea to attempt to covertly get a photograph(s) of his/her vehicle and its license plate and the perp’s themselves if possible so you will have evidence to hand over to the authorities. In my opinion, it is not ever a good idea to confront these types of people as they are often aggressive and volatile and may even be intoxicated and/or have dangerous or deadly weapons in their vehicles or on their persons and may even retaliate later with childishly destructive tactics that small-minded bullies often exhibit.
IMHO the best bet in these situations is to just step back to a safe place and watch the action happen when the police, tow trucks, and news crews arrive.
EVSE Vandalism Issues
Intentional EVSE blocking is not the only issue. Most recently a Tesla Supercharger in Utah was vandalized when some lowlife intentionally tried to drill out the charge connector and cut the charging cable – WTF, really people? How would you like it if I intentionally tried to cut your gas/diesel hose or intentionally vandalized the fuel pump handle that you needed to fuel your vehicle? Grow up people – or crawl back under your rock and stay there.
I have encountered EVSE vandalism on a few occasions in my area. This is one of the most recent – a quick charger’s screen was damaged by an unknown assailant. The crack pattern of the glass suggests a blow from what may have been a hard object such as possibly a rock or hammer or maybe even a fist. The height of the screen from the ground and distance from the parking space places the EVSE’s screen too far out of range for this to be an unfortunate parking accident. This suggests to me that this may have been a deliberate act of vandalism.
In many of these places, those ICE drivers who block an EVSE will receive a hefty fine. Raleigh, NC is a great example where EVSE ICEr’s are fined $50 for blocking a charge point – thank you Raleigh! In my opinion, this should be the rule everywhere and any fines collected could be used to improve roads and infrastructure for everyone no matter what they choose to drive.
And now, from one of my favorite YouTube personalities, Robert Llewellyn of Fully Charged Show , comes this great video illustrating that the phenomenon of ICEing EVSE stations is not just a quandary in the States…
Hmmmmm….all this EV charging station blocking makes me wonder if – way back in the early days of the internal combustion engine – did some horse and wagon owners who felt threatened by the gas-powered future, seek out and block fuel pumps?
I seriously doubt it because I am pretty sure they had something called common sense and morals so they did not waste there time on creating more needless drama.
A bit of a tangent for a bit of a comparison.
Blocking EV charging points is similar to the uncaring, malignant practice that some call “coal rolling.” This is a practice where some truck owners – a very small percentage overall and yet another lunatic fringe group – illegally modify their diesel pickup trucks to – on-demand – emit clouds of black diesel smoke through over-sized exhaust pipes.
These “coal rollers” then often use their illegally modified vehicles to intentionally target pedestrians, police officers, bicyclists, runners, groups of people on the sidewalk, and people who drive hybrid and electric vehicles. They intentionally align their vehicle’s often grossly over-sized exhaust orifice in the direction of their target and flip the switch vomiting copious amounts of dirty, toxic, diesel smoke all over their innocent targets. If you are interested in seeing evidence of this stupidity – just input “coal rolling” or “rolling coal” into a YouTube/Google search and you will find the video evidence shared by the polluting perpetrators…and you will also find some great memes revealing just how ridiculous the act of coal rolling truly is, such as this one.
For whatever bizarre, childish, testosterone soaked, insecurity driven reasons, this small number of fringe dwelling truck drivers seem to be proud of their illegal atmospheric littering escapades and wish to share their madness with the world.
If a combination of common sense, the law, and natural selection have their way (and they will), then their actions suggest that it will not be long before these polluted perpetrators will be weeded out of the population and the bones of their illegally modified machines will soon be covered in rust fossilizing in the junkyard – or better yet, melted down and recycled into a Tesla, Bollinger, Atlis or any other EV, a bicycle, wind turbine, or solar array.
The act of intentionally modifying one’s vehicle with a driver operated “defeat device” thereby allowing it to bypass the factory emission controls for the purpose of emitting visible clouds of smoke, and then intentionally targeting people with that hazardous particulate-laden smoke (diesel exhaust is a documented carcinogen by the CDC, the WHO, and the ACA*) is not only illegal in many areas but is an uncaring, thoughtless act of bullying that should not go unpunished. Recently, I was instructed by a State Patrol officer that targeting and “rolling coal” on a person(s) is considered a form of assault and should be reported to the authorities by calling 911 and reporting the incident making sure to get the make, model and, if possible, the license plate number, road name and direction of travel of the offending vehicle.
It is possible that these intentional charging station blockers (and “coal rollers”) may suffer from personal or peer group driven insecurities such as toxic masculinity and possibly even what some may call “short man syndrome” – or both. They may be using their huge, overly modified, often garishly loud, black smoke vomiting toy trucks as an attempt to compensate for some emotional or even physical quality in which they perceive themselves to be lacking.
Machismo/hormones.
Another good possibility is that many of these pickup truck drivers are simply just children. Children who have only recently felt the call of their surging primal hormones driving them to make a place for themselves within their world and to seek out a mate in the only way they know how.
In their world, all the other young males (and some young females) in their tribal cliques drive large, noisy, dirty pickup trucks. This being the only courting technique their childish minds can interpret must mean that it is the preferred and accepted way to entice a mate into their arms and beds. In other words – driving a large, loud, jacked up, overly modified, polluting truck and insulting others with venomous vitriol might just be the mating call of their sub-species.
What on earth???
I speak from some short-lived experience in this area. When I was a teenager I briefly fell into a similar clique where I tried to fit in and impress by modifying my first truck with a roll bar, light bar, lift kit, loud stereo, and “glasspack.” (No, not on any planet or in any universe was it the truck pictured above) Needless to say, it did not work for me – in any way. This was primarily because of my extreme geek factor/nerdiness that was of such an outward and obvious magnitude that no amount of expensive modifications to my vehicle, myself, piles of money, or purchased trinkets would have ever made me “cool” and popular with the “in” crowd. At the time I was just trying very hard to fit in – somewhere – anywhere – and I had fallen to peer pressure. Lucky for me, after about 6 weeks my brain won the fight and I grew out of my fitting in phase. The glasspack came off and the stock muffler went back on in favor of the stereo because enjoying my music was far more important to me than the garishly flatulent exhaust noise. I also removed the lift kit as it ruined the truck’s handling and reduced my fuel mileage. I also later sold the roll bar since all it really did was take up space in the bed. Some people grow up, some never do.
Envy
It is also possible, although remote, that many of these folks are just envious and jealous of the awesome Tesla’s and other EV’s and they secretly want one really, really bad – but they could never admit that fact to their fellow pickup truck driving tribe members. To do so would mean ridicule and possibly even exile from their tribe. So to save face they take out their misplaced frustrations in the only way they know how – they block Tesla charging stations and insult the very thing they are secretly in love with and pining away for. It is very much like the jealous little bully in the sandbox breaking the other children’s toys because they are not his.
Don’t be the bully.
Tribalism aka Us vs. Them
Another motive that may drive these individuals to act is simple tribalism. Related and intertwined with the previous motives, tribalism is like the proverbial tick – dug in deeply. Like the tick, they may be so “dug in” to their tribe and their us vs. them outlook on life that nothing will ever be able to tear them out of their ancient tribal tendencies to do a thing. All the others in their tribe are doing that thing so that obviously must mean that thing is the correct and acceptable thing to do – even if all the evidence is against it. You know the type: “My people have always done it this way and I do not believe all the evidence against it so I’m just going to do it anyway!”
Fear of Change.
Also tied to the previously mentioned topics, the fear of change is very powerful and it keeps many from ever progressing. Some of these individuals may do these things out of fear of inevitable change, fear that their comfort zone will be violated. Fear that the comfortable status quo will be disturbed. Fear they will lose their toy trucks to new technology, or maybe fear that “the government” will try to take them away and force them to drive electric cars. The fact is that no one, especially the government – is going to force anyone to drive an electric car – it is more the opposite. The way the system is currently set up favors and promotes the status quo. It promotes vehicles that run on fossil fuels even though all of the available evidence suggests the continued rate we are burning through fossil fuels is harming the very environment we all rely on for our very survival – but that is another story for a different day.
Your Vehicle Is A Tool – Not A Weapon.
A rock, a stick, a knife, a gun, a snowball, a brick, a spoon, a ham bone, a sack of ‘taters, and yes, a car or pickup truck – are only as dangerous and/or potentially harmful as the person controlling them.
Hopefully, if that person has been lucky enough to receive the following;
good and positive moral training as a child from parents and mentors
respect and trust of their elders – but not blind trust or blind faith – those are very dangerous
an unbiased and well-rounded education with a focus on the importance of facts, evidence and critical thinking skills
quality time outdoors in nature learning how all things are connected and developing a respect for all living things and for the environment that gives us all life
an understanding of the scientific method and how to use it
a purposeful separation from lunatic fringe/extremist – hate, religious, and political groups and training in how to recognize them
training into how to use the internet appropriately in order to take advantage of the powerful research tool that it is, while intentionally avoiding the deep quagmire of dead-ends, lies, filth, misinformation, manufactured FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) and divisive hate that is also the internet
the appropriate science-backed training in the appropriate use of their chosen tool(s)
the appropriate licenses and certifications to operate that tool or tools in accordance with the laws set by their state/national governments
a good dose of common sense
Then hopefully, that person, when they are released into the wild to wield any of the before mentioned tools – including pickup trucks – will use them wisely for the purpose intended and not ever as weapons of hate or malice to be directed at others – even if they do not agree with their driving, energy or life choices.
No matter the motive, the truth of the matter is this: electric trucks (and cars, sport utility vehicles, airplanes, helicopters, motorcycles, buses, boats, bicycles) are here and more are coming fast – and they will eventually replace the majority of fossil burners simply because they are better, faster, safer, stronger, more reliable, less expensive to fuel and maintain, and more convenient than the old smoke spewing, oil leaking, dinosaur juice burners of yesteryear. Yet, even with all those facts we still must deal with human nature, and tribal-focused brains that evolved during the stone age. With human nature and stone age brains, we are forced to contend with all of the above factors which work together to slow the forward march of progress…
Luddites and complacency aside, nobody will ever take your beloved truck (or car) away from you (unless you intentionally break the law for your own personal gain – then you deserve to have your vehicle impounded and your license revoked).
Your favorite old car and truck and all the previously produced petroleum burners will always be around (if you take care of them) and will always be available for you if you want them – just like horses, buggies, and wagons are still available – nobody took them away. These beautiful, classic cars and trucks of yesteryear will always have a place in history and they should as they are a beautiful part of the complex story that brought all of us to this day in time. They are a testament and a tribute to all the inventors, engineers, makers, scientists, doers and adventurers who had an idea for something better, worked hard to make it happen – and then changed the world. Yes, their creations were based upon and relied upon the internal combustion engine and petroleum-based fuels – back then they were the only viable power-plant option. It is a scientifically supported fact that these fossil fuels and the machines they powered have allowed the human species to expand across the globe at an unbelievable pace, light and heat our homes, farms and cities, grow more food to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, develop better health care, science, and systems that allow us to live longer than ever before, explore the depths of the oceans, and the far reaches of our solar system and even peer into outer space and back into deep time almost back to the “big bang.” In many unique ways, these vehicular creations and these ancient fossil-based fuels may be the very reason – or at least have played a key part – in the very existence of many of us alive today – including the author of this blog post. We all owe an undeniable debt of thanks and gratitude to fossil fuels and to the beautiful vehicles of yesteryear.
However, as with all things, as with all seasons, change is the way of things. Now is the time for change, the time for growth, the time for progress – it is time to stop burning things for fuel to move us around. Like the horse and wagon before them, the majority of these beautiful, earlier modes of transportation worked well for a time, but eventually faded away because something better, faster, stronger, lower maintenance, less stinky and less polluting, was invented – think how fast the Ford Model T displaced the horse – and how the majority of the population quickly accepted the change and adopted it because it was the best option.
The transition from internal combustion to electric transportation will be very similar.
Ponderings
Another thing to ponder is this; how long before our gas/diesel burners (if you are still driving one by ~2025) become a wonderful weekend novelty like the horse and wagon/buggy/Ford Model T is today?
How long before they become a cherished piece in a museum collection…or worthless rusting, forgotten hulks covered in weeds in backyards?
How long before ICE drivers are treated the same way litterbugs (and smokers) are often treated today and end up catching all sorts of flack from those around them every time they drive their old fossil burner because everyone around them is aware, accepts, and understands that toxic emissions from driving fossil fuel powered vehicles harm all life forms and nature – the very life support system that gives all of us life?
Before some of you start ranting in the comment section about how much pollution is emitted from building/charging/driving EV’s – watch the below video for the facts:
How many years will it be before insurance companies start raising their rates on older vehicles because those older vehicles lack any modern autonomous safety features – such as automatic emergency braking, back up cameras, “Autopilot” and “Sentry Mode” – features that make newer vehicles so much safer to drive for the driver and for everyone else on the roads – thereby making older vehicles a dangerous liability to drive – for the driver and others around them – which therefore means it is now much more expensive to insure and to drive the older cars?
If you do not believe autonomous “autopilot” safety features will become popular on vehicles or if you do not trust them – think again and watch this amazing video of the evidence.
A very smart and enlightening commentary from Answers with Joe on the automotive autonomy/EV revolution:
When will ICE vehicles become stranded assets we are unable to sell because nobody wants them anymore because their fuel source, maintenance, and insurance costs have become so incredibly expensive?
When will ICE powered vehicles become as obsolete as the slide rule, the film camera, the 8 track, VHS, and cassette tapes, Blockbuster video, Kodak, phone booths, CRT computer monitors and console TV’s…in other words – when will they go the way of the dinosaurs that power them?
A recent article by Zachary Shahan of Clean Technica predicts that the EV disruption has already started and the major disruption will begin very soon. A great comparison between the EV and other disruptive technologies can be seen in this chart.
It will not be long dear reader, it will not be very long….
…this is not a question of if, it is a question of when.
A great example of the fast-growing trend in vehicle electrification is the simple fact that many young, forward-thinking companies (and even the legacy auto-makers) are working hard to bring more than capable fully electric and hybrid-electric cars and now trucks and 4×4’s to market including but not limited to…
That’s right, Ford has confirmed that is will offer fully electric and hybrid versions of the F-150 for the 2020-21 model years. Below is a concept of what it may look like.
As I wrap up I discover that GM is considering electrifying its trucks as well…looks like the days of the dirty ICE powered pick-up trucks blocking charging stations may soon be a thing of the past.
Erroneously enough, it seems that some of these EVSE blocking folk may be committing these acts as some form of misguided political statement. There is some anecdotal evidence suggesting some of these individuals may feel that owning Tesla and other electric vehicles are somehow anti-American. If this is true, then it is obvious – these people have not done the simple online research revealing Tesla as an American car company. Tesla’s vehicle and battery factories, parts suppliers, shops, and service facilities create a manufacturing, delivery, and customer care chain employing tens of thousands of hard-working Americans in hundreds of cities, towns, communities, and truckers on the roads (soon to be driving Tesla electric Semi trucks.)
You may also be surprised to learn that Tesla now rates as the
MOST AMERICAN car company.
Furthermore, all of Tesla’s cars (in this country) and all other EV’s in this country – run on American generated electricity produced on our soil by Americans operating American power generating facilities.
Many EV drivers, including this blogger, charge their EV’s at home/work with “homegrown” renewable energy sources such as rooftop solar arrays thereby making them 100% energy secure and practically free to drive. Read my last post about how I power my EV with solar produced electricity and came to the conclusion that my EV (a 2012 Nissan Leaf) costs me only one cent/mile to power and drive!
In other words – any electric vehicle used in this country – no matter it’s manufacturer – is charged by electricity produced from fuels primarily sourced within this country by hard working Americans operating American power plants.
The same cannot be said of fossil fuel powered vehicles whose fuels of choice were – as of 2017 – around 19% sourced from foreign lands* at great cost to our countries safety, security, and future.
All that evidence suggests that driving a Tesla, or any EV (factory, converted classic, or home built unit) powered by electrical energy sourced in the USA, would be a great act of patriotism that would only support the energy security/self-sufficiency goals of our country. More on this here: https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/31/national-security-bulldogs-electric-cars/
Meanwhile
The bullying bozos blatantly blocking Battery-Electric Vehicle charging stations and rolling coal on EV’s and innocent pedestrians with their garishly modified vehicular dinosaurs while attempting to make some sort of macho, tribal, hateful, nationalistic, political, and/or anti-environmental statement against “anti-American electric cars” – are powering their toy trucks on fuels that a percentage of has been procured in faraway lands with governments and policies often hostile toward our way of life.
Seems like someone did not do their research.
On top of all this madness – just keeping the fuel flowing into the tanks of their stinky little trucks (and all of our fossil fuel powered vehicles and systems for that matter) has required decades of war*. It has required the sacrifice and the deaths of tens of thousands of our brave and beloved children, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and lovers who were and are often fighting to protect oil rights and resources to keep your (and my) fuel tanks topped off with petroleum-based fuels because, for the last 100 years there has been no other option – but that is about to change.
While I will always 100% support our brave servicemen and women in the military, and all of my friends and family members who are serving and have honorably served – and some who have paid the ultimate price – I am not at all OK with, and will never support sacrificing my loved ones and friends lives just to protect the flow of oil so I can think I am free when in fact I, and all of us, remain addicted to the fossil fuel machine.
IMHO – to be truly free one must be as self-sufficient as possible. If we are relying on imported energy sources while sacrificing our loved ones to acquire and protect that energy – we are not self-sufficient and we will never be truly free.
To be truly self-sufficient and truly free, our country needs to work toward the ultimate goal of sourcing all of our energy needs from our home soil.
Being self-sufficient also means to respect and care for that which gives you life. To me, this means using energy resources that do as little harm as possible to the very environment that provides all of us with all of our survival needs. To me, this means we need to focus on developing the amazing untapped potential of ALL available renewable energy sources available to us and keep fossil fuels as a strategic reserve and a backup power source for the lean times. If the USA continues burning through almost 20 million barrels of petroleum per day not only will we quickly exhaust these finite fossil fuels and be forced to scramble to get renewable energy sources online and operational while millions suffer, but we will also speed up the destruction of our health and shared environment with fossil fuel pollution speeding up atmospheric pollution, planetary warming, and weather weirding due to anthropogenic climate change.
Common sense and scientific evidence say that now is the time to start making a system-wide switch to renewable energy sources.
We need to move toward 100% renewable energy now.
We know what we need to do.
We have the technology.
We have science on our side.
But do we have the personal and political will power to do it?
Which future will we choose?
Sadly, to keep the costs at the pumps down so the fossil fuel addiction can continue to flow to consumers unabated, and to keep EV and domestically produced renewable energy adoption low – the fossil fuel supported powers and bribed politicians in government keep funneling our hard earned money into supporting the fossil fuel producers and pushers with massive subsidies to the tune of tens of billions of our tax dollars annually*! The massively powerful and insanely wealthy fossil fuel machine, working with uncaring, bribed politicians and policymakers on both sides of the political fence, are funneling loads of money into organizations that work to manufacture loads of FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt – in the peer-reviewed scientific evidence presented to us by the vast majority of the planet’s climate and environmental scientists. Evidence that has collectively revealed that we humans are changing the climate, the natural processes, and the stability of our atmosphere – thereby bringing about anthropogenic climate change and the sixth mass extinction of life on planet earth – and we just sit back and let this happen.
Furthermore, the acquisition, shipment, refining, distribution, and use of petroleum-based fuels has resulted in countless oil, gas, and fuel leaks, spills and other accidents that have created massive impacts to our shared environmental life support system, loss of human life and wildlife, loss of health and livelihoods for countless people and families, oh and those nagging and worsening air pollution and climate change issues…just to keep the oil and gas flowing to feed the status quo so the cash can continue to flow into the deep bank accounts of the filthy mega-rich oil barons and corrupt politicians who are working together to enrichen themselves while destroying our shared futures.
All this madness trickles down and the lunatic fringe – in petroleum production, government, and those in their charging station bocking little toy trucks – who remain free to target and assault those of us working to make good and lasting changes in the world by adopting and promoting the following;
promoting and using “homegrown” renewable energy
promoting domestic energy security through the adoption of domestic renewable energy resources
teaching preparedness and self-reliance through the scientific method
accepting science supported evidence and expert guided change
driving a much more energy secure, less polluting, lower maintenance, cheaper to drive, electric vehicle built in the USA and powered by American electrons.
Conclusion
The problem with the small number of fringe-dwelling, macho-driven, small-minded individuals that choose to intentionally block and vandalize charging stations, insult EV drivers for childish, thoughtless “reasons,” (and roll coal) is that they do not think – they just act on their primal, fear-driven, toxically tribal emotions without any actual evidence based facts or reason to back up their childish actions.
I could go on but I believe you now know what I think about this issue.
In closing – I have offered examples and explained ad nauseum the many reasons why the thoughtless practice of intentionally ICEing/blocking/vandalizing Tesla and other EV charging stations is ill-advised. However – while I may have explained it, I cannot understand it for you. That challenge is up to you and I hope you have the intellect and the common sense to do so…and to never intentionally block access to another person’s fuel source.
One of my oldest childhood dreams is now a reality – and more!
That dream was to one day drive an electric vehicle that was charged with electricity provided by the sun.
After originally dreaming up the idea in Mr. Jackson’s 6th grade science class way back in 1980*, then pondering, dreaming, and researching the idea for many decades until recently, with the convergence of technologies over the last few years, and by working with great friends, nonprofit supporters, patrons and my amazing students – I have finally made that boyhood dream come true for me and, most importantly, for my students – who are the next generation. Our children are the generation that will benefit the most from these coming of age technologies – technologies that they will soon come to see as normal and as every day as we kids of the last generation viewed the internal combustion engine, land-line telephone, film camera, CD, and MTV. *Read all about my 6th-grade epiphany in this blog post I penned on my nonprofit blog.
Now, over 35 years later, I am finally daily driving an electrically driven vehicle whose battery is charged with locally grown electricity from the sun – and a good chunk of water and wind produced renewably generated electricity! I use this renewable energy fueled electric vehicle for commuting to and from work, as an outreach vehicle for my nonprofit environmental education organization – Earthshine Nature Programs – and as a teaching tool in my middle and high school science classes where I work to demonstrate working models of the “new normal” of these now off-the-shelf technologies to the young minds who will lead us forward into a clean, renewable energy powered, and electrically driven future!
How did all this happen?
It all started in the late summer of 2012 when my wife and I purchased a slightly used 2012 Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicle (EV). I wrote all about that misadventure in this previous blog post.
We quickly came to dearly love the little electric car, and for the first 4 years of EV ownership, we charged the vehicle using the local grid provided energy mix. In 2017 this all changed when my classroom’s new 4.8 kW photovoltaic solar array went online.
Now I charge my EV almost every day with sunlight!
The data I have outlined below reveal that 48% of the power I used to charge EV’s drive battery over the period of this study came directly from solar produced, renewably generated, clean electricity produced by the 4.8 kWh photovoltaic solar array at my classroom/office where I charge on weekdays.
Due to the logistics of driving an early, short range, EV – the other 52% of the power needed to get me around during the time of this study came from the local power grid’s energy mix.
That energy mix is not perfect but it could be much worse. As of only about a decade or so ago it was provided by electricity generated primarily by burning coal – the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. As it stands today our local energy mix is a blend of coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, solar, nuclear, and wind (more or less in that order).
This 52% of my electric vehicle’s electron fuel originates from the local energy mix which I source from various 120 volt standard electrical outlets at my private residence and at the homes of friends, and the readily available Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) – aka car chargers – network located all around my “home range.” (Home range = the area in which I spend the majority of my time.)
When on the road I always try my best to use EVSE that are in close association with, or not far from solar or other renewable energy power sources in the attempt to keep my car’s electric fuel as clean as possible.
But how does all this work you may ask?
First, let us look at the solar side of things.
It all starts with our nearest star – the sun. Sunlight, which is made up of photons – that can take up to as long as one million years to be produced inside the sun – is produced by our nearest star then zip through space at the speed of light and around 8 minutes later strike my classroom’s photovoltaic solar array – that’s my classroom in the below photo taken by the ENP solar charged camera drone.
The photons are then converted into direct current (DC) electricity by an almost magical process that takes place within in the blue semi-conducting solar cells contained within the 20 solar modules that currently* make up the array. After the electricity is produced in the solar modules it travels (again at the speed of light) via wires to the SMA Sunny Boy inverter where it is modified from DC current into AC current and sent into the building’s power grid. From the there it travels via more wiring to a Clipper Creek Level 2 EVSE. *I say currently because we are now working on raising funds to complete Phase Two which will add 10 more solar modules to our classroom solar array powering the entire building and the EV with solar! Learn more about how you can help us make this happen for our classroom and nonprofit on our Patreon page or on our GoFundMe page.
From the EVSE the energy then travels along a cable into my 2012 Nissan Leaf and charges the car’s battery with clean, locally produced, renewable solar electricity.
No dirty, toxic, life-destroying fossil fuels needed for this configuration.
just
Sunshine + Science + EV + Willpower + Determination + Generosity +Hard Work = a Solar Driven Electric Vehicle!
Renewable energy + EV’s are the “new normal” and they offer all of us freedom from the subscription to dependency that is fossil fuels.
Although I have been daily charging my 2012 Nissan Leaf in this manner since mid-July 2017, this report will only cover a 4-month time-frame between August and November of 2017. At the end of 1 year, I will recalculate and we will take a look at the changes.
I only live about a dozen miles from my classroom/office and during the week I always charge my Leaf at work. After work and on weekends I often travel around the area for work and play so I must occasionally plug my Leaf into a standard power outlet on my carport at home or use the many conveniently located community Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) public charging stations* that are powered by other local energy sources – and some of these energy sources are not as clean as our favorite neighborhood star. For these logistical reasons, my Leaf is not entirely powered by the sun – at least not yet. *see map below and visit Plugshare to learn where there are EVSE near you.
The local charging station network as of the writing of this post. The blue dot is approximately (but nowhere near exactly for security reasons) where I live.
So, how do I know my Leaf is 48% solar powered?
To answer to that question I took a deep look at my “Leaf Log” – a charging status and usage journal that I have been keeping of my daily charging/driving activities since day one of EV ownership.
I compared my Leaf Log with the daily power production logs from my classroom’s SMA Sunny Boy Inverter and cross-referenced those with the power usage records from Duke Energy – my grid power provider.
The Data.
Time period covered: August 01- November 30, 2017.
Total solar array production to November 30th: 1.36 MWh
Average monthly solar production over the time period: 280.45 kWh
Average daily solar production over the time period: 9.34 kWh
Total number of times the Leaf was fully charged* using solar produced electricity over the time period: 65
*I only recorded data for days where solar production equaled or was greater than the kWh needed to fully charge my Leaf EV.
Total number of times the Leaf was charged at home over the time period: 47
Total number of times the Leaf was charged with local energy mix* over the time period: 53 *Our local energy mix includes a mix of Coal, Natural gas, Hydroelectric, Solar, Nuclear, and wind more or less in that order. From: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-1
Number of kWh from the cleanest solar produced electricity (my classroom solar array) over the time period: 535.19 kWh
Number of kWh from the local energy mix over the time period (home+other local EVSE): 687.3 kWh
Number of kWh sourced from Level 1 home charging: 357.3 kWh
Number of kWh from all other sources outside of solar/home: 330 kWh
Total kWh used by EV over time frame: 1222.49
It is important to note that my home energy mix is supported by wind power carbon offsets through Arcadia Power. This is significant because when I charge my Leaf at home, the energy used to charge its battery, while being physically generated by the local energy mix, has its carbon pollution offset by the construction and operation of wind farms which serve to lower my EV’s carbon footprint even more!
Number of kWh from wind energy offsets used to charge my Leaf at home over the time period = 357.3 kWh
Now let’s take a look at the local energy mix.
The total kWh sourced from the grid mix over the time period = 330 kWh.
Total kWh electricity sourced from EVSE in close proximity to renewably produced energy from home range grid mix over the time period = 97.3 kWh
Total kWh used from charging the Leaf adjacent to the dirtiest EVSE* in our local energy grid over the time period = 27.2 kWh *Note: I refer to this as the dirtiest EVSE in the area as it is less than a mile from and within sight of the largest local fossil fuel-fired electricity power plant in the area – as you can see from this image.
FINAL ANALASYS
Total energy used by EV over time period: 1,221.77 kWh
1041.69 + 180.08 = 1221.77
Total kWh from known clean energy sources over the time period: 1,041.69 kWh
Total kWh from fossil fuel generation sources: 180.8 kWh
153.6 + 27.2 (fossil fuels) = 180.8
CONCLUSIONS
My calculations suggest that, over the time period in question, the LEAF received 85.3% of its energy from renewable energy sources via either local sources or via carbon offsets. The remaining 14.7% of its energy came from local fossil fuel-fired generation sources.
So it seems that if my maths are correct (and please do correct me if you find an error) that my data and calculations suggest that during the time period in question my Leaf was 48% solar charged and 52% grid mix charged with 37.3% of that grid mix being sourced from renewable energy sources.
During the 48% of the time my Leaf was solar charging at my classroom – it was, in fact, receiving its electrons from the sun.
The other 52% of the time, while it is reasonable to deduce that my EV received 37.3% of its energy from renewable energy sources – it is more complicated to pinpoint the exact energy sources for my vehicles electron fuel. This is due to the nature of nature, the nature of the electric grid, the loads on the grid at any given time, the nature of electrons, and my varied locations when charging.
Nonetheless, if the numbers and my calculations are accurate then it is reasonable to say that my little EV is truly a “green” Leaf and, for its specific situation and use – it is as clean as it can possibly be when compared to vehicles powered solely by internal combustion engines that receive all of their energy from carbon-based fossil fuel sources. These results make me very happy by giving me the knowledge that I am doing as much as I am able to do to shrink my carbon footprint and I am working to share my findings with the next generation.
I am also fully and acutely aware that everything we do has an impact on our shared earth – from the manufacturing process of the vehicle, EVSE, solar array, and all the parts that tie it all together – these all have their own unique carbon footprints. I am also fully aware that all grid-based energy supply networks – from the dirtiest coal or diesel-fired power plant to the cleanest hydro, wind or solar sourced renewable energy installation also have their own areas of inefficiency and loss that compounds to lower their carbon footprints – so no, there is no such thing as a 100% carbon-free human-made energy source and there will always be some losses in the manufacturing processes, in the power delivery along the way to you, and in the final use of that power by you, the user. I am not here to debate those things nor am I hear to claim that I have all the answers. What I am here to do is share with you the ways I have discovered that you can make use of to lower your personal carbon footprint by using renewable energy and electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf in your everyday lives. Those other, larger issues – we common folk have little control over – but those issues will improve as our technology improves. For those improvements to happen we need to vote strong scientific minds into offices of power and we need to vote with our money in support of renewable energy projects, electric vehicles and their support infrastructure, and better efficiency in our homes, schools and workplaces and maybe then, by working together, we can work to make our collective impacts on our fragile ecosystem as low as possible for the benefit of us all and for the benefit of everything moving forward.
MORE PONDERINGS
The 149.2 kWh of RE generated/augmented electricity sources used to charge my EV varied depending upon where I plugged into the grid, was it sunny, overcast, windy, what was the ambient temperature etc. Although I am not 100% sure on any of the following I will take a stab at hazarding an educated guess.
Looking at the below map you will see two polygons. These represent my daily home range and the electricity generation sources located therein. I spend around 90% of my time within the area of the yellow polygon while the green polygon represents the extended home range that I visit around 10% of the time. Note: the Duke Energy power plant located just north of center of my primary home range is listed on the map as a Natural Gas Power Plant – however, that listing is misleading as it is, in reality, a “Conventional Steam Coal; Natural Gas Fired Combustion Turbine with Net Summer Capacity by Energy Source: Coal = 378 MW, Natural Gas = 320 MW.” – so it is currently not as “clean” as it is reported. The Oconee Nuclear power station, the closest one to my location, is just off the southern edge of the map to the left of Liberty, SC.
On the next map, we see all of the locations where I frequently charge my car and their locations in relation to the local power grid’s energy production sources.
The L1 and L2 EVSE in the lower left of the yellow polygon are clustered around my home and office. My home is located midway between the Duke energy coal/gas plant and a large clustering of hydroelectric power plants to the west. At first glance it appears that around 50% of my home’s electricity may be provided from this renewably generated clean hydroelectricity – however, those hydroelectric generation stations are on a different circuit so I am therefore unable to take advantage of their much cleaner hydroelectricity. Although my home circuit’s power grid is fed mostly by a mix of coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear, and solar more or less in that order – however, when we take into account the renewable energy offsets I receive from Arcadia Power my home energy mix becomes MUCH cleaner!
When I am in the northern part of my most frequented home range I usually charge at solar assisted EVSE locations located in downtown Asheville at the BrightfieldTS solar assisted EVSE stations located on College St., on the campus of UNCA, at the Sierra Nevada Brewery, or at the Earthfare Grocery store in South Asheville. These EVSE stations receive a large portion of their power from solar energy so, if an EV is charging during the day it is solar charged. When an EV is not charging, these EVSE then feed clean solar produced electricity back into the power grid. I can, therefore, hypothesize that when I charge at these locations (on sunny days) I am driving on sunshine and my car’s electron fuel is potentially as clean as when I solar charge at my classroom.
Charging on sunshine on the campus of UNCA
When I drive out of my most frequented home range area and into my extended home range (the area within the green polygon) not only is the majority of the electricity in that area provided by clean hydroelectric generating stations, but on top of that, whenever possible I charge at EVSE locations that are relatively close to hydroelectric, solar/wind* augmented generating stations. It is interesting to note that the EVSE on the campus of Western Carolina University is also fueled by a solar canopy as seen below.
This EVSE is also very close to the nearby Electron Garden , a small campus solar farm seen in the following photo, as well as being located “downstream” from several hydroelectric power generating facilities that produce close to 50 MW of clean hydro-generated electricity – so these facts suggest that this is indeed a very clean EVSE!
Another EVSE I use frequently is located at the Cherokee, NC welcome center in Cherokee, NC. This EVSE is powered by a mix of hydroelectric, solar, and wind generated electricity. The building (pictured below) is attached to a hydroelectrically energized power grid and it has two solar “trees” plus a small-scale wind turbine on site that generates even more clean energy from the sun and wind.
This clean energy is then fed directly into the building’s grid and the three EVSE located in the parking area. If an EV is charging then its batteries will be solar, wind, and water power charged.
My Leaf charging at the Cherokee Welcome Center.
On a few occasions, I am forced, due to my Leaf’s limited range, to charge at EVSE located very close to coal-fired generating facilities. On these occasions, my car is fueled with clean electrons produced by dirty energy generation stations. The good thing is that these occurrences are rare and totaled only 27.2 kWh of my total energy usage during the time period under study.
Follow Up
I have arrived at my conclusions based on data from my home range map, charging history data from the “Leaf Log,” and knowledge of the local electricity providers power generating facilities and their service areas.
Even with the gray areas in the numbers this 85.3% renewable energy provided fuel is far and above cleaner and more energy secure and has a significantly lower carbon footprint than anything out there on the roads that runs on any liquid petroleum fuel.
In fact, even if I did not have a solar generating station at my classroom/office, or use Arcadia Power for carbon offsets, or charge at renewable energy powered EVSE – my Leaf would still average around 73 mpg equivalent*. This is due to our country’s grid mix continuing to get cleaner every day with the retirement of aging coal fired power plants and their replacement with cleaner natural gas and much cleaner renewable energy power stations! *From the Union of Concerned Scientists EV Emissions Calculator found here: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/ev-emissions-tool#z/28768/2012/Nissan/LEAF (24 kWh)
This data is based on the following chart of the US energy mix as of March 2017.
Now let’s look take a deeper look at my local energy mix. The energy mix is just that – a mix of different energy sources all working together to provide us with reliable power for our homes, businesses, schools, and for a growing number of us – our electric transportation choices.
Traditionally, North Carolina was powered mostly by mostly coal but over the last couple of decades, we have seen a slow but steady growth in renewable power – especially since 2010. Since then NC has gone from near the back of the parade to #2 in the country for installed solar power! Solar now provides NC residents with ~3.57% of our energy mix coming from the sun as well as over 3000 MWh of installed capacity – enough to power over 341,000 homes – and on top of that solar provides over 7,100 North Carolinians with great jobs and in the process, our energy mix just keeps getting cleaner!
Evidence of this can be seen in the below map image of NC’s current solar (hydroelectric and nuclear) situation! (Note: yellow stars=grid scale solar power generation facilities, Blue=hydroelectric, purple=nuclear.)
This trend is happening all over the country as evidenced by this amazing graphic from this UCS article.
Many more solar and wind generating facilities are planned for the 2018 year as can be seen in the map below.
It is wonderful to see the fall of dirty “King Coal” with no new coal-fired power stations going in and the rapid growth of renewable power generation nationwide. What this means is cleaner air, cleaner water, and a cleaner future for all of us, for nature, for wildlife, for our children, and for the children of the future.
It also means that even when we charge our EV’s on only local grid power they will ALWAYS be cleaner and have less of an impact on our environment than ANYTHING powered by petroleum products (source). Furthermore, with more and more new grid scale and private renewable energy generation facilities going online, the grid just continues to get cleaner – so every time we charge our EV’s anywhere – the electrons fueling our vehicles also just continue to get cleaner.
This is a win-win situation for all of us…well, unless you are still driving around in an old fossil burner because, as we all know, their fuel source can never be made clean and on top of that as they age their efficiency drops as their multitudes of moving parts wear out with use only causing them to pollute more and more.
Below a wonderful sign of the times from the Sunday funny papers 🙂
I almost forgot to mention that when I looked at how the numbers have changed when it comes to my fuel costs to push my Nissan Leaf EV down the road – the new solar array has lowered my costs by, you guessed it, almost half of what I was paying in the past. My previous costs of operation for my EV’s electric fuel were around $30/month and now, with my classroom solar array online and charging my car with sunshine, I can now drive my average 1200 miles/month for about $15 – that works out to a little more than 1 cent per mile to fuel my EV!!!
OUTRAGEOUS!!!
That my friends is the ultimate smackdown to petroleum-based fuels.
I could not be happier.
!THANK YOU!
Thank you to everyone who worked with me to make this dream a reality!
Check out my latest extended length video log (is VLog still a thing?).
Ride along with me on drive through the Blue Ridge mountains of Western North Carolina in my 2012 Nissan Leaf SL. This is a re-visit of the first long range excursion undertaken in my Nissan Leaf almost 4 years prior.
In this video I investigate how the car has changed as it has aged and how the EV charging infrastructure along the route has changed as well. I also find “Turtle Mode.”
We have been driving our 2012 Nissan Leaf for 3 and 1/2 years so it is time to report on this, our grand experiment, of owning and daily driving the planet’s first mass produced all electric vehicle – the Nissan Leaf.
Charging up at a local BrightfieldTS solar charging station.
Before we get into the report let’s look back over the last three years.
In my first report after purchasing the little blue electric car I outlined the adventure we experienced after purchasing the car and driving it across central and eastern Tennessee. A couple of times during the entire ordeal I asked myself – was this a wise choice? Was this a total mistake? What have we done?!?! But after we made it home and I looked at how little it had cost us in electricity charges to cross Tennessee and how much I loved passing gas stations I realized that if we could adapt to the new vehicle it would save us thousands of dollars each year in fuel costs and that was just the cake – the very sweet free range organic icing was the list of environmental and health benefits offered to anyone who makes the switch to driving electric.
In my second report at three months and 6500 miles, we had settled into loving the little EV and had come to the realization that driving electric was truly a better way to drive. As I reported at the end of the article; “By buying the Leaf we have saved money (around $500), reduced our carbon footprint by eliminating almost 952.95* lbs of CO2 from being eliminated into the atmosphere, and gained a maintenance free car that is fun to drive and seems to be very well thought out and well constructed.” *To date we have saved almost 12,000 lbs of CO2 from being dumped into the atmosphere!
The third report came at 11 months and around 15,000 miles and I couldn’t wait till the end of one year to let the world know how much we love this car!! “Conclusions: even with the limited range and other little issues we still love our Nissan Leaf–it is a truly amazing car that has saved us thousands of dollars in fuel and repair costs and we do not regret our EV decision in any way. We are loving our pioneering decision and look forward to many years of EV adventure and savings!”
And now for the Three Year Leaf Report
It has been 3.5 years and 45,000 miles and overall we do still love the little electric car. It is as fun to drive as it was on day one. It continues to cost us very little money to own and power. It continues to perform (in most respects) as it has for the last two years however, it has experienced a few issues and we have discovered a few quirks and limitations that must be reported.
Daily Driver.
We continue to drive the car daily to and from work, to town, and to visit nearby cities and sometimes even journey out of state (but not that far out). On average I drive the car around 1000 miles per month with an average electricity cost of around $30-40/month (or less). As in the past I continue to drive the car on all types of roads and in almost all weather conditions from hot summer days to torrential rains and snow covered winter wonderlands and the little car continues to preform admirably. The Leaf has become our car of choice for our longer local trips since it is almost free to fuel and drive. Our other vehicle, a 2013 Honda Pilot, is driven much more rarely and most often only for the shorter trips and for hauling loads, pulling a trailer, and the very rare long distance trips over 100 miles.
On the road to work in winter.
Carrying Capacity. As for the carrying capacity of the car it is perfect for us for daily commuting back and forth to work, trips to the store, movies, dinner out, visiting (local) family and friends, and wherever else we need to go. However, for the purposes of my nonprofit organization it barely serves me simply due to the fact that I really need more carrying capacity – about three times the space in the Leaf would be perfect. I suppose I am a bit of a special case since I am always toting boxes of things, tools, gear, animals, and such to and from work to home and to my wildlife and nature presentations and classes all over the region. For the last three years, out of necessity, out of not wanting to drive a gas powered vehicle to my presentations, and by wanting to provide a living example to others that a life driving an EV can be done – for most of my trips I have almost always managed to shoehorn all that I need to into the LEAF although it has not always been easy or comfortable.
What I really need for the business is an all electric small van such as the Nissan eNV200 but sadly it is currently only available in Europe and Japan. Read my blog posting about this van and please comment if you could use one for your business and maybe together our voices might in some small way influence Nissan to bring this wonderful small van to the USA.
Note: Recently I have been thinking about shipping one over the ocean or the possibility of converting a gas powered NV200 into an EV using the drive-train and battery(s) of a LEAF – I wonder if it could be done? Anyone out there have any ideas?
Charging: Since we have owned the car we most often charge it with the Level 1 charging cord that comes standard with the car. At the end of the day we park it on the car port or in the garage, plug it into the nearby 110 volt outlet, and let it trickle charge overnight and it is always ready to go in the morning. It is just soooo much easier and soooo much cheaper than stopping at the gas station, I just can not explain why so many people are so reluctant to do it and after a couple of recent less than safe and secure events I have witnessed at gas stations – read all about them in two of my recent blog postings here and here – I am even more happy to pass up the gas.
On a few rare occasions I have returned home after midnight and plugged in the Leaf only to find it still charging in the morning. This has never been much of an issue for me as my office is only 12 miles away and anywhere else I may travel there are many different charging options available if needed.
If I have a distance to drive after work I will charge the car while at work via a second L1 charger that was given to me by EV club member, friend, and superhero for wildlife and nature conservation, solar power, and EV’s Bob Harris of Black Bear Solar Institute –
THANK YOU BOB!
Charging while at work at possibly the planet’s only “Chicken Coop” Charging station that will soon be solar powered by my classroom’s solar array making the Leaf also solar powered and truly zero emission 🙂
My students and I, with the help of friends Jim Hardy and Bob Harris, completed phase one of the classroom solar array on January 20th, 2017.
When the electrical wiring and battery storage is complete this solar array will produce 5.3 kW of solar power! That is enough clean, renewable, site-produced electricity to power many of our classroom’s electric loads as well as the Nissan Leaf! Below is a diagram of how it all will work.
Read more about our classroom solar project and how you can support the final phase of its construction and/or our other nonprofit renewable energy, wildlife and nature conservation and education projects.
Charging on the road: When I am out and about in the community I most often make use of the local charging network that consists of over 100 charging stations spread out all over my region. The growth of this network was slow at first but due to efforts of local EV and renewable energy owner/advocacy groups such as Black Bear Solar Institute, Brightfield Transportation Systems, Land of Sky Clean Vehicles Coalition, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Blue Ridge EV Club, and Charge Transylvania County and support from local businesses, educational institutions, and forward thinking individuals – the network has seen rapid growth over the last two years. Recently Earthfare and Brevard College added charging stations with many more on the way!
Most recently Duke Energy announced plans to add over 200 L2 charging stations to the North Carolina Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) network! This is a wonderful development and while it will expand our driving range it would be even better yet if Duke would install solar or wind energy systems alongside these charging stations to offset their use with renewable energy. Maybe Brightfield Transportation Systems and FLS Energy will join forces with Duke Energy Renewables to make this happen!
Take a look at the current state of the WNC charging network on Plugshare.com! Keep in mind that each location may contain from one to several individual charging units allowing for several vehicles to charge at a time. While you are at it check out Plugshare.com for your city and see how many charging stations are near you!
In March of 2015 I witnessed firsthand as the first DC Quick (DCQC) charger went online in Asheville, NC. In the months following, several more DCQC units came online along with many more Level 2 units and finally the area’s first Tesla Supercharger was installed in December of 2015. This expanding EVSE network has opened up the roads even more to those of us who drive electric and as far as my daily errands, business trips, and even a few longer range visits to see friends in neighboring communities, we can now use my EV to travel almost anywhere I once traveled with a gas vehicle.
Charging Timer: For the first two years of Leaf ownership I would most often set the Leaf’s charge timer to charge to 80% to increase battery life. Over the last year however, due to the premature battery degradation issue I will go over in more detail later, I have been forced to charge to 100% more often. I am not happy with this fact at all but the fact remains that if I need the extra range to take care of my errands after work or on weekends I will charge to 100% out of necessity. I have been able to work out a charging scheme that serves to give the battery more time to cool down and not charge to 100% as often. How it works: upon my arrival at work at 9 AM I usually have about a 50-60% SOC. I will then plug in and trickle charge to 100% during the day. The car will often stop charging around 2pm giving it around 3-4 hours of cool down time. At the end of the day I will run my errands on the way home and as the terrain is almost all downhill I will not use as much power. When I arrive back home I will often park the Leaf with a 75-80% SOC on the battery. I then let the battery rest overnight without charging when ambient temperatures are cooler.
During the colder weeks of winter (these are getting few and farther between due to anthropogenic climate change aka global warming ) when the temperatures are below 40F, I will most often park the Leaf in my garage so the battery will not be subjected to the lower temperatures of winter. This practice not only gives me a few more miles of range but the car is warmer when I get in so I only need to use the seat and steering wheel warmers on the drive to work. I very seldom turn on the heater/defroster unless it is below freezing or the windows are fogging up.
While these techniques will hopefully slow the battery degradation somewhat, I do have to plan my charging sessions a few days in advance so I will be able to be sure I will have a full battery when I need it.
These adaptations are acceptable to me but I suppose I am a special case. Many people would not like all the compromises I have made. For many in our fast paced, instant gratification, jump in the car and go society, having to stop and think to plug in a car much less think about the car’s range, battery health, temperature, and other parameters would just not be acceptable – even though we are already accustomed to plugging our smartphones and other devices in at night – this would just be one more step that many are not willing to make. This is yet more real world evidence why a 200+ mile range EV is much more practical than one that will travel less than 100 miles. With a 200+ range EV almost none of this would even be an issue, anyone could travel anywhere they would normally travel AND now that the fast charging network is in place and growing nationwide we would be able to travel to all of the more distant destinations for which we are forced to use our only remaining gasoline powered vehicle.
I feel certain that soon, the day will come when our dreams of a 300 mile range EV van/utility vehicle will be realized. On that day we will trade our fossil fired Honda and say goodbye to gas forever and then our family will be 100% free of the grip of big oil and on that day we will all grin that EV grin as we drive away passing gas into the sunset 😉
Driving Range. Since purchasing the Leaf in the late summer of 2012 we have steadily lost driving range. All vehicles, no matter the fuel used, loose driving range as they age – but in our case it is happening faster and this is not “normal.” In one of my first blog postings – the 2000 mile report – I noted that the car had an estimated driving range (from the GOM) of around 80 miles but its real world range was around 70. Today that range has been reduced to around 55-60 real world miles. Even with this reduction in range I have almost no issues getting where I need to go. According to my research this reduction in range is a bit more pronounced for our Leaf than the majority of 2012 Leaf owners have experienced. This suggests that the traction battery in my Leaf may have been damaged before I took over ownership of the vehicle. I have no proof of this, it is only speculation based on available facts. Read more about this issue later in this report.
Long Range Trips. Now this is a different story. I have taken several long range road trips that have really tested the capabilities of the little blue car. The most memorable being my first excursion over the mountains back in the days before we had the ever growing EVSE network that we have today. With my Leaf being a 2012 model it came standard with a 24 kWh battery pack with an EPA estimated range of 84 miles. This is a relatively small battery by today’s standards (think Tesla!) and over the first two years of driving the car it provided my vehicle with a real world driving range of around 70-80 miles. This driving range was great for daily commuting but for long range trips beyond 75 miles the old “range anxiety” monster began to creep into the picture. Then last year I embarked on this mis-adventure that ended in the Leaf having to be towed (by a stinky diesel – yuk!) to a charging station due to an exhausted battery (it was all my fault)!
Then there was my most recent close call in December of 2016 when I rolled onto the car-port with ZERO range remaining on the “guess-o-meter” and an 8% SOC as reported by LeafSpyPro- that was a close one!
I was really pushing the edge of the envelope due to the battery degradation issues the car is now facing…read more about this later.
Outside of my recent range related experiences the future looks great for the Leaf and the other new long rage EV’s coming on the scene. Many of the planet’s automotive companies are accelerating EV projects, research laboratories are ramping up battery chemistry research and development with some amazing results hitting the roads and the Tesla Gigafactory is now online and pumping out batteries as you read these words. The the 2016 Leaf has been out for over a year with a 107 mile driving range and in the next few months Nissan is rumored to be releasing the Leaf 2.0 with a possible driving range of over 200 miles – read more about it here and here and the test mule story here and here!
The upcoming new Leaf, the recent release of the 238 mile range Chevrolet Bolt, the Hyundai Ioniq with 124 mile range (soon to have 200 mile range), and the upcoming release of the new Volvo and Volkswagen EV’s and the much anticipated and highly reservedTesla Model 3 with a stated driving range of 215 miles (but knowing Elon it will probably top 250 or have different battery options from 215 to maybe around 300…only time will tell) as well as the Nikola 1 and could this be a teaser of the Tesla Truck? Then there is the recent news that SMART is ditching gas altogether and offering all their USA and Canadian vehicles in electric only! Then there is the news that Volkswagen has committed to 30 all-electric vehicles by 2025 and that Volkswagen will be investing 2 billion dollars in new EVSE infrastructure in the USA- wow! And check out what Audi America President recently said! All these are wonderful developments that will forever erase the fear many drivers have of “range anxiety” and I am very hopeful and excited to see what the future holds for the EV.
Maintenance.
Since owning the Leaf there has been very little maintenance to conduct on the vehicle. Outside of a couple of flat tires, a couple of worn suspension bushings (probably due to the gravel road I drive daily), a strut that sprung a premature leak and needed replacing, a new cabin filter (that I changed myself and blogged about), new wiper blades, and 2 sets of tires, so far the only big issue (outside of the battery capacity) was the replacement of the Braking Control Unit and master cylinder/booster assembly. If not for the warranty this would have been a very expensive repair! The fact remains that none of these issues were related to the vehicle being an EV and all of these things would have happened to any vehicle no matter what fuel was pushing the vehicle down the road.
Getting a new set of shoes – I use the Yokohama 580
To date the Leaf’s electric drive system has worked flawlessly and had no issues (despite the reduced range related to the battery degradation).
One odd issue we experienced was due to lack of vigilance of the operator.
During the spring of 2016, due to an emergency in the family, the car was parked for a few weeks with about a 80% battery charge. During this time the LeafSpy Pro’sOBDII adapter remained plugged into the diagnostic port of the car. The adapter was on and using a very small amount of power and the car was parked in a dark area where the rooftop solar panel could not get any solar exposure to power the OBDII adaptor and maintain the 12 volt battery. These factors conspired to drain the car’s 12 volt battery. The flat battery caused the car’s computer to loose its settings which threw all manner of things out of whack resulting in a $300 out of warranty cost to identify the problem and then reprogram the system-what a bummer.
So, all in all, in 3.5 years/45k miles of ownership of this little blue EV we have had to spend less than $400 out of pocket on maintenance. Granted this was because the vehicle was still under warranty and if I had to pay out of pocket for the brake system repairs it would have been over $2000 not counting labor! But again, those repairs would have been similar for any newer car no matter what fuel it operated on so the EV nature of the vehicle was in no way at fault. Some may say that it would be more cost effective to just drive an older fossil burner to save money. I beg to differ. Considering that during the same time fame my 1999 Toyota 4Runner (a great vehicle for its time) cost us close to $3000 in repairs and $3000 in gasoline and oil so the Leaf was by far the more cost effective option – even with the monthly car payment.
The old Toyota 4Runner- a great vehicle that ran on the wrong fuel.
That has all changed now that the 3 year 36k warranty has expired. The great thing is that the power-train/EV systems are still covered by a 5 year 60,000 mile warranty and the traction battery has a 8 year 100,000 mile warranty so I am good for a few more years/miles on those key EV systems. I suppose it is inevitable that a few years in the future, if/when I have any more issues with the little car, I will be doing my own repairs. I have no problem with this because I am a tinkerer and I love to fix things.
Amenities (bells and whistles).
The stock Leaf is clean and refined enough for the everyday driver and is feature rich enough for the driver interested in keeping track of the car’s primary systems. However, for the data and technology junkie like myself, I believe the features could be improved and refined to offer more EV systems and performance data for those drivers that want a wealth of information about their vehicle’s systems in situ and over time. An improvement would be to include more information on the car’s systems such as a user selectable monitoring screen showing a graphic representation of the vehicle with all systems highlighted in a semi-transparent view. Each system would be selectable by the driver either via a touch screen or a BMW i3/Nissan style joystick-like knob and/or a voice recognition interface to allow for less distractions while driving. Once the driver selects a system a new window or info bubble would open showing details of the selected system for example; if the traction battery is selected the info window would display metrics such as SOC, GIDS, TEMP, Charge/Discharge/Regen rate/stats, hours in use, faults,alerts etc… This system could be used by the driver to monitor all vehicle systems and in the event of a fault or failure a warning message would be prominently displayed on the main screen accompanied by an audio warning by the EV-SIMDAS.
Suggestion: EV Systems Information Monitoring and Driver Alert System (EV-SIMDAS).
This system would constantly monitor all systems of the vehicle alerting the driver through audio and visual warning alerts of the current issue. This system would be user customizable with several choices of skins and fonts as well as various voices and languages for use with the SIMDAS and vehicle navigation system. Users may also download unique customizable themes and packages of their own choosing or create their own and upload them into the system themselves.
Interior.
I like the design of the interior of the car. It is of what I would call mid-range quality. Although it has held up well to my daily use, I have also been very careful and tried not to damage or soil it. My biggest issues with the interior are as follows;
The annoying and possibly dangerous reflection in the windshield from the dashboard. This happens on sunny days and is almost mirror-like in quality. The remedy would be a dark colored, non reflective surface.
Odd sounds from the glove box area and dash panel while driving over rough surfaces. This is only audible when the music is off. It is a tiny yet annoying repetitive “rattle” or “chatter” that only goes away once the road smooths out. The only way to stop it is to open the glove box. It is not an item in the glove box so I believe it to be a loose fixing behind the dashboard. This may only be an issue affecting those of us who drive their Leaf’s on rougher roads as I have yet to speak with anyone with a similar problem so it may only be my problem.
The seat design. I have never found it very comfortable and constantly find myself trying to adjust it for better comfort. The problems I have with it are that the lumbar support area is much too “sunken in” and the headrest is too far forward. To remedy both of these issues I built up the lumbar region with a piece of 1.5″ foam placed under the seat cover and I reversed the headrest. This helped my unique situation but as this is my preference, others may find it to be just fine.
Navigation system. The nav system needs to be more feature rich and user friendly.
Audio. This system has worked very well for me for the most part.
Hands free Bluetooth audio/phone and voice recognition system. The Nissan Info-tainment system allows my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphone to connect flawlessly to the system allowing me to stream music and podcasts from my device. The hands-free phone system works very well allowing me to make and take calls while driving. However, the voice recognition system (at least in my car) has some serious issues. When I use the system to make calls while driving it frequently takes the system several tries before it recognizes my voice and takes the appropriate action. I have had a Nissan technician look at the issue and they have found no problems with the hardware so I believe it is either my voice (low chance of probability), a software issue (low chance of probability), or combination of environmental factors such as road/tire noise not present during testing that are conspiring to manifest the problem (high chance of probability). I have tested the system while the car is stationary and, while the voice recognition system works a bit better that while driving, it continues to have issues with voice recognition. I do not believe my regional accent is the problem because my 2013 Honda Pilot has a similar hands free phone system and it works flawlessly never misinterpreting my commands. So there you have it Nissan – something else to work on for the upcoming new LEAF.
Exterior.
Since I first laid eyes on the Nissan Leaf I have loved its sleek, futuristic design. From the swept back, aerodynamic look, to the unique headlight pods and the distinctive tall, narrow LED taillight assemblies – the design speaks of unique form following function creating a one of a kind beauty that is very fitting for the planet’s first mass produced all electric vehicle.
My Leaf deep in the Pisgah National Forest
I only have one real issue with the exterior of the Leaf.
The windshield wipers make a horrible chatter when the rain is light or misty. I have tried “RainX” and other similar products without results. I have replaced the blades – without results. I have taken the vehicle to the Nissan dealership on several occasions to have this looked at but they have found no issues and say all is working well. If that is the case then why the chatter?
If anyone out there has any ideas on how to remedy this issue please do contact me.
Other suggestions for Nissan to consider.
Remove the “mickey mouse ear” side view mirrors and replace them with HD cameras (similar to what Tesla and others are working on). This would serve to make the Leaf safer by eliminating blind spots while driving and parking, it would reduce aerodynamic drag thereby increasing efficiency and driving range, and it would streamline the look of the vehicle making it even more distinctive.
Offer a wide angle rear view mirror similar to the Chevrolet Bolt. (I know it is technically interior but it is used to view the exterior…)
Offer an optional rooftop/hoodtop solar array consisting of lightweight high efficiency solar cells embedded in a hardened possibly glass matrix similar to what Tesla Energy is working on for homes. I wrote about this idea in the Three Month Leaf Report and even came up with this badly photo-shopped image…
…but now I believe it could be incorporated into a roof/hood design that would be less visible yet produce many thousands of miles of added range per year and therefore even more in fuel savings for the owner, a further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for the planet, thus a win-win for all considered…well except for the maybe the fossil fuel companies but hey, I can live with that 🙂 This concept is not just a geeky idea that fell out of my brain…others are working on it as well enter the Sion from Sono Motors a crowdfunded solar powered EV!
Battery Issues.
Our Leaf is a 2012. It was built in Japan in 2011 before Nissan started making the Leaf and its battery pack at it’s Smyrna Tennessee manufacturing facility. Therefore, its battery is a first generation unit that is more susceptible to high temperature related degradation. This was an unfortunate problem discovered by several early Leaf owners in areas with hot climates which resulted in a lawsuit directed at Nissan. This lawsuit spurred the implementation of the generation 2 “Lizard” battery that drives all Nissan Leaf and eNV200 vehicles to this day.
When we purchased our Leaf it only had 1200 miles on the odometer. We were told by the dealership that it had been a one owner car and that owner had worked for Nissan and driven the vehicle to promotional events. After a few months the Nissan rep then turned in the vehicle to be put up for sale where it then spent several more months sitting on a Nissan car lot until we purchased it. During its several months of down time it sat on the hot parking lot in central Tennessee baking in the summer sun. Was the battery fully charged during this time? Was the car used/test drove much at all? Due to the low mileage I doubt it.
My hypothesis is that due to the vehicle’s low usage, time spent in summer high temperatures, and possibility of sitting in that heat in a fully charged state – that all these factors may have caused the car’s traction battery to suffer premature damage resulting in the reduced range issues I am seeing today.
Since day one I have kept detailed records of the car’s driving data. For the first two years I used the mycarma myEV vehicle data logger and associated app. It worked pretty well for awhile but started having connectivity issues a little over a year ago so I switched to the much more stable and data rich Leaf Spy Pro unit.
On June 8th 2015, when the car had 25,527 miles on the odometer, I noticed that the first battery capacity bar was missing. The myEV device was reporting that the battery health was at 89% and the guess-o-meter estimated that I had 74 miles of range in drive. The first capacity bar returned and dropped away repeatedly for the next several months but did not remain absent until almost 5 months and almost 5000 miles later at the end of October 2015 when it returned one last time and then was forever extinguished with around 30k miles on the odometer. When this happened I noted that the vehicle was continuing to estimate my driving range at 74 miles in drive and 80 in ECO. This capacity loss hardly affected my travels in any way.
On 12/11/15 I started using Leaf Spy and discovered that when charged to 100% my battery stats were as follows;
SOC: 90.5%
GID’s: 219
kWh: 17
On 7/15/16, with the odometer reading 38,400 miles, I turned on the car only to find that in less than 8 months the second capacity bar was missing
Leaf Spy reported the following stats when charged to 100%
SOC: 91.4
GID’s: 208
kWh: 16.1
I promptly took the car to Nissan for a check up and they said all looked normal and the battery checked out OK with a five star rating (whatever that means -meh). The Nissan representative did state that my car has the 100k mile extended warranty on the battery and that it would be repaired or replaced if the battery capacity drops below 9 bars.
Since that time I have seen a steady decrease in the range I can drive my Leaf. In fact the numbers below from Leaf Spy Pro indicate the ongoing degradation of the battery.
Average statistics of the car’s battery as reported when in a fully charged state by Leaf Spy Pro for the month of December 2016.
SOC: 91.82
GID’s: 205
kW: 15.9
From these numbers I believe I can predict that I may loose the third capacity bar when Leaf Spy reports the following;
GIDS: 197
kW: 15.1
If the car’s mileage is a factor in when capacity bars drop then it seems that, for my driving conditions, around 8k miles has elapsed between the loss of the first and second capacity bars (as measured after the first bar dropped away entirely.) These data suggest that I could look for the third capacity bar to drop at around 46,400 miles and since my car now has over 45k miles on its odometer it may not be very long before I loose the third capacity bar.
So to recap it looks like if the battery keeps degrading at the same rate as it has for the last 1.5 years then the car may loose it’s third capacity bar at GID’s 197/kWh 15.1 and fourth capacity bar at GID’s 186/kWh 14.3 and if mileage is a factor then the car could loose its fourth capacity bar by around 54,400 miles! If this is the case then that number is well below the 8 year 100k mile battery warranty provided by Nissan (as noted in the 2012 warranty booklet provided by Nissan).
Only time will tell and whatever it reveals I will be sure to report on within the pages of this blog.
The Renewable Connection. The purchase of the Leaf was a great inspiration for the classroom solar energy project that my students and I are currently constructing to power most of our classroom’s electric power loads and the Leaf! The ability to produce your own power for your classroom/office/home AND fuel for your vehicle cannot be understated. In fact, I have built an entire core class around the concept of producing your own renewable energy to power your lives and your vehicle(s). Within the next few weeks my students and I will complete our classroom solar array and soon will be producing site generated clean electricity and the Leaf will then be charged by the sun! This practical application of renewable energy coupled with electric vehicles can be implemented by anyone, anywhere and together we can work together to end our dirty, destructive addiction to fossil fuels.
My LEAF at a local solar farm that provides clean energy for over 400 homes!
LEAF LOVE
I have written many posts about all the reasons why I love my Leaf and most of them center around not using toxic, life and ecosystem killing petrochemicals to move me from place to place, not fueling climate change, and how much money I have saved by owning this little EV. Some of my favorite stories are listed below –
There are many cultural hurdles to be experienced when one drives an EV. These are undoubtedly different depending on what parts of the country/world in which you live. In my corner of the world I encounter the best and the worst of both worlds for example.
In November of 2014 I experienced firsthand the destructive and disturbing cultural phenomenon known as “Coal Rolling” …well, sort of 🙂
A “coal roller” intentionally shortening his life. Photo from the internet.
Since then I have had a few instances where “doubters” “nay-sayers” “luddites” and even a few truly good people who just do not have all the facts and/or are resistant to change have attempted to make their position known with several different tactics (that all stem from lack of knowledge) with some of these encounters actually ending with the instigators learning something, walking away with a more open mind, and possibly even driving away in an EV!
2-Road rage/highway bullying. This has happened on countless occasions where I am driving along minding my own business only to look in my rear view mirror and find a large pick-up truck (often with a confederate flag, don’t tread on me, or other intolerant, fringe-focused, close minded front license plate reflected in my rear view mirror) riding three feet off my bumper often with the headlights, “fog” lights, LED light bars on high beam.
Photo from the internet
It is not that I drive slow, I try to abide by the law and routinely drive no more than 5mph over the speed limit – road and environmental conditions depending. Furthermore, we EV drivers know that our cars are much faster than ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) powered vehicles and if I wanted to do so I could simply press the accelerator to the floor and silently disappear into the distance before the perpetrator knew what had happened. But no, I do not let the small-minded knuckle-dragging bullies driving the ancient vehicles of yesteryear intimidate me so I maintain my speed, I stay calm, focused, and watch as a very predictable series of events almost always unfolds (just like with the childish, posturing schoolyard bullies I dealt with as a youngster); the perpetrator rides my bumper long enough to read the badges on the car that say “Zero emission” and “100% electric” and then may take note of the decals that read “No Tailpipe” and “Proven by Science” and “Question Fossil Fuels – Go Green” at which point (if they are able to read) they may realize that the vehicle is electric and (as in my experience) many of the stereotypical big truck driving rebel flag waving, prominently displayed gun rack sporting types often seem to see progressive things, like this little electric car, as a threat to their freedoms and all that they stand for and of everything they do not understand or are unwilling to even try to understand. This erroneously ignorant outlook then often labels the car and its driver a threat to the toxic lifestyle that they have been taught to propagate, perpetuate, cherish, and for some even worship. These “lunatic fringe” types appear to loathe and fear anything they do not understand when accepting that “different” thing would open up so many unique possibilities for growth and possibly wealth – yet they choose to wallow in their own ignorance and aggressively tailgate the little EV – so very sad.
Art from the internet.
Soon they realize that their pushy bumper riding tactics are not working so they ride right up on my bumper, often weaving back and forth with impatience, until they find a place to pass (even if it is not a marked passing zone), drop their gas guzzling, heavily modified, old fossil burner into a lower gear, and speed by as loud and as garishly as possible cutting it as close as possible to my car as they whip back into the right lane only to linger a moment before speeding off down the road breaking the speed limit as they leave a toxic cloud of exhaust smoke (almost always diesel) in their infantile, ignorance, testosterone filled (they are almost always male), and possibly alcohol fueled wake.* Sadly, some bullies never grow up so there may be no hope for these types but then again…see #3.
*I am fully aware that this description seems very stereotypical yet in my experience it is accurate and I am not exaggerating. I welcome any input/comments from other EV drivers out there who have experienced similar events.
3-Road Respect. I have had a few productive discussions with some individuals who profess to drive big, loud garish 4×4 type vehicles because they need them for their jobs. These hard working folks are not as resistant to change as the arrogant road warrior types described in the previous paragraph. These individuals often initiate the conversation with questions like “Is that one of those electric cars?” or “I heard they are slow like golf carts?” or “Does it really run only on batteries?” or “How much does it cost to charge it?” When I fill them in on the fact that it is fully electric, quite fast, and only costs me an average of $7 to drive around 200 miles they are genuinely interested and often floored that the operational costs are so minuscule when compared to their big trucks. They often retort by saying things like “That is incredible!!” and “My truck costs me several hundred a month to fuel!” and “I think I need to take one of those for a test drive.” or “This would be a great vehicle for my wife and kids!” So I look at it like this – while these folks do drive big gas guzzling trucks they are closet geeks at heart. Many of them seem to be open minded enough to start thinking about the possibility of owning an EV – if only to save loads of money. So hopefully, the more I share my story the more the world will change especially once automakers start making electric 4×4 trucks 🙂
4-Road Ignorance. I have had many individuals come out and say things like “You know that thing burns coal?” or “EV’s are dirtier than ‘normal’ cars.” and “Electric vehicles are slow – like golf carts.” and “I would never buy a car that only goes 70 miles before needing to be charged!” or “That thing is un-American! It does not support the oil we work so hard to defend – I would NEVER drive and EV! and so many more negative comments. We all know that many of these comments stem from total ignorance of the facts (doubters) and often a wanton distrust of anything new (luddites). So frustrating are these encounters that I have even gone as far as putting together several blog postings here, here and here outlining the facts in the attempt to spread some truth to the masses. I suppose I am preaching to the choir in most cases and the people that really need to read these words may never read them…but we can only hope they do because if we do not try to change the system then the system will never change.
However, there have been a many times where I have calmly struck up a conversation with uninformed or ill-informed individuals, offered up a few facts about the vehicle and the technology, given a tour, even given a ride, and in a few cases even let them drive the little EV and in a few instances totally change their views and/or either plant a seed of thought in their opening minds and, as in a few cases, the experience has even sold them on the EV way if life and before I know it they are driving the roads in their own EV! Sadly for some people however there is no amount of reason and/or facts that will ever change their minds. I feel sorry for these people for they are only hurting themselves and making it harder for the rest of us to progress.
Positive EV Encounters
While the negative encounters will happen they do seem to be getting to be fewer and farther between. More often the people I have encountered are genuinely interested in my EV and what it is like to own and drive an all electric car.
For example –
When I first purchased the Leaf I soon showed it to my friend “Jack”. He was in the market for a car and was looking at a Toyota hybrid but after he took my Leaf for a drive he decided to buy one and soon drove off the lot with a new 2015 model! He has since become a great advocate for the technology, attends EV events whenever possible and works hard to promote EV’s, renewable energy, and nature conservation in the community. THANK YOU JACK you are a true HERO and great inspiration to me!!
Early in my EV ownership adventure when my Leaf was one of the only ones in town, I was pulled over by not one but two State Troopers in separate vehicles with blue lights flashing. They walked around it as if looking for infractions, then they asked for my license and registration and as they looked up my records they asked me about the car. It turned out that my tag was out of date and the troopers gave me a warning ticket and drove on. I believe the real reason for the show of force from the force was more interest driven and they just wanted to look at this new type of vehicle they were going to be encountering on the roads they patrol.
I showed my Leaf to my doctor and a few weeks later he was driving a BMW i3.
One day I was driving along in my Leaf and received a phone call (piped via Bluetooth through the Leaf’s hands free phone system) and heard a woman’s voice. She and I spoke for a bit about EV’s, I told her the story of the adventures and challenges of owning an all electric vehicle, and before long she was driving the roads in a brand new Tesla Model S!
In another instance another local man, let’s call him “Squirrel” read this blog and soon was driving around in his own white Leaf. He later sold the Leaf and now “Squirrel” happily drives a shiny white Tesla Model S.
In yet another local instance a man, let’s call him “Tad,” was inspired by his conversations with my friend “Jack” so he went out and bought a Tesla Model S! So one could say that if “Jack” had not been inspired by driving my Leaf to buy his own Leaf then the probability is very low that “Tad” would be driving around his very own shiny electric “Intergalactic SpaceBoat of Light and Wonder.”
With all the Leaf owners transitioning from Leaf’s to Teslas, Could it be that the Nissan Leaf is the “gateway drug” into the Tesla Model S?
In one amazing instance I presented an educational nature and wildlife conservation program at a local school. As with all of my wildlife/nature programs I offer up to the participants that one of the ways they can help wildlife and nature is by driving electric vehicles powered by renewable energy sources. On this instance I introduced the student body to my little EV. One of the students was so inspired by the car and my story that he petitioned the school’s directors to replace the campus vehicles with EV’s and to install a solar array at the school to power the car(s) and the classroom buildings! I have yet to hear back on if the school will be making these improvements but even if they do not take that leap, that one student is thinking in the right direction and that makes me very happy. Another amazing part of this story is that the inspired student who petitioned the school to go EV and renewable had, before my presentation, been totally focused on high speed gasoline powered vehicles. Amazingly, after my introduction to EV’s and renewable energy, this student had a great epiphany and totally dropped petroleum as a fuel of choice and became an ardent supporter of EV’s and renewable energy! That is just more proof of the power of a good education and why we all need to work to support these technologies in our daily lives.
Sharing EV knowledge and love with the next generation 🙂
Most recently I coached two separate friends on purchasing EV and a few days later they were both driving around in shiny new 2016 Leafs 🙂
One of the things I am most proud of is the creation of a local Electric Vehicle club. A few months after I started driving electric I noticed that there was not a page on Facebook where people could meet to discuss all things EV – so I created one. It is called the Blue Ridge EV Club and it now has over 160 members from all around the world, all walks of life who drive all types of EV’s and now it has a dedicated website! The club works hard to promote driving electric, living more responsibly, and using renewable energy to power our cars, homes and our lives. Check out the club’s website and Facebook page and feel free to join us and together we can make a difference.
Members of the Blue Ridge EV Club at a local solar EV charging station.
Conclusions
Outside of the limited range, premature battery degradation issues, and other little irritating minutia, we truly love our Nissan Leaf. It is a very well designed electric vehicle that gets us around our community with unique style and very low operational costs while working to lower our impact on the environment. It has connected us with a like-minded group of EV owners who have made our lives richer and open to the future of clean transportation and renewable energy. It has presented me with the opportunity to educate the public and my students on the benefits of driving electric vehicles and renewable energy through my nonprofit wildlife, nature and renewable energy education organization –
Are you tired of paying the big oil barons your hard earned money for their toxic and life-destroying product?
Are you tired of the repair bills on your antiquated fossil burner?
Are you are tired of the noise, smell and leaks?
Are you tired of stopping at gas stations?
Are you tired of supporting terrorism through your purchasing of petroleum products?
Are you tired of contributing to the alteration of our climate via the exhaust gasses emitted by your old fossil burner which directly contribute to anthropogenic climate change?
Are you ready to save money?
Are you ready to make a good and positive, forward-thinking change?
Are you interested in helping people, nature and wildlife?
Are you interested in the possibility of making your own clean fuel?
Are you interested in a fun, quiet, ride to work?
Are you interested in being part of a rapidly growing community of like-minded people working to make positive change?
Are you interested in making a difference and in working to make a better future for us all?
If you answered yes to any of these questions then please consider test driving and possibly purchasing or leasing a Nissan Leaf or other EV and better yet going solar and powering your EV on clean, renewable energy generated at home.
Yes, when it comes to the internet the truth is out there, somewhere…but to uncover it you often find yourself digging through stacks and heaps of total lies, outright fabrications, and willful small-minded ignorance.
And now for a lesson in the realities of the internet.
Recently a friend of mine found a meme* online that disturbed her, knowing that I had some experience in the matter she asked me if the meme was accurate. As I was already familiar with the meme and I responded that it was a pure fabrication trumped up by an organization with an agenda and something to loose.
I could have left it at that but no, I cannot.
I must dig deeper, citing the sources and the science behind the matter in order to reveal and support the truth and lay the lies it to rest for anyone that may read these words. Sadly, in this day and time of crooks, villains, charlatans, snake oil salesmen and selfish outright lairs only out for themselves – I and others like me must stay vigilant and work to expose the real truths behind this terribly inaccurate meme and all the other lies that the “merchants of doubt” spin on an almost daily basis. (The term Merchants of doubt is from the book and must see documentary by the same name – Merchants of Doubt.)
In the world of the internet and TV, and to some extent the movies, there are many people today who sadly believe what they see without doing any further research at all. This trend is dangerous and as the great Carl Sagan once said;
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counter-intuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.
And as Mr. Spock once said: “Humans are illogical beings, they believe what they want to even when they know it to not be true.”
To find the truth we cannot stop there because in the world of scientifically accurate journalism (which we desperately need more of) we need to dig much deeper in order to find the concrete truth and cite the sources as we go…so let’s do this thing.
PLEASE NOTE: It is most important to not just view and accept the following photograph at face value because it is horribly inaccurate and an outright lie. Therefore, the author of this blog (and others) are exposing the below meme as 100% erroneous, unsupported, and fabricated, illogical nonsense and supporting this exposure with scientifically supported resources to validate it.
The meme in question is below.
This meme was obviously designed to;
1. Attack people and organizations who either drive and/or support Electric Vehicles (EV’s) and/or renewable energy and attempt to tarnish the science and fast growing good reputations behind these transportation and energy sources with a poorly researched graphic.
2. Spread manufactured outright lies and disinformation propaganda designed by individuals and/or organizations with ties to the fossil fuel industry, in the attempt to spread doubt with the goal of negatively and falsely influencing uneducated or uninformed people into continuing to support fossil fuel companies by driving petroleum powered vehicles, using electricity produced from coal and other fossil fuel sources, and voting for candidates that support these outdated, dirty, polluting, finite, technologies.
3. Or all of the above.
As you will see by my research in the following paragraphs, images and videos, this meme is 100% inaccurate and garishly untruthful and, while I have done the research, anyone reading this, with a half a neuron’s worth of research ability, is capable of finding the same information that I found online by initiating a simple Google search.
My revealing findings and facts of oil sands and/or lithium mining can be found in the following photographs from various sources and the associated links to detailed information on the subject matter.
To begin with the images below show the realities of tar sands mining.
To get at the oil sands the mining company must first remove the “overburden.” This “overburden” as they call it – was once a thriving boreal forest ecosystem. Please tell me how that is a good thing in any way.
I believe the photographs and articles effectively show that Alberta oil sands extraction is one of the most environmentally destructive and toxic mining operations on earth.
The erroneous meme in question seems to have originated from a Facebook group called Saskatchewan Proud (SP). From what I can deduce after visiting the SP Facebook page they seem to be an organization that is against anything related to renewable energy. They seem to be working to sow doubt, disinformation, and falsehoods in the feeble attempt to protect their poisonous and destructive way of life. I also believe they are fearful of the growing support and adoption of electric vehicles (EV’s) and renewable energy sources by individuals, businesses, municipalities, and governments all around the world and they see these trends as a threat to their toxic and destructive livelihood. They are right in that the growing renewable energy sector will end our dependence on fossil fuels but I fail to see how that is a bad thing that requires the creation of lies and propaganda. If they know what is good for them (and from the visible evidence on their Facebook page it appears that they do not or that they are living is denial or both) they would leave the fossil fuels in the ground and embrace the amazing wealth of renewable energy resources found all around them in the beautiful land called Saskatchewan.
.
If they are not careful they will one day find themselves fat, rich, and sick, living in their own self-created version of hell on earth.
But you may still be asking
“Where does the Lithium come from?”
I have worked to dig up the truth.
Yes, Lithium must be mined from the earth just like any other natural resource however, it has a much lower environmental impact than almost any other type of mining.
Below are a few very good short videos on the subject of Lithium mining and its use.
When Lithium is applied and used in batteries for computers, phones, tablets, cameras, and other mobile devices – and electric vehicles – it does not give off any toxic pollution, in other words it’s end-use is 100% emissions free. That fact can never be applied to fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel fuels in any way.
Nissan produced a great video a few years ago eluding to this fact.
Also, once a lithium battery reaches the end of its usable life, it’s components and chemicals can then be recycled into another battery or application–try that with fossil fuels, it is just not possible–the end results of burning fossil fuels is only a ride down the road, trail, rail, waterway or airway – in return for the undeniable toxic and deadly byproducts listed below –
Wars and lives lost in the dirty deals and twisted politics relating to the expensive acquisition of the raw materials (coal, oil, natural gas). If you need an example think: Gulf War.
2. Environmental degradation, destruction, human suffering, and death (think: Exxon Deepwater Horizon) from the mining and extraction.
3. Expensive and dangerous shipping and transportation by ship, pipeline, train and/or truck with the inevitable life-killing oil and fuel spills that happen regularly and without fail (Think: Exxon Valdez).
4. The billions of BTU’s of waste heat from the inefficient combustion of fossil fuels.
5. The atmospheric poisoning and warming, and the resulting anthropogenic climate change from the billions of tons of CO2 and other toxic gasses released by the end use burning of fossil fuels.
6. Let us not forget the health and the future of our children and grandchildren and beyond who will be forced to live in the world we have created, and polluted just for them.
Using fossil fuels is an addiction. It is like using tobacco – a very bad experiment.
We should be very ashamed of ourselves for continuing this very bad experiment to the detriment of the prosperity of future generations.
Let’s get back to the lithium.
Lithium extraction takes place in environments that are mostly uninhabitable by man or wildlife such as the Atacama Desert in South America.
The fact remains that while lithium extraction and processing does have an environmental impact (as does almost everything we do), that impact takes place in some of the most physically and biologically remote places on earth. When compared to fossil fuel extraction, the processing and end use lithium requires very little energy to extract and process it into a usable final product. Therefore, lithium extraction is far less damaging to the environment than fossil fuel extraction ever has been or ever will be. Furthermore, the end use of lithium-based products is clean and zero emission – try to say that about any fossil fuels, it is impossible. However, lithium battery reclamation and recycling programs – which currently are few and far between – do in fact need to be strengthened in order to make sure spent lithium batteries (and batteries from all sources) are properly recycled instead of being tossed into the garbage only to end up in landfills.
Here are a few more links to other good lithium mining resources.
I believe we have sufficiently busted the myth that lithium mining is worse than tar sands extraction and have therefore destroyed the meme in question.
OK, so I covered Lithium – but what about the Cobalt issues? Cobalt is used in many lithium-ion batteries and you may say that you have seen memes and stories implicating cobalt mining in child labor and other issues.
In other words, just over 10 percent of the world’s cobalt supply is currently being used for batteries to power electric cars.
The bigger culprits are portable consumer electronics — like cell phones and laptop computers — which use around 72 percent of the cobalt that goes into lithium ion batteries, or roughly 30 percent of all cobalt mined.
The production of carbides and diamond drills for industrial operations currently uses the same amount of cobalt, 10 percent, as electric vehicles do.
Other major uses are for manufacturing steel, magnets, and medical equipment.”
In other words – only 10% of all the cobalt mined in the world ends up in an electric vehicle battery – the remainder is used in everything else – and I would bet my EV – that many things you own/use/rely upon in your daily lives contain some of that cobalt.
The problem and the blame is not with Electric Vehicles – it is with the way the cobalt is mined and the people running the mines. It is a human rights issue and it must be dealt with at the source and throughout the entire supply chain.
But that is not all we must address from the ignorant meme generators.
Let us look again at our friends at Saskatchewan Proud. They have also created two other anti-renewable energy propaganda memes designed to spread lies and sow doubt in the truth of clean, renewable energy technologies.
Some of their other irrational, poorly researched and poorly worded memes follow.
Really? Are they really that ignorant?
To begin with – steel and iron are not mined. Iron ore is mined and then refined into iron and steel. (See this link for the facts) Secondly, while wind turbine support structures, generators and other support structures do contain structural steel they also contain aluminum, copper and other metals most of which is first mined from the earth in a manner similar to iron ore. Yes, these mining operations do have impact as does everything we do however, the meme in question is simply an unwarranted and poorly researched over-dramatization of the fear that the people behind SP have toward renewable energy technologies.
Much of the metals that are used in modern wind turbine manufacturing can also be sourced from recycled sources. The blades of modern turbines are not even made from steel or iron, instead they are often “Made from composite materials – these blades are usually made of a polyester resin, a vinyl resin, and epoxy thermosetting matrix resin and E-glass fibers, S- glass fibers and carbon fiber reinforced materials.” Source: Wikipedia.
SP also tried to take another stab at a the fast-growing wind energy…
…and they failed miserably.
(I do not see any dead birds in the lower photo…do you?)
The truth is that your pet housecat, cellular telephone towers that let your mobile device make calls, connect to the internet and text your friends and check your Facebook…your own house’s glass windows reflecting the forest and sky outside…and all the toxic emissions/spills/mishaps directly or indirectly related to the entire fossil fuel industry – kill millions upon millions more birds, bats, other wildlife species – and humans – annually than wind turbines have ever killed.
Now hold on you might be saying – my cats, cell phone towers, and windows are not killing people. Yes, that may be true – but fossil fuel use and their associated environmental degradation and pollution (and the wars and land grabs fought to keep them flowing) – are indirectly and directly harming – and killing – humans all over the planet.
UPDATE 2/15/2021: In fact, new research outlined in this article from The Guardian suggests that human deaths directly connected to fossil fuels and their environmental impacts are in the millions…with a death toll that “exceeds the combined total of people who die globally each year from smoking tobacco plus those who die of malaria.”
If you do not believe me then please, take a look at my sources following this paragraph…or just do your own research. My sources come from the media, independent science organizations, and the wind energy sector – and they all agree that yes, wind turbines do kill some animals – but far less than the dramatized numbers purported by Saskatchewan Proud and other supporters of the fading fossil fuel industry.
If SP really wants to attack the industry responsible for killing the most animals – then I suggest they should attack themselves and the other fossil fuel companies that are quickly destroying our shared planet in the name of massive profit. I am sure that is what this pelican would like to do – but he cannot, because he is a pelican. This is why we humans must be a voice for the voiceless. This is exactly why I write posts such as this – I do it for them, and for you.
The fact is that the oil spill resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident killed or injured an estimated 82,000 birds alone (far, far, more than the purported few dozen as described by SP in the previous meme). Recent estimates indicate that over 1 million birds and over 1,400 dolphins have died as a result of the disaster. The deaths of wildlife and the resulting environmental damage and economic damage to the livelihoods of so many fishermen and tourism providers along the gulf coast is in the billions of dollars. The damage to the ecosystem of the gulf is so great that scientists have yet to fully estimate the true damage and cost of what was the USA’s greatest environmental disaster.
Obviously, the individuals behind Saskatchewan Proud have knowingly and purposefully created this erroneous and totally false propaganda in the attempt to somehow build support for their fossil fuel supporting organization. They have succeeded greatly, not in propping up their destructive, toxic, earth and life killing industry – but in showing their infantile ignorance, denial of the truth, and complete willful disregard for the future of their own beautiful country and its people.
Good job SP you must be really proud.
There are countless erroneous and outright ignorant “memes” circulating on the internet that have been created to spread FUD around electric vehicles and renewable energy sources. One of the most recent I have seen involves the following:
From Diego Loredan on Facebook: “This is a used car dump near Paris, France with hundreds of electric cars. Please note, these are only used cars of the city of Paris and not personal vehicles. Everyone has the same problem …. the battery storage cells are dead and need to be replaced. Why not replace them, you ask yourself? Well, there are two reasons. One, battery storage cells cost almost twice what a new vehicle costs, and two, no landfill or landfill will allow you to dump batteries there. So these green fairy electric cars are dumping toxins from the battery right into the ground. Still think we need to think green ???” Very interesting!!??
I did a quick and simple Google fact check and discovered the following about these cars:
“The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
News reports from France say the cars are part of a fleet from a failed car-sharing service, and the vehicles shown in the field are being resold or sold for parts.
A French television news report in April, with photos like those appearing with the Facebook post, said more than 1,000 vehicles used in the Autolib program are being stored on a lot in Romorantin-Lanthenay, an area about 130 miles southwest of Paris.
The Bolloré company had a contract with local authorities in and around Paris to provide the vehicles, which people could borrow for a fee. That ended in 2018 when the service was in debt and failing.
Some 4,000 of the vehicles were sold, mainly to two companies that have been reselling them, according to the report. That includes the ones shown in the Facebook post.
The TV stories and a French newspaper article noted the claims on social media. “Unlike what buzzes on social media, this is not a cemetery,” the newspaper report said.
We rate the post False.” – From Politifact
Another thing to note is the following from Reuters:
“French media reports here , here and here which show pictures of the cars lined up in a field like those in the social media posts, explain that the termination of the contract meant that Bollore had to remove its 4,000 vehicles from the Paris region to Romorantin-Lanthenay, 200 kms (124 miles) south of Paris. Bollore sold the cars, most of them going to two companies, Autopuzz, which resells the cars throughout France, and Atis Production.
On claims about soil pollution risk posed by the cars, Paul Aouizerate, head of Atis Production, told France Info here “Our vehicles are properly stored. The firefighters are aware, the construction site is well organized. All the batteries have been removed and the connectors are isolated.”
He added that the cars were not going to a junkyard. Autopuzz told France TV Info it is reselling the cars to buyers across France at a rate of 50 per month (here).
VERDICT
Partly false. These are genuine photos of electric cars in France, but they were taken off the road due to financial difficulties, not problems with the battery storage cells. More than 2,500 of the cars have been resold.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.”
If you remain unconvinced – do your own simple research.
This erroneous meme and many like it have been manufactured/miscaptioned in the attempt to illicit FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) about electric vehicles. More than likely the FUD generators that made this meme have money tied up in fossil fuels/fossil fuel infrastructure and are terrified at the prospect of losing their nest eggs.
And then there is this next meme.
I was unable to locate a source for this one but I would bet it was from our friends at Saskatchewan Proud or a similar organization.
The oil companies and their supporters must really be deeply afraid of the coming global shift to electric vehicles and renewable energy to create such ignorant memes such as these.
I could outline in even more exhaustive detail how blatantly ignorant their memes are but I really do not believe I need to go into such detail when their ignorance in the matter is so unbelievably obvious and when the editor of Cleantechnica has also written an article debunking this very same meme. To that end, I have included many references from many different sources and studies (see below) that I have found online that will sufficiently and accurately debunk and disprove all of SP’s ignorant postings. It is obvious to me that Saskatchewan Proud did not do any research at all on any of their memes before they posted them. It looks like they whipped together their propaganda on Photoshop and dropped them online in the hopes that someone out there would believe their inane childish ignorant drool as fact and then share and spout their nonsense far and wide on social media in the hopes of bolstering their position.
The truly sad thing is that there will be good people out there who will choose to believe them because they are either inexperienced at simple research or just willingly gullible and will believe many things they see online without question or without doing any further research on their own to confirm or deny the wrongful allegations of SP and others like them.
To further debunk and bust these mythical memes I offer these sources:
Yet another way many people come to misunderstand and misinterpret the truth of renewable energy and science, in general, is the use of satire, as seen in the following meme. It was designed to parody the typically outrageous followers of lunatic fringe right-wing ideologies yet, parody posts such as this are sometimes mistaken as genuine by those who do not take the time to investigate the source, fail to read all the way to the end of the article, do not read the credits, or just look at the pictures and ignore the text associated with the photo.
The meme below was developed by a popular satire site known as Christians for Michelle Bachmann aka C4MB. When C4MB posted it on their Facebook page many uneducated or uninformed people took it at face value, believed it, and shared it all over the internet.
…and furthermore, this article outlines how many big fossil fuel corporations are working to slow the growth of solar energy in North Carolina and all over the country.
It is sad that the renewable energy sector has so many opponents – like SP and others listed here, and many more. From the big fossil fuel corporations and their think tanks spinning out disinformation, to the spoon-fed politicians on both sides with oil, coal, and blood-soaked money in their bank accounts propping up the fossil fuel industry with massive subsidies, and getting wealthy in the process – to the common citizen that may not have all the facts about all the amazing renewable energy options and incentives offered to help us make the switch to clean, “locally-grown,” energy-secure, renewable energy sources.
The great thing is that although there are many naysayers and deniers out there working hard in the attempt to keep renewable energy from becoming “a thing” the reality is – it is already a thing, it is a really big thing, and a really good thing. Since 2010 the renewable energy industry has grown by leaps and bounds and now it is building an unstoppable momentum that will allow it to one day completely burst the fossil fuel-fired and funded carbon bubble and soon replace toxic life and future-killing fossil fuels with clean, sustainable, locally sourced, renewable energy.
So let us all work together and do this thing!
To recap: yes, mining lithium does have an environmental impact as does almost everything we do on a daily basis. However, that impact is so much smaller than the impact of all aspects of the fossil fuel culture. The oppression, dirty deals, wars fabricated and fought to access, protect, extract, and transport carbon-based resources. The toxic emissions and byproducts are released into the environment (land, waters, and atmosphere) during extraction, transportation, refinement, shipping, and transportation. Then finally, the end use of fossil fuel products with all of their toxic byproducts that by their very nature cause environmental destruction, degradation and alteration, pain, sickness and death – and the resulting lasting environmental and human cultural damage.
Recently a gas pipeline ruptured in Alabama, USA – spilling over a quarter of a million gallons of gasoline into the environment and raising gas prices across the south, and causing a state of emergency for the economy and more importantly, for the environment. Read more about this event in my previous blog posting: “Now I Know why Max was Mad.“
People are protesting and petitioning the White House and demanding an end to our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.
While President Obama acknowledges the realities of anthropogenic climate change…will he be able to do anything about it? He must, we must or we will all suffer.
As I wrote this original story thousands of Native Americans, their supporters, friends, and ranchers are massing in the American west in opposition to yet another pipeline that is designed to carry dangerous and dirty fracked oil to access points for the big oil companies with deep pockets and not a care in the world for the rights of indigenous peoples, landowners and the very environment that supports them all.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Rezpect Our Water has been peacefully working to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) from destroying their land, waters, and atmosphere, and recently, actress and environmentalist Shailene Woodley, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, and Deia Schlosberg were arrested for peacefully trespassing, supporting, and documenting activities in DAPL pipeline construction zones. The truth of the matter is that they were arrested because they were documenting the truth of the situation and the pipeline organization and their supporters felt threatened by their actions that reveal the truth. In Woodley’s case, she was broadcasting live to over 40,000 viewers on Facebook and was arrested by militarized police toting assault weapons and wearing body armor. Obviously, their serious overkill of dress and arms was an attempt to intimidate and exert power and instill fear in the protesters in the hopes they would leave the scene. The real reason they arrested these well-known activists and journalists was to silence them from speaking out and showing the truth of the situation. See the below TYT video for an overview of Shailene’s story and arrest as she filmed it.
Shailene was arrested, strip-searched, and eventually released and later had this to say about her ordeal.
The always eloquent and thought-provoking PrinceEa (Richard Williams) has some great and powerful words to say about our relationship with our home planet.
The Earth Guardians is a growing movement of passionate young people who care about their future and are working in so many ways to protect it from the toxic damage of the past. Watch this compilation of their passionate and powerful youth director Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez in his quest to raise support for change from world leaders and people of all ages from all walks of life.
Leo has become a great spokesman for the Earth. We must all be concerned citizens and work together to solve the crisis that is before us. Most recently DiCaprio produced and starred in the groundbreaking documentary Before the Flood which is a must-see for all humans on Planet Earth.
The Pope recently issued his encyclical in support of nature.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for the end of the fossil fuel era.
The Dalai Lama said – “This is not a question of one nation or two nations. This is a question of humanity affecting the whole world,” the Dalai Lama said in a statement, adding that people are responsible for global warming. “We have to take serious concern about the protection of the environment.”
Even some of our most famous Hollywood and other stars and personalities are speaking out against our destruction of the environment.
PrinceEa with more to say
350.org fought phase 4 of the Keystone Pipeline and together with millions of other supporters, including the author of this blog, the KxL Pipeline was shut down.
In Germany and all over the world people are standing up and taking action against fossil fuels and the pollution, pain, and suffering their use brings upon us all.
In 2014 over 400,000 gathered to peacefully march through the streets in NYC to let world leaders know they want change that works toward the reduction of anthropogenic climate change.
NASCAR driver Lelani Munter is working to change the nature of auto racing via her activism and role in the recent must-see documentary Racing Extinction.
Bill Nye the Science Guy is always speaking out against climate change denial and backing up all his claims with science!
Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s explanation of Climate Change is spot on.
And those are just a few of the organizations, famous people, and countless everyday citizens standing up for the future by working to keep fossil fuels deep in the ground where they belong and make the switch to 100% renewable energy.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
FIND YOUR OWN ANSWERS.
BE THE CHANGE.
JOIN THE MOVEMENT.
GO GREEN.
*Definition of meme:
MEME
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from one person to another in a culture
: an amusing or interesting picture, video, etc., that is spread widely through the Internet
NOTE: In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, British scientist Richard Dawkins defended his newly coined word meme, which he defined as “a unit of cultural transmission.” Having first considered, then rejected, “mimeme,” he wrote: “‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene.’ I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate ‘mimeme’ to ‘meme.’” (The suitable Greek root was mim-, meaning “mime” or “mimic.” The English suffix -eme indicates a distinctive unit of language structure, as in “grapheme,” “lexeme,” and “phoneme.”) “Meme” itself, like any good meme, caught on fairly quickly, spreading from person to person as it established itself in the language. Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme
NOTE: I am not perfect. If you find an error in my content, spelling, or grammar please do let me know and I will correct it. This way we can work together to help each other discover the evidence-supported facts that bury the disinformation and misinformation, and answer our questions with accurate data.
Just before the start of this year’s international celebration of electric vehicles known as National Drive Electric Week a leak was discovered in a major gasoline pipeline in Alabama. This pipeline, that supplies gasoline to millions of people along the east coast of the USA, leaked over 330,000 gallons of gasoline into the environment. This is an aerial view of the lake in Alabama that was contaminated by the fuel spill.
This unfortunate and ironically timed disaster is yet another oily thorn in the side of the petroleum industry and it comes amid the recent and past news of multiple oil/gas pipeline leaks, explosions, oil train disasters and other mishaps all over the world, and let us not forget the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and all the petroleum related cover ups and lies by the likes ExxonMobil and Volkswagen. It is as if nature/God/the universe or whatever deity you pray to (or not) is telling all of us – “look here you naked little bipedal multi-colored apes, you need to end all this madness and leave the fossil fuels in the ground where I put them in the first place! They are highly toxic and dangerous to all life forms – that is why I buried them safely underground and I expected you to leave them there! I gave you unlimited clean energy literally all around you – the wind, the sun, the waves – and what do you do!?! You, dig up the toxic waste of the past and burn it anyway ignoring the bountiful clean energy sources literally flowing, blowing, and shining all around you! Angry, yes – I am well and truly angry at you and the costs are going to be very high. But there is still time. You have one last chance to clean up your careless ways. But if you ignore the punches I have been throwing you in the form of my super storms, floods, fires, if you ignore my warnings and continue with business as usual there will be hell to pay and you just may find your species joining the dinosaurs.”
After the leak was discovered repair crews from the pipeline owner Colonial Pipeline began work on cleaning up the spill and repairing the leak in the pipe as seen in the above photo from this source. Notice how close to a body of water the pipeline is at this point. The gasoline leaked into this nearby pond and trace amounts have been found an a nearby pond as well. Luckily however, due to the location and timing of the leak it seems that a major environmental catastrophe was avoided – at least for now. We were very lucky this time but reality shows that it is only a matter of time before another pipeline breaks and causes irreparable harm to the environment and the creatures that call it home–including us. This spill could just as easily have been another Mayflower/Pegasus pipeline spill or much worse.
Unfortunately for everyone in my area, the media grabbed the story and reported on it in the way they do so well…resulting in fears of an empty tank causing long lines at the gasoline stations where people wait for access to the pumps to squeeze out every last drop of the precious, toxic, and highly addictive elixir that gives them mobility and the illusion of freedom.
Throw in a natural disaster and it gets even more interesting…
Above image from this 2012 article after Hurricane Sandy hit the northeastern US causing gas shortages and similar stress that we are facing in the southeast today.
Inevitably the gas station owners were forced to raise their prices to pay for the increased emergency shipping to get fuel to the out of gas communities in a timely manner. Many companies then took advantage of the situation and price gouging ran rampant with prices being reported as high as $5 per gallon in some areas forcing the Governors of several states to freeze gas prices until things get back to “normal.”
Below are a few links to the media explosion resulting from this fuel leak
On Saturday, 9/17/16 I witnessed the fossil fired madness first hand as I drove my Nissan Leaf EV into an neighboring county to visit a family member.
12:15pm The first station I passed had long lines stretching out into the road. Unfortunately I was unable to get a photograph.
12:25pm. The second station I passed is pictured below. Cars were pouring in as I snapped the photo!
12:40pm. I passed another station and witnessed more insanely long lines. At this one I overheard a woman yelling like a child to another driver “That’s my spot, I was here first!”
I then saw this madness at an Ingles gas station.
1:30pm. By far the most disturbing scene was at this Ingles.
I had to pull over at a safe distance and take some more photos of the media-driven panic buying insanity.
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There was a fuel truck on site attempting to keep up with the demand…
Like a person hooked on a drug these people were desperate and will do almost anything for a fix of the deadly juice that powers their lives.
Image source – the internet.
Do we really want to pass this toxic addiction on to our innocent children?
…but could that really happen? This guy may have part of the answer…
While many believe and trust the mass media reports that a pipeline did leak causing a measurable fuel shortage, there are others that believe this is simply a manufactured demand issue designed to drive up prices and oil company profits across the board.
It is the authors opinion that it may be a mix of both and wherever the truth lies the cold hard fact that remains is that people who choose to drive vehicles powered only by gasoline are terrified that their lives and business will be disrupted by this reduction in the flow of fuel. The other cold hard fact is that this incident has revealed is that our addiction to petroleum products is dangerous and very precariously balanced on a very thin razors edge. The uninterrupted flow of gasoline and oil is all dependent on a very complex, decades-old in some areas, infrastructure supported by a complex international petroleum supply chain overseen and controlled by out of date warmongering old fossil fuel pushers and their very well compensated puppets in national, state and local governments that are all hell bent on filling up their bank accounts with our hard earned money at any cost.
It is time we accept the cold hard fact that our nation is locked in a manufactured addiction to the dangerous, toxic, highly polluting drug that we call petroleum and all of its byproducts.
Yet, there exists another way to get around, a better way to get around.
The electric vehicle.
Sadly, many individuals and special interest groups refuse to accept it, many even deny its validity at every turn. A minority of severely addicted close minded petroleum pushers and users even call this not so new idea “un-American.” Some even go as far as mocking it by modifying their petroleum burning diesel-dino-juice guzzlers to illegally to emit clouds of noxious black smoke that they call “rolling coal” in the feeble attempt to make some sort of sad, anti-environmental statement in support of their addiction…
…it is as if they are proud of themselves and their ability to harm themselves, the people around them, and the planet that supports their very lives just to satisfy some childish belief that may or may not be based in one or all of the following observations personally made by the author of this article;
1. “This is a free country so I can do whatever the **** I want to and you can’t stop me.”
2. Everybody else is doing it and it is somehow accepted and “cool” among their circle of misguided friends.
3. I’m “sticking it to the greenies” and to “the man.” The “greenies” being anyone concerned for the future, the environment, social justice, and their children and children’s children, and “the man” being the US government, the Environmental Protection Agency, and any other governing agencies and NGO’s that work to protect us from ourselves.
4. “The “greenies” are wrong about everything. There is no problem with the atmosphere or with pollution or overpopulation etc…and in fact “climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.” (Yes, even though this statement is garishly incorrect on so many levels, there are many people that actually believe the nonsense spouted by Donald J. Trump.)
On Beliefs: It is the authors opinion that people are free to believe whatever they choose to believe unless that belief system in some way harms or oppresses other people, nature, wildlife, or the environment that supports all of us. In that case it is my opinion that any destructive, hurtful, harmful, exclusive, divisive, xenophobic, separatist, and toxically tribal toward those on the “outside” of the group, club, party, or flock, belief, religion, or political system – should be abolished and made forever extinct.
It is also the authors opinion that many of these ancient beliefs are simply metaphors – maybe some of them are based on actual happenings, others simply myths and legends of ancient “superheroes” created by their authors either undertaking their own heroes journeys , maybe documenting someone else’s journey/story, or the author just made it all up (fiction) in order to teach the readers a valuable lesson – or a little of all of these things. Their story was then presented to the readers in a way to help them make sense of life, the universe, and everything. Sadly, the meaning of these centuries-old lessons are often totally missed by the reader who often takes them literally, out of context, out of time, and then severely misinterprets them and attempts to apply them to the situations of their modern lives that could not have even been imagined in the simple agrarian world that existed when the words were first written down. These ancient, metaphorical guidelines for life are often so distorted and misconstrued by their transcribers and followers into the erroneous misunderstanding that they are somehow superior and separate from nature – that they have dominion over the earth and all of its inhabitants and resources and therefore they can do whatever they wish to with it. Sadly, some of those on the lunatic fringe of these belief systems are even more disturbing when they use the “word” of their chosen deity to cash in on the fears of the deity’s followers and/or announce that they believe that the world will be ending soon and therefore nature, their daily choices and actions, everything real and existing just does not matter at all because it is all “impure” and will all soon be destroyed by a vengeful omnipotentdeity – then, as they often say – “you will all be sorry you did not bow down and pay homage to (insert deity here).”
That kind of apathetic attitude is so incredibly dangerous and selfish.
(Note: I have personally heard all of the above statements from real people, good people, even family members and people I deeply care about, and I am just so saddened that there are people who still think and believe these things. I am so embarrassed and saddened at the actions of my own countrymen and fellow Human beings when they say and act like they do not care about anything but themselves. Where, when, and why did we go so wrong…?)
Just because you believe a thing does not make it true unless it is supported by measurable, observable, testable, peer-reviewed, evidence.
UPDATE 9/02/17: Hurricane Harvey hit Texas a few days ago and the resulting rains flooded many of the gasoline refineries and chemical plants that our nation’s fossil fuel infrastructure is reliant upon. Fuel prices have been shooting up in many areas and panic buying has been reported as well and in the attempts to avoid what happened almost a year ago North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper issues a state of emergency in order to help keep gasoline flowing into the state and the US government released 4.5 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey. The damage from the storm has forced offline around 22 percent of U.S. refining capacity and 13 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil output.
Hurricane Harvey impacting the Texas coast. Image source.
As I write this some of the remnants of now tropical storm Harvey is passing over my area leaving behind some soft rains showers and I am inspired to share some facts.
Knowing what the scientifically documented, testable, and undeniable facts show –
Warmer air holds more moisture.
Warmer water feeds more powerful storms.
Prior to hurricane Harvey gulf coast water temps were 85 degrees – 5 degrees above average.
Sea levels have risen by around 6″ on the Texas coast in the last few decades.
For several decades humans have been ignoring the warnings of scientists, naturalists, and common sense and have been draining, filling, paving the water/rain absorbing wetlands/grasslands in Texas/Florida (and other) low-lying coastal regions in favor of building up suburbia which have created a recipe for disastrous flooding.
The Human species’ addiction to burning fossil fuels for energy/transportation and everything else have led to measurable atmospheric carbon dioxide levels higher than they have been in 800,000 years.
This increased CO2 acts like an insulating blanket over the earth trapping heat leading to the greenhouse effect/global warming and the associated increased surface and ocean temperatures, melting of the earth’s ice caps/glaciers, sea level rise, and consequently – stronger, wetter, more destructive storms such as Harvey, Sandy and Katrina.
In other words – our unscientifically supported, largely unregulated actions have had catastrophic consequences. We humans are the root cause of anthropogenic climate change and we humans have created the perfect conditions for yet another superstorm situation for the USA with the resulting consequences – the breakdown of our fossil fuel supply systems, the loss of property, life and livelihood for our people.
These facts speak for themselves and cry out loudly – if we puny humans do not stop ignoring the warnings of climate (and other) scientists and stop burning things for energy thereby releasing atmosphere altering greenhouse gasses into the environment faster than the earth can balance things out, then the consequences are dire – nature will wipe us out of existence. It is that simple. Nature does not care about us so we must care for ourselves and that begins with caring for nature above all else because nature is from where all life originates and is supported*.
It seems rather interesting and ironic to me that these great climate change fueled mega-storms have repeatedly smashed into areas that are:
Highly populated centers of commerce, trade, inspiration, forward thinking progress and science, with people from all walks of life, all nationalities, all ethnicities, all religions, all sexual/gender orientations and…
Many are also areas known for oil and gas production/distribution.
Fascinating.
A climate scientist or observant naturalist would say that all indications, predictions, experiments, theories – in other words all the peer reviewed science suggest that these great storms may be a product of anthropogenic climate change.
I offer this bit of long winded observation and insight into that third bit of “reasoning.” What is the omnipotent deity angry about? Is it angry that all the millions, no wait – billions of little people doing what little people do on a daily basis? Is it angry at individual little humans and their bathroom choices, their food/drink/clothing/housing/body modification/decoration choices, their petty little squabbles over who owns what piece of land, is it mad because he said she said whatever stupid comment on Twitter or Facebook, or she said a cuss word, is it angry over the chosen sexual/gender orientation of a portion of the area’s population or that of a random 16 year old kid in a random town in whoknowswhereville, is it angry because you told a white lie, is it angry because you smoked a plant deemed off limits by society, is it angry because you drank a beer, is it angry because you had a sexy thought, is it angry because you have dark skin, is it angry because you are fat or thin, is it angry because you (insert whatever reason here), is it so angry, upset, hateful, and so vengeful at your little so called “evil” infraction that it will toss all reason, common sense and human decency aside to punish you and only you by sending a monster storm your way thereby condemning the thousands or even millions of innocent people that live near you to hardship, pain, loss, and possibly even death because you and a few individuals near you chose to be human and do things we humans do? Are you being punished because you chose to love a member of the same sex or to worship nature, trees, money, sex, drugs and rock n roll instead of one of the thousands of different gods that are worshiped on planet earth today. No. These actions do not sound like the actions of a loving, caring, supportive deity. Whatever all-powerful god or gods may exist there is no evidence to suggest that it would be a hateful, spiteful being. Why would a creator being expend so much energy creating such a complex and wonderful living system that is you and then harm his/her/it’s cherished experiment? These are not the actions of a loving parent/creator. If they are, then whatever god-being is doing the punishing does not deserve to be worshiped. Parents love their children unconditionally and I would hope an all powerful creator being would have an even greater capacity to do the same. So no. The creator, if it does in fact exist somewhere in the universe, does not care at all about all those petty little “infractions.” All of the minuscule minutia created by the Human condition, while obviously very important to the user, none of it will matter in 100 years nor will it matter in the grand scheme of geologic or better yet cosmic time. Should such an all-powerful cosmos designing, creating, and manipulating being exist somewhere in the cosmos, it has greater things to worry about such as keeping space-time intact, how to keep the suns burning (remember, there are literally trillions of suns out there in the cosmos), what to do about black holes, dark energy, plate tectonics, evolution, the rains out in Africa, Romulans, 42, how to keep the Daleks,asteroids and comets away from earth and so on. In other words, the super being has much more to worry about than your, or any of our lives and this is why it (if it exists) gave us the ability to reason and think for ourselves which is something that is severely lacking today. It seems that many splinter groups, factions on the lunatic fringe, and even many in the mainstream would rather hold onto destructive, divisive, intolorent, warmongering ways rather than accept the findings of science. Instead of accepting science as a way to understand nature and use that knowledge to better their lives, many misguided followers will instead pray to their deity when bad things happen and that is all well and good. Prayer is very useful in many ways for our emotional health and well-being and praying to a deity may help you bond with entire groups of like minded people. Prayer may help you feel and work better together and yes, it may have a very powerful placebo effect for the users – but it does not get things done on the ground, in the mud, on the street. The only way we can really make a concrete and lasting difference in the outcome of our lives or the future of our shared earth is with direct action through the methods and tools of science and by working together as a team. So yes, please pray all you like and pray hard – but praying alone did not rescue the flooded out people of Houston, the Florida Keys, NOLA, – good and helpful people of all ethnicities and all backgrounds coming together using the methods, products, and tools of science and technology did.
However, when the tiny, pink and brown naked apes we call humans start messing with the balance of nature – that my friend just might be the ultimate sin of all sins. Maybe, just maybe, all these recent massive and powerful storms are the omnipotent one’s way of punching the puny humans right in the face, right in the areas where we are processing the very fuel that is driving the engines of climate change. How ironic that the creator deity(s) seems to be giving us repeated series of massive black eyes for the horribly irresponsible way we have treated this (it’s) grand experiment we call life the universe and everything.
Maybe it is time we all stopped fighting over whether or not climate change is real and accept the fact that it is and that we are seeing the natural consequences of our mistreatment and mismanagement of our shared home planet, Now is the time we need to start listening to the signs, signals, and punches being thrown at us before it is too late and the experiment is deemed a failure and is ended by nature (aka the master scientist in charge) and it goes back to the drawing board and starts over like any good scientist*** would do.
It is also very interesting to note that while everyone trusted and believed the climate scientists who predicted that Harvey, Sandy and Katrina (and now as I write this superstorm Hurricane Irma just destroyed Florida) would hit the areas they did bringing the rains, winds, flooding, disruption, and catastrophic damage they brought with them but bizarrely, many of those same people do not trust or believe those very same climate scientists when they say we humans are causing climate change by our continued addiction to and burning of fossil fuels.
Wake up and grow up people. Climate scientists are here to help us save us from ourselves.
To do this we must end our dangerous and destructive addiction to fossil fuels before we are unable to recover from the disasters nature will continue to keep throwing at us.
Sadly it often takes a punch or three in the face to make us change, and like the true American heroes in the below rescue video from hurricane Harvey – we need to coexist and work together if we want to save ourselves.
After watching brave Americans of all persuasions, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, and religions come together to help each other out after Harvey left Texas under trillions of gallons of water, and after working with the brilliant youth of today, I believe that the age of the science deniers, haters, doubters, and sadly misdirected individuals are a dying breed and that a new wave of reason is sweeping the globe.
Yet even greater hope comes from the many churches, monasteries, and convents are installing and blessing solar arrays. Scout groups, schools and universities are divesting from all fossil fuel investments and going renewable in order to be better stewards of this earth and to educate the children on a better way to use our natural resources. Now is the time we all must wake up and listen to the science and accept the fact that science and religion can work together in protection and stewardship of our shared earth, its natural resources and all its creatures.
Indigenous peoples such as the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes are speaking out and protesting against the injustices being heaped upon their peoples and cultures by the actions of the past and sadly, the actions of today. Personally, I fully support the Sioux and other indigenous tribes and their supporters that are fighting fossil fuel projects all over the world in order to protect their lands, waters and future generations from harm due to our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.
As I write this thousands of people from all walks of life, members of other tribes, and even President Obama have assisted the Sioux in their fight against the pipeline they call the Black Snake but at the time of this writing the future of the pipeline and the Sioux is uncertain. The overwhelming sentiment among indigenous people everywhere, with many even signing treaties among themselves against oil and even meeting with the United Nations, is to stop the bulldozers and the pipelines and keep fossil fuels in the ground where they belong!
Photo source and another good read on the Standing Rock Dakota Access situation.
Yet even more hope comes from youth from all over the planet. The younger generation is waking up to the truth that has been hidden from us all for so long. They are working to raise awareness of the environmental and human problems our addiction to fossil fuels are causing. Youth groups all around the planet and other youth led organizations such as the Earth Guardians and Our Children’s Trust are working hard and even bringing lawsuits against governments to create positive change working toward a clean, renewable powered future for us all.
The students and children shall lead the clean energy revolution.
I took the above photo recently after presenting a wildlife education show to a local school. After my presentation I introduced the students to my car. After I explained to them how it works, how much money I save, and how by driving electric you can help preserve nature, wildlife and our future environment, they were unanimously in favor of going EV. Yes, after meeting wonderful young adults such as these I have great hope for the future and I have no doubt that we will be able to end our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels. But it will take hard work and dedication from all of us to break the bonds of this addiction and to make it happen for us all, for the earth and for the future.
Musicians are making a difference as well with artists such as Xavier Rudd, Nahko and Medicine for the People, The Earth Guardians and many more speaking out in their songs in the fight to end our reliance on the toxic grip that fossil fuels and certain big corporations have on us all.
You can end, or at least lower, your reliance on fossil fuels.
You do not have to be wealthy or a celebrity to truly make a difference and lower your carbon footprint.
You too can drive electric.
As an example let’s take the case of my Nissan Leaf.
This is what I found this morning when I walked out of my door about to make the 13 mile journey to work.
My little 2012 Nissan Leaf EV was fully charged and ready to roll.
I unplugged the charger, got inside, turned the car on to find…
A wonderful 82 miles of all electric range! I pulled out of the driveway and headed through the unusually sparse traffic for 8:30 am. As I made my way to work I noticed a local gas station that was empty…quite a change from a few days before…so I pulled in to investigate. This is what I found.
I was so happy to have my little EV at that moment! Even with it’s limited range I can always fill it up with electrons anywhere there is an electrical outlet.
As I prepared to pull out of the station I suddenly became aware of three gas powered vehicles quickly converging on my location! I quickly realized that they must have seen my car in front of the pumps and assumed the station had product so they all dove in hoping to get some gas. I quickly and silently eased out of the station, between the converging cars, and on down the road. I had a small bit of anxiety at the thought of what some folks would do if they ran out of gas and could not do the things they need and want to do…and saw my EV silently driving down the road…now I know at least one of the reasons Max was mad.
Those few of us early adopters who made the switch to electric vehicles over the last few years look on as we pass by the conflagrations with amazement, wonder, and a bit of fear and much more than range anxiety…and then we pull up to our EV fueling stations with little to no competition…and grin that EV grin 🙂
We then calmly (and often freely or for a nominal fee) plug in and let the electrons flow into our sweet, silent, futuristic electric vehicles and we can’t help but grin that EV grin…again…because we know that driving electric is just a better way to drive.
I am fully aware that fueling these all electric vehicles requires some fossil fuels such as coal but with gas out of the picture we are on our way to a much cleaner, safer, healthier, quieter society. I believe Arnold Schwarzenegger said it well here when he came up with an excellent reason why we need to all go green.
There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.
I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.
I’m guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice — who would ever want to breathe those fumes?
Clean, reliable, solar, wind and EV technologies are available NOW off the shelf and off the lot. In fact, you can now even find a good used EV for the same price as a good used gas guzzler in fact, many collage students are snatching up used Leafs as their daily drivers because they just make so much sense. Check out Carvana.com for some really great deals on used Leafs!
On top of that the cost of solar has dropped exponentially in the last few years. Just stop and think for a moment…is your roof soaked in sunshine all or most of the day? Why not cover it in solar panels and put it to work for you?
Photo credit A.J. Rowell
Just think about it. If you had an electric vehicle right now how happy would you be that you did not have to go to the gas station? Maybe you could be like this guy who swapped his dirty, toxic VW “clean” diesel for an EV. Just stop and think for a moment how nice it would feel to be able to be truly free from the subscription to dependency and resulting high costs (to your bank account and the environment) and headaches of paying for gas and electricity. Imagine if your electric bill was only a few dollars a month? Most of us who are able to read these words honestly have no real excuse to not make the switch to cleaner technologies. If these options sound good to you, if they sound possible, then make it a goal to at least do some more research into the topic. Imagine.
Photo credit A.J. Rowell
This gasoline madness is just that, madness.
Six years ago my wife and I started making the switch from gas to electric with the purchase of a rechargeable string trimmer (weed eater). Then in 2013 we ditched our ageing Honda CRV for our 2012 Nissan Leaf 100% electric vehicle. Since then we have fallen in love with both of them because they save us loads of money, they are quiet and fun to use/drive and they are so much better for the earth and for our health. While they still require some fossil fuels to charge (until we can one day go solar), the gas and oil have been taken out of the equation and that is a huge thing in so many ways.
A few days ago the little string trimmer finally died so I replaced it with an upgraded 80 volt heavy duty model and an electric leaf blower (they have interchangeable batteries)! Now we are even closer to one day becoming an all electric family and kissing gas goodbye forever!
Going electric is not only for the well to do, I should know because I am anything but rich. Anyone can go electric and end your addiction to dirty, polluting, harmful, dangerous and outdated fossil fuels. All it takes is a little research, a test drive, a small amount of adaptation and compromise and soon, like me, you can be passing gas every day and loving every minute of it 🙂
On September 20 the gasoline tanker trucks started arriving in my area and select stations were able to dispense their product to the public.
On September 21st, as I again traveled that familiar road to work, I stopped at the local gasoline filling station…to squeegee my windshield 🙂
And I noticed that the pumps were all still out of service…all except for diesel.
On September 22nd drivers of gas powered vehicles breathed a sigh of relief when the pipeline began operations again after a bypass was put in place around the damaged pipe. Hopefully soon the fuel supply will be back to some form of “normal” and those that drive only gas powered vehicles**** will be able to get around as in the past. I only hope that this little incident has left many of them questioning fossil fuels and thinking seriously about making the switch to EV’s.
How long will it be until the next pipeline ruptures? Will it be in your neighborhood? Only time will tell.
UPDATE: November 01, 2016 – the very same Colonial Pipeline that caused this fuel shortage just over a month ago exploded yesterday killing one person and severely burning several more.
It seems that we did not have to wait very long for the next major pipeline incident. More on this development to follow. Now do you now see why it is of utmost importance that we break our dangerous addiction to almighty oil and focus on renewable energy!
If the actions of the gasoline addicted public are any indications, I now know that one of the reasons Max was mad was because he was addicted to gasoline.
We have choices. Be the change.
* I am sure I will get some flak for this statement from folks who believe nature was put here for us to use up, dominate, consume, and destroy, in whatever manner we may dream up and that belief is total bull crap. But, whatever. Say what you will – I have stopped feeding the trolls. Feeding trolls only makes them stronger so do not expect a reply unless you put down your emotional ammunition and be reasonable.
**I did not name a specific deity/religion out of respect for the over 4000 religions on planet Earth. To say that one religion is the one true way to salvation/enlightenment/ultimate knowledge/nirvana/valhalla/heaven/Sto-vo-kor /the afterlife/ whatever…is unbelievably selfish and unsupportive of the billions of fellow human beings with which we share our planet.
***It is my opinion that if there is an all powerful supreme omnipotent consciousnesses in charge of the universe, there is no evidence to suggest that it is a grumpy, vengeful, bearded old white human man on a golden throne. I refuse to accept that out of date old racist and sexist image. Whatever it is or whatever it is not, if it exists it must above all else be a great scientist with a flair for the arts. Only a truly great scientist could design and implement the amazing and complex interconnected self balancing and self governing system that is the cosmos and only an artist could make it so beautiful. Or it is a dog because dog spelled backwards is god 😉
****Yes, I do have another vehicle and sadly is is powered by nasty gasoline. I only use it for hauling, towing a trailer, occasional long distance excursions, and drive it very sparingly. During this gas outage I left it parked and was so very glad I had an EV. One day soon, when a car company produces an EV truck, I will rid myself of the old dinosaur and go 100% EV – maybe it will be a Tesla Cybertruck or a Bollinger B1!
Source: 
On the road to work in winter.
Hurricane Harvey impacting the Texas coast. Image 
Blue Water Leaf 