On Aug 27, 2014, at 12:00 PM, Dennis Miles <[email protected]> wrote:
> As for your ROAD > Trip capability, the need for public distance transportation the > simple solution is Take the airplane, train, and intercity bus. The > times are changing, you need not drive a personal vehicle across the > USA , Fly and rent another car at your destination. On a drive to > Vegas from Miami,FL. flying the round trip airfare, and a five day car > rental saves $175 over driving a two year old car and saves over a > week in driving time (at 10 hours on the road each day.) Even on trips > of under 350 miles a rental car to visit "Grandma" for a few days > costs less than having a ICE in place of a second BEV in the garage. > (ICE cost over $3,000 more than a BEV in yearly expenses !) I hope > this clears up my positions on some areas we seem to have disagreed > upon. This is intended to explain my vision, not to argue with you... Such a "vision" represents a dismissive attitude to, again, with rounding, 100% of the drivers on the road -- and an attitude that only serves to convince people that BEVs are only for radical tree-hugging puritanical extremists. That you can come up with trip scenarios for which driving is suboptimal is irrelevant, as it ignores the actual real-world scenarios people actually have cars for. For example, I have a cousin who lives in Joshua Tree, California; I live in Tempe, Arizona. It's most of a day to drive there. Flying would mean flying to somewhere in the Los Angeles area, renting a car, and spending about half as much time on the road in LA traffic as it does in total from my house. Add in the time to get to and from airports, check in, get baggage, and the rest, and it's easily quicker and _far_ less hassle to drive. And there is no train nor bus service. Car rental means an added hour, plus car rental fees, plus gas, plus I have to plan the schedule around pickup and drop-off times. And all for...what advantage, exactly? Not putting a few tanks's worth of miles on my own car? Or if I own a BEV I must be forced to put up with all that waste for the temerity of wanting to visit my cousin? I have a friend who lives in Surprise, Arizona, about 45 miles away. For a round trip, that's already beyond the Leaf's EPA range. And in the summer, with battery capacity reduced from the heat? And if, horror of horrors, I should dare to turn on the air conditioner to cool the interior somewhat below the 115F ambient? And even if the idea is to meet her at her place and go somewhere...we can't take my sniny new car because still has to stay plugged in to her 110V outlet and hope it gets enough charge that I don't get stranded on the way home? And this is supposed to help evangelize EVs? Public transit is not an option; it'd be at least four transfers, including on routes that only run at hour intervals, and could well take six hours or more one way. And, I'm pretty sure, still leave me at least a few miles away from her house. I've barely gotten started, and there're two trivial and very common and very easy examples of situations where a pure BEV (other than a Tesla) is just simply a non-starter. I could obviously continue, but that would serve to give the impression that I think electric cars suck, which couldn't be further from the truth! Electric cars are wonderful, fantastic, amazing tools that are clearly the way of the future -- a future I wish were already here. But pretending that that future is already here for everybody and that those who lack your vision are unclean brutes worthy of punishment and scorn -- and _especially_ to heap that scorn most upon those who're amongst the first to jump on the electric bandwagon! What on _Earth_ are you thinking!? Do you not realize that there wouldn't be _any_ commercial BEVs for sale were it not for the non-plugin hybrids? Do you not realize that the fleet is already electrifying by the simple means of plugging those already-existing hybrids into the wall? I simply cannot fathom why you would be so upset at the notion that somebody would want to drive more electric miles and fewer gasoline miles, or why you'd want to put obstacles into the way of those looking to use more electricity and less gasoline. The way forward is *NOT* to punish those who've only got partially electrified cars. The way forward is to get as many cars as electrified as practical. Even if every new car only had a five-mile all-electric range, that would mean an hundred million miles a day per year converted to electric. ...and you think that would be a _bad_ thing? Something we should discourage and shun? b& -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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