Month: November 2024

A Thanksgiving Rant: We Are Not Doing the “Smart” Thing

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 3 Comments

Taking a long road trip in winter in a car with a range of 200 or so miles that takes real time to recharge in a landscape of limited chargers and minimal information (like lists of motels with chargers) really isn’t the smartest of choices.

EVs are perfect for short-trip driving: drive all day or all week on a charge, and then charge up again and keep doing it.  

For longer trips, plug-in hybrids make a lot more sense, at least they do from a traveling convenience point of view. Drive where you want and fill up when you need to. No hassles. Precious little to think about.

Rebecca and I are neither smart nor in search of traveling convenience. We are thirsty for adventure … and for doing everything in our very, very limited sphere of influence to make the world a better place.

Despite what this country’s incoming administration may espouse, climate change is real and one of its primary causes is the unbridled use of fossil fuels. Anyone who believes otherwise either has their head buried deeply in the sand or their brain stuck in the OFF position.  It’s not a matter of “ours versus theirs” science.  It is not a matter of belief.

I wonder if climate change “skeptics” also believe that their closed cars do not heat up to stifling temperatures in the summer sun.  The physics is the same: some substances trap heat from the sun and amplify it.  That is why plants can grow in greenhouses year-round and why cars get hotter than their surroundings in summer.  Greenhouses trap heat, and that includes the blanket of greenhouse gases above the surface of the earth.

These are not debatable matters. They just are.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.  Period.  Fossil fuels contain carbon that stopped being recycled millions of years ago.  Burning those fuels releases that carbon, increasing the planet’s greenhouse gas blanket.  Period.

Petroleum has been and will continue to be a remarkable substance. It is chemically complex and has uses I cannot conceive of. It is way too important a resource to just burn up wantonly, especially when burning it is destroying our home.  

Burning petroleum is not destroying our planet: earth is in great shape and will continue to be so for millions of years. Instead, it is destroying our home: the sliver of earth that contains just the right climate to support human life, as well as a whole of bunch of other critters we share our home with.

Sure. We could be road tripping in our trusty old Ford or in a new hybrid that combines the best of EV and IC (internal combustion) technology. But we don’t want to. Burning petroleum is burning petroleum.  

Being the lifelong hypocrite that I am, I do continue to use some fossil fuels: I do not yet have an induction stove.  I still heat water with my very efficient on-demand gas water heater.  I still use gas for back up heating … on cold days when the heat pump cannot throw out enough. In Vermont I have a gas-fired stand-by generator so we don’t freeze when the power goes out in winter. I have an outboard motor boat that I truly love.  I still fly. I’m a long way from perfect.  Hell, I even still eat meat. But I want to make a difference. That is why I spend extra money for electricity to be sure my power is coming from a renewable source instead of something dirty and polluting.

Making a long road trip in an EV will be work. It will test our patience and our planning skills. But it will feel great to drive across the country without burning any gasoline

We are doing it because it will be fun and will be an adventure, not because it is smart. But mostly we are doing it for our grandchildren.  We want them to have a clean home to raise our great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.  We hope that this trip will help get us all a little closer to weaning ourselves from fossil fuels.

Continuing to exploit oil resources and develop oil-centric infrastructure is a misguided, tragic mistake. What a gift that we can do even a little to help us change course.

It’s Only a Credit Card. No Big Deal.

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 1 Comment

Last week, Rebecca and I embarked on our second shakedown adventure: A drive from home in Vermont to home in Boston, where we would have to charge up in route. I did my homework, creating a spreadsheet of every charging station along the way. I worked on that spreadsheet for hours. Then we stopped at a rest area to pee. I asked the attendant when he thought they would start installing charging stations at rest areas. He didn’t think that would happen because gas stations were already installing them. There were a few new chargers at the next exit, just a few miles away. My research had never turned them up.

“Great,” I thought, “let’s try them out even though we still have plenty of juice.” We arrived at the charging station five minutes before I had a scheduled Zoom call. We could charge up during my call and leave with enough juice to get to Boston.

But this charger did not accept credit cards. It only accepted payment through the ChargePoint app and a tap of the phone. I had already downloaded the app and put in a payment option, but apparently, I had not yet punched enough buttons.

So, we waited to try again until after my call. After the call, still no luck, so I called ChargePoint. The lady answered pretty quickly, but her accent was so strong that I could barely understand her, and the cold and wind did not help. Despite my inner urgings to stay calm, I was getting frustrated. After endless useless questions and identify checks, I re-entered my credit card information, got the information into “My Wallet,” and tapped the machine once again, this time successfully.

Mindless fool that I am, I laid my credit card on the hood. Then we sat for 15 or 20 minutes while “Mo” took on $10 worth of electricity. I unplugged, and off we went.

Everything worked great. We got good mileage. The drive was easy. The new Level 2 charger at our house worked perfectly. Then we went to a restaurant to pick up some supper. Oh crap! Where was my credit card? DUH! Wherever it blew off the damn hood!

While we waited for our food to arrive, I called the credit card company to cancel the card. No one had used it, so no problems. The new one is in the mail.

Of course, this was the card I use for all of my remote and on-line purchases, so I knew that my stupidity in leaving the card on the hood would cost me hours of work getting a new number into who-knows-how-many sites and apps.

My frustration was palpable. I hated the idea of those wasted hours at the computer and the inevitable one or two that I would neglect to do. I was really pissed at myself. Then the light bulb went off. I reached into my shirt pocket. There it was: the credit card. Instead of leaving it on the hood or putting it back in my wallet, I had mindlessly put it in my shirt pocket. The elapsed time between canceling the card and finding it could not have been a minute, but the deed had been done.

How many more times in this adventure will I multitask to the point of becoming forgetful? The count begins!

Newbie EV Learning Moments

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 2 Comments

Within a week of taking possession of “Mo,” our Nissan Ariya EV, we took a family trip to New York City, driving to Albany and catching an Amtrak into the City. We figured we’d have plenty of time upon our return to Albany to find a charger, figure out how to work it, charge up, and get home. We were mostly right.

We started at the closest charging station. It was in a public parking garage that charged a $20 flat rate for some event that evening. In addition to the charging rates, we’d have to pay the extra $20 just to spend a few minutes at the charger. I am way too cheap to fall for that one. The next option was a few miles away, so we plugged the address into the GPS and off we went. Everything was as advertised, and the charger worked fine, but it was in a seriously sketchy part of town. We hung close, playing with knobs and buttons trying to figure out more of the inner workings of our new toy.

Once the dashboard showed that we had 100 miles of excess driving capacity to get home, we bolted.

LESSON: When the dashboard says 100 miles, don’t count on.

We had driven south on a flat 2-lane road, toodling along at 55 or 60 on a warm afternoon. “Mo’s” computer calculated the 100-mile margin based on that trip. We drove back north on a cold evening through big mountains on an Interstate … with no chargers nearby. We planted the cruise control at 75 and enjoyed the ride. Then I noticed the 100-mile margin beginning to disappear. Cold weather, high speeds, and mountain roads, we learned, suck a lot more electricity than warm, slow, and flat. By the time we got home, the dashboard was blinking red warning lights at me screaming that we only had 20 miles of battery capacity left.

I guess I’ve experienced plenty of times when the gas station I thought would appear around the next bend never materialized. Fortunately, we made it home safely, and if all goes well, we will not experience that sort of “Oh shit, what are we going to do?” moment again.

A New Adventure: Maybe the Best EV-er! 5,000+ Miles of Uncertainty

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 4 Comments

“Mo”

I had my last car for 10 reliable, maintenance-free, super comfortable years. I called him “Barney” for the first few years of his life because he was nothing special. Just an old Ford. Then, in St. Louis in 2017, as Rebecca and I were driving the length of the Mississippi River, we changed his name to “Mr. Bixby.” Horace Bixby was the riverboat captain who took the young cub pilot Sam Clemens under his wing and taught him the river. Mark Twain’s stories of Mr. Bixby in “Life on the Mississippi” are mesmerizing. His no-messing-around teaching style, his encyclopedic knowledge of the Mississippi, his civil war exploits, and his union organizing made him one of my heroes. Finding his headstone in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis became one of the high points of our trip. Mr. Bixby has been in 42 states and a lot of Canada. He’s never once acted up. Even with 160,000 miles under his belt, he’d do great on another road trip. But it’s time.

Like sailing ships, the steam engine, dial telephones, and black-and-white TVs, time is passing him by. He runs on gasoline, powered by an old-fashioned internal combustion engine. Imagine! In 2024!

Both Mr. Bixby’s

A few weeks ago, I signed a two-year lease on “Mo,” a brand-new all-electric Nissan Ariya. I still have Mr. Bixby. I can’t quite let go of him yet. He’s been a gem of a friend. But “Mo” has some serious “MoJo”! I wanted to name him after an aria. (He is, after all, an Ariya.) But my knowledge of opera is limited at best. As I struggled to think of an aria that would make a fitting name for a new car, I landed on two of my favorite operas (or one opera and one operetta, if you are a purist), “The Magic Flute” by Wolfgang Mozart and “Der Fledermaus,” by Johann Strauss. In the absence of a specific aria, I figured the composers would have to do. “MoJo” it would be; “Mo” for short.

”Mo” drives like a dream: comfy, peppy, and full of autonomous features like automatic lane control, windshield wipers that sense moisture, and high beams that never forget to switch off. When I drive past gas pumps, a snarky inside voice gloatingly whispers, “suckers.”

Now it is time to figure out if the world of 2024 is ready for an EV road trip … on back roads, acceding to our whims of the moment.

Here’s the plan: On December 14, our granddaughter Ella opens a show of four years of her art at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. On December 21, grandson Seff graduates from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln with a degree in horticulture. Plus, we have a brand-new great granddaughter in Omaha whom we have not yet met. The drive to Nebraska would normally take us five or six days. We will allow two weeks. “Mo” supposedly has a range of about 270 miles. I am dubious! We’ll be driving in winter at highway speeds. My goal will be to plan a route with chargers every 100 miles or so. That is easy in the densely populated east; it is harder in the farmlands of the high plains and the stubbornness of the deep south; and it is even harder in the wide-open expanses of the far west.

When we arrive at a charging station, it may be out of order. It may be in use. And who knows what else might go wrong! Regardless, we need to be prepared. In the worst case, we have AAA Plus, which gives us 100 miles of free towing … but a tow truck won’t do the job. We’d need a flatbed. Since there is no neutral gear on an EV (because there is no transmission), turning wheels always engage the motor, and since “Mo” is 4-wheel-drive, when a wheel turns, a motor turns. No more tow trucks for us.

Mostly, I suspect we will need lots of patience and a good sense of humor.

Finding charging stations, I am learning, is not so easy! Tesla has an extensive network of high-speed chargers, but they don’t work on other cars. One day, Tesla will adapt its chargers so they work on cars like “Mo,” but the change is coming slowly. We’re not there yet. Maybe next year. 

Then there’s the issue of charging speeds. Level 2 chargers work fine but take 5-10 hours to charge the batteries. That is fine for an overnight, but not a quick juice-up-and-go. Level 3 chargers will charge to 85% in about a half hour. Not bad if you have the right connector – a CCS in “Mo’s” case.

If I were a motel chain, I would install a charger at every property, advertise the hell out of it, and allow EV drivers to reserve a charger when they reserve their rooms. A few hotels and motels, I have learned, are on that trajectory, but it is still precious few. 

Google Maps is in on this adventure too. If you put a route into Google Maps (on your computer but not on your phone) and then hit the “EV Charging” tab, it will show a lot of the charging stations on the route … but not all of the charging stations by any matter of means.

I have also downloaded apps from different charging companies: “PlugShare,” “Electrify America,” “EVGo,” “ChargePoint,” “ChargeWay,” “ViaLynk,” “ChargeHub,” and “FLO.”

NEWS FLASH … QUESTION: How fast is this landscape changing? ANSWER: As I was writing the last three paragraphs, I got an email from Nissan. In that moment, they notified me that they had added a charging station mapping feature to the “My Nissan” app that combines all of the charging apps from the last paragraph. Nissan has done a bunch of the time-consuming work for me. Regardless, I am still planning on an adventure and allotting a lot more time than I would otherwise just to control frustration.

Stay tuned. You’ll get the skinny as it happens. If we indeed choose to go with EV instead of gas, I expect no shortage of adventures.


EPILOGUE: About 10 minutes ago, Rebecca and I decided to go for it!!! The only uncertainty now is a major winter storm along the route, and I expect that would trip us up regardless of vehicle.