EV once - spoiled forever

It feels like oil prices climbing again. That is why we visited "Big Snowwhite" today, 105 horsepowers, station wagon. We brought her to the gas station to bunker some 98 ROZ. She was relaxing on old age pension for some 3 month and we had feed her 12V batteries some electricity the week before or she would not even wake up today. The old lady was rather annoyed and I forgot how to use kludge and gear shift. Does not feel like I'd like to repeat that procedure too soon.

Same procedure with my Ma's car except it only has got some 50 horsepowers. It is a Volkswagen Polo, much like the i-MiEV. Driving the Polo feels like driving a bath tube filled with water up to the rim. The trunk has about the same size as 2 seater as well as 4 seater but the i-MiEV is much smaller and shorter. The i-MiEV feels like a racing car compared to an ICE of about the same class. I did not notice I got spoiled that fast.

Wait until you try to Quick Charge, then you will
become addicted to another new experience.

Almost 6 month now and we sold our ICE car for good. "Snowwhite" is now our only car in the family.

Our dealer promissed to get us an ICE car should we need to go on long distance. It makes more sense to rent a modern car whenever we need it (not once for half a year now) than paying insurance, doing inspection, keeping the 12V battery charged and asking someone for help because when we need it finally it is sure to have its period. :lol:

peterdambier said:

Our dealer promissed to get us an ICE car should we need to go on long distance. It makes more sense to rent a modern car whenever we need it (not once for half a year now) than paying insurance, doing inspection, keeping the 12V battery charged and asking someone for help because when we need it finally it is sure to have its period. :lol:

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Exactly! Too many people buy a vehicle that meets every possible need that they might imagine, even if many of these needs rarely occur. The result in the U.S. is that too many people drive gas-guzzling pickup trucks that rarely carry anything in their pristine truck beds. Instead, they should do as you recommend: buy an efficient vehicle suitable for most of their needs and rent a vehicle for the few times that their own vehicle is unsuitable.

peterdambier said:

She was relaxing on old age pension for some 3 month and we had feed her 12V batteries some electricity the week before or she would not even wake up today. The old lady was rather annoyed and I forgot how to use kludge and gear shift. Does not feel like I'd like to repeat that procedure too soon.

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We weren't that smart, Peter - When we attempted to start our 2003 Protégé 5 wagon earlier in the week, it wouldn't . . . . had to put the battery charger on it to get it going. We were taking it 3 miles to Lowes (a home-center store here in the USA) to buy some 12 foot (4 meter) boards . . . . it has a roof rack and the iMiEV doesn't

My Miata usually gets driven every third Saturday when I take one of my grand daughters to lunch . . . . she likes the top down rides in the convertible and luckily, here in the south we can do this all year long

Since May, we have bought gas only once for each of our gas burners. They were both below half a tank when we bought the iMiEV and after a few months it became obvious that they weren't going to get driven too much, so we took them to the little country store 1/4 mile from our house for a fill-up. They only sell 100% gasoline there (no ethanol added) and I figured that would be better for their long term 'storage' . . . . but it appears we also need to get a trickle charger or two if we want them to reliably wake from their slumbers - Plug-in EV owners also need plug-in ICE's if they want to still drive them occasionally

Don

I'm fortunate in that there is a rental car branch within a short walk from my house. My wife's ICE, although reasonably reliable (and fairly easy to repair!), probably won't be used for really long road trips. It is 13 years old with 82K miles. Instead, I think I'll walk to the Enterprise office and rent a Prius or something. Because it's not near the airport, no extra "airport taxes" are added to the rental fee. Amazing how reasonable the price is without all those extra taxes.