http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26car.html?ref=opinion "Here’s what really got me, though: on the dashboard, alongside the gauge that measures the battery life, the Volt has another gauge that calculates the vehicle’s miles per gallon. During the two-hour drive to Southampton, I used two gallons of gas, a quarter of the tank. Thus, when I drove into the driveway, it read 50 miles per gallon. The next day, after the overnight charge, I didn’t use any gas. After driving around 30 miles in the morning, I recharged it for a few hours while I puttered around the house. (It takes 10 hours to fully recharge, unless you buy a special 240-volt recharging unit.) That gave the battery 10 miles, more than enough to get me where I needed to go that evening on battery power alone. Before I knew it, my miles per gallon for that tankful of gas had hit 80. By the next day it had topped 100. I soon found myself obsessed with increasing my miles per gallon — and avoiding having to buy more gas. Whenever I got home from an errand, I would recharge it, even for a few hours, just to grab a few more miles of range. I was actually in control of how much gas I consumed, and it was a powerful feeling. By the time I gave the car back to General Motors, I had driven 300 miles, without using another drop of gas beyond the original two gallons. I’m not what you’d call a Sierra Club kind of guy, but I have to tell you: I was kind of proud of myself."
So he used the car as it was meant to be used and he was proud of himself. I think I'll give him a cookie.... I think there's a lot of people that would do just the same, but for most the price is out of reach for them. If we could just get people thinking the way this guy did, and get more FE vehicles to start with, things would be better.
Something's amiss with that math. Whatever the case, I don't see the need for all plug-in configurations. The 3-hour recharge time for the PHV will work fine for me. .
I get 4 mi/hr on the 110v charger (10 hours to full) and 10 mi/hr on the 240v charger (4 hours to full) on my Volt.
No need in bashing the guy, more people need to have this revelation whether it is in a Prius, a Volt, a Fusion, or even an Escape. Lots of people are having this revelation in non-hybrid gas savers like Fiesta as well.
I think it is great as long as they remember to calculate how much the electricity cost them compared to gasoline. Electricity is usually not free.
Yes. I would like to see his "glee" when he got his utility bill after a month of hamstering his gas like that. Sounds like he didn't care whether he was on peak time or not.
Well not a drop of coal in sight either in NYC, according to EPA Power Profiler. Mostly nat gas with nuke and oil, but meanwhile NYTimes have a negative series in progress on nat gas. In any case, I thought the article was missing the fact that power has to be generated somehow. Not NY I am fairly sure, but OK give us an honorable mention here in the NE region.
Hey if what it takes to cut our dependance on oil is a little pride. He sounds goofy, but that kind of goofiness should be encouraged. We have a whole host of people with different motivations. Many that will buy PHEVs and BEVs are not motivated by TCO. Let's face it you can buy a used metro for that. IMHO people should be encouraged to use less oil. We people care most for polution, and they will often power their cars with wind, or sun, or falling water. There are those that care about security or the economy, and would happily trade coal or anything domestically produced for oil. For many a conventional car that uses less gas like the fiesta is going far enough, for the next level there is a hybrid like the prius, then phevs and bevs. For me all of the diverse opinions on why to use less oil should be encouraged. If the someone trades in an SUV for a volt, I guarantee no matter how high electric rates less money will be spent on energy. But that won't be what motivates him/her.
...well it seems like NYC uses a lot of oil for elec, I do not understand this, but it also came out in an NPR clean energy debate that was posted here I think.
How much is "a lot of oil"? I put in the zip code of 10004 into How clean is the electricity I use? - Power Profiler | Clean Energy | US EPA and got 5% oil. That's not a lot, IMHO but it's much higher than the national fuel mix. I put in a random zip of 96846 from Hawaii and it's 77.4% oil.
Doh. I didn't think of NYC specifically. The country uses just over 1% petroleum. I don't know how much the NYC uses, or why it uses so much. I just searched and got 12% for NY state in 2005. There is a good reason Hawaii uses so much petroleum. Being a far away island, its fossil fuel arrives on ships and is expensive. Its a great place to put in renewables, and that has started. I don't really trust that database, it was way off on my utility. It says long island electric 31%, con ed 5%. Even at 31% you still are using less oil with a phev, but it would make it hard to pay a premium. Does anyone know how much oil NY uses for power generation, and why it is so high?
ConEd provides everything in my area. They get electricity from 5% oil and 56% gas (fossil fuel). The data was from 2007 eGRID.
Newark, NJ is a big oil refinery area and port. It's the main reason gas is cheaper in Jersey, and the cost likely makes oil generated electric attractive in the NYC area.
Fraid I got this thread off track. Sorry. Google to the rescue. Below LINK has short video. For some odd reason, apparently a number of NYC buildings burn bunker fuel which causes black smoke. This is what I had heard about on NPR. Proposal To Rid City Of Dirty Heating Oil Sparks Debate - NY1.com
