Saturday, October 13, 2012

Redlands Trip

Used two and a half gallons of gas and got a bit better than 60 MPG for the 150-ish mile drive. I forgot to snap a pic to give me exact numbers, and now that I've charged the car, that info is lost... or at least I don't know where to get it once the display has reset.

On the way to Redlands, I put the car in Mountain mode when I got around 15 miles of range on the battery. That way I could drive around Redlands on battery instead of in extended range mode. On the way home I just left it in Normal mode the whole way.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Gasoline

"The price of gasoline hit an all-time average high in California of $4.6140 a gallon Saturday, fueled by a reduced supply and a volatile market."

"The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded across California was 47 cents more than a week ago, according to the AAA report."

While I've actually seen a few wild prices in isolated areas reaching as high as $5.99.99, the average is still pretty high. Am I a bad person for shaking my head at outraged people and thinking... "Why didn't you take the warnings and the upward trends we've seen for years seriously?"

I understand the price of electric or hybrid cars is high right now, so the folks who are fuming at the pump... many of them could rightly say they can't really afford anything else. (Though the latest Nissan Leaf lease prices are only $219/mo and Volts can be had for not much more.) But I see a lot of big SUV drivers, 4X4 drivers (which in most of SoCal is just plain unnecessary) and, more importantly, I see people driving in very uneconomical ways. Hot rodding around and jack rabbiting from stops, driving upwards of 80+ miles per hour on freeways... I wonder if those are a big majority of the "fuming motorists paying $5 or more per gallon in some locations" as the Chron.com article I'm quoting from says.

It's hard for me to have too much sympathy for the guy crying at the pump with his Hummer or Expedition. And when I see people slingshot past me from a stop or fly past me on the freeway, I think they must just have money to burn, literally. Even the guy in the Prius doing over 80 just doesn't get it. And apparently doesn't care.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

September EV Sales Figures

According to chargedevs.com, it looks like Chevy sold 2,851 Volts last month, a bit of improvement over August’s all time record of 2,831. That makes a year-to-date total of 16,348. They say the Volt’s Hamtramck assembly line will remain idle until October 15th. 

Nice!