My New (used) Car

I missed my exit on the way home today and ended up in New Hampshire.  If you know me, you are rolling your eyes right now saying, "What else is new?"  There are more than a few stories of me getting lost while driving.  The only reason why it doesn't happen more is that I usually have a personal SAS sitting next to me... (that's Stephanie)

To be clear, missing an exit and ending up in New Hampshire this time was not quite as bad as it used to be.  If I was saying this 6 months ago, there would be bigger issues.  We currently live 5 minutes from the border, so it wasn't that bad.

Lets step back about a month though because the anxiety of this mistake, and then it's unconcerning conclusion may make more sense.  I recently bought an electric car!  Stephanie already had one and I got used to both driving it and curbing my "range anxiety." We decided that, since we sometimes like to do longer trips, and I often work in the Boston area, that my car should have a bit more range than Stephanie's.  Her 2017 Nissan Leaf gets about 125 miles on a full charge, and it fluctuates depending on which systems are also in use while driving (A/C, heat etc.)  We decided on a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt for me.  It gets anywhere from 240 to 260 miles on a full charge depending on how heavy my foot is that day.  

So, back to my lack of directional abilities.  One of the things I hear often about owning an electric car is, "what if I get stuck out in the middle of nowhere and the battery runs out?" My response is usually something like, what would you do if you got stuck out in the middle of nowhere and your gas runs out?"  Well, today I drove right past my exit and my first thought was, "crap, how many miles is it going to take to find my way home?" The answer to that question was... about 8.  My car still had 150 miles until empty.  I could have made it to Rockland, ME... a trip that would have taken 2hrs and 45 minutes.  I know your next question.  It's something like "yeah, but when you get there (in the middle of nowhere) how do you get home? (I swear I didn't look this up before, I just tried to find a place that was 150 miles north of Amesbury.) Rockland, ME has not less than 4 public chargers, and there are eight more within 10 miles of the center of town.  Three are apparently dedicated to Tesla, but there is a station located at 24 Limerock Street with two, tier 2 chargers.  I would have had to wait a while to charge up (probably 3 or 4 hours), but I could have done it!

The thing about electric cars is, you just have to plan ahead a little.  Stephanie uses hers primarily for commuting.  I commute less, but due to the higher range, we use mine for extended trips.  We recently did a trip from Amesbury, MA to Fair Haven, MA, a north south traverse of Massachusetts and could have done it on a single charge.  We decided to stop and top up at a fast charger for the way home, but it really wasn't necessary.  The daily commutes are easy with an EV.  Longer trips require a small amount of planning, but it isn't difficult.  There are apps and charging stations everywhere, and the infrastructure is getting better and more widespread all the time.  

We felt that it was time to make the switch.  We were able to make it work financially, and we have the convenience of being able to charge at home (more on that in the next post).  Like any big purchase, you have to make sure it will work for you, but we respectfully ask you to consider an electric vehicle for your next car.  This post was pretty light hearted, but the reality is that these kind of changes are necessary.  I heard about a study done in Europe regarding the lifecycle analysis of an EV vs a Gas powered car, and even in countries that mostly burn coal to produce electricity, an EV wins out from a emissions standpoint.  I found a wonderful article summarizing that study here:  (EV vs. Gas) though I first heard it on a podcast called How to Save the Planet, also a great resource.

-Nate

EVs: Easier Than I Thought!

What would be a sustainability blog without discussion of electric vehicles?  After the shutdown last spring, when I had to start driving to work again, I realized just how bad I felt about driving to work every day, when I knew that my car was contributing to emissions that cause global warming.  

But I didn't see a way around it: the main roads to work (about 12 miles away) are just too busy to bike safely (if I owned a bike, which I don't), and the back route involves navigating a two-lane rotary where some traffic is entering from highway off-ramps--not very safe, in other words.  Obviously at 12 miles, walking is impractical (four-hour commute each way), and we just can't afford to live in the town where I work, despite the fact that the pay there is generous.  (Anyone wanting to buy us a million-dollar home, please email me directly!)  Oh, and while I both live and work within a five-minute walk of a train station, and those stations are on the same train line, even the pre-pandemic service schedule would have meant arriving with two minutes to spare (ah, nothing like an uphill jog to work to start your day) and waiting about 90 minutes after work to catch a train home: not practical.  

Finally, after feeling worse and worse, Nate suggested I get an electric car.  In hindsight, this is the obvious solution to such a problem, but it's one I hadn't really been willing to consider before.  Where did this long-held resistance come from?  I'm honestly still not sure, but it was there and real.  I'm sure part of it was fear of the unknown: What will maintenance be like?  How does charging work and how much does it cost?  Where can I charge?  What's the range?  Does it handle well in the snow?  Is it even worth it, if I'm just charging with electricity from a coal-fired power plant?

Nonetheless, I did a little online research.  My main question had a surprising answer: even when charging a vehicle from coal-generated electricity, it produces far fewer emissions than a gas-powered car.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Plus, unlike a gas-powered car, which has no hope of being powered by cleaner fuel in the future (your gas tank won't spontaneously be able to run on clean fuel), your electric car can become completely clean if you manage to find a clean source of energy from which to charge it--like home solar panels--and will also become cleaner as more electricity in the grid is generated from clean sources.

To answer my other questions... I did see that charging at an apartment can be tricky (unless it's a luxury apartment that might offer charging as an amenity), but luckily there are three public charging stations within a 10-minute walk of where we live.  The major charging companies offer smartphone apps so you can see all of their chargers in your area.  They seem to handle fine in the snow (lots of folks in Colorado seem happy with them, and it snows there, right?).  Plus, they tend to require less maintenance than gas cars.  (No oil changes!!!  Plus, they have fewer moving parts, thus there's less that can break.)  And the cost to charge is less than to fill up, even with current low gas prices.  Sometimes you can even find free charging.  There are some rebates if you buy brand new, but after some looking, I found a used Nissan Leaf for a price that was right (less than the resale value of my car--even though my car was the same age and had twice the miles).  

So I made the plunge in mid-November.  Two months out, I'm still loving my new-to-me EV.  It's so quiet to drive, it handles well, and I don't feel guilty on my daily commute anymore.  It's way roomier than I expected (it has a good trunk), and while charging requires a little planning ahead, I'm good at that.  (If you have a house where you can install an appropriate outlet or a charger at your apartment, you don't need to plan ahead, because you can just charge overnight as needed.  Easy!)  My car gets about 120 miles per charge, but newer cars will take you further.  For a daily commuter, 120 miles is enough for me.  Even when I was driving to work five days per week, I only needed to charge it twice weekly, maybe three times if we took it out on the weekend.  It's been a great choice for me, and if you're at all curious, I'd definitely say to do some research: you might find that making the switch to electric is easier than you thought.  

Update 1/30/2021: Naturally, a few days after posting this, I read an interesting column in the New York Times by someone who'd recently made the switch to EV--also a Nissan Leaf, though a newer one.  If you want someone else's favorable take, it's worth a read.