The Agony and the Ecstasy of Owning an Electric Car
One picture says it all. My Chevy Volt is getting 200.7 mpg.
YAY!!!
I only have four miles left on the charge.
BOO!!!
I traveled over 40 miles Sunday afternoon and when I got home had only 14 miles left on the charge. It was night. No sunlight to charge my car so I decided to wait until morning and plug it in around 8 AM. Well, I forgot. When I got into my car at 9:45 I realized my mistake. Didn't have enough electricity for a round trip. My yoga class starts at 10 AM and the round trip is 16 miles. Well, I knew I wouldn't make it on the charge.
Now, I'm lucky because I have gas back-up. If my car were totally electric I would be forced to stay home or be stranded once I arrived at my yoga class. In the lower left hand corner of the above picture you see EV Range 4 mi. That's how much charge I had to get home with. In the far right corner it says Fuel Range 147 mi. That's what saved me from walking or calling a tow truck. My next car will be a totally electric vehicle but this is the reason many people discourage me from doing it. You have to stay on top of the charge. I'm sure I can always stay prepared but slip-ups like this do make me a little unsure of my decision.
In the above picture you see 5.7 mi in blue. That's how far I went on gas and below it says 0.10 gal used. The circle shows my overall energy consumption from yesterday till today. Most of it's green because I mainly traveled on electricity and the little bit of blue indicates the gas I had to use.
Here is Vessie receiving her much needed energy and, since it's daytime, the power is coming from the sun. I plugged in about 1:10 which means she will be fully charged a little after five. I don't have any place I need to go so that's okay but if you don't have time to wait for a full charge then you'll be burning gasoline again. Like I said . . .