"You Are Not Alone. America Hates Electric Cars"

I'm new here, but when I read this article, I started getting very angry about what is happening. We live in stage where big media is either completely ignorant or paid off or both. So here is me ranting about my use of my car and how they are incredibly wrong. :evil:

http://jalopnik.com/5873084/you-are-not-alone-america-hates-electric-cars

I've been busy running a small business in rural Alberta pushing technology. Until yesterday, I have not gotten my level 2 charger and it is still not installed. I live 40km from the town I work, 70km from the town I meet few times (2-4) a week at my other location, and 110km from the city I go to several times (4-8) a month. I have several vehicles, but only use the i-MiEV for work since I got rid of the Dodge Caravan which costed my $1000 a month. I drive 10 minutes a day on gravel/dirt road, have cow and horse poop all over my car, and have tried offroading several times with mild success; I don't recommend it unless you have an ATV at the ready. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a city commuter. I speed past people at 137kmph (85 mph), but if the cops found you 3mph faster, "You're gonna see some serious sh*t".

We need to make ourselves heard when media trash talks the cars we drive. We can NOT allow the EV1 to happen again.

But today, right now, in the middle of a terrible recession and a miasmatic material hangover from decades of unchecked consumption, I can't look someone in the eye who's about to buy their first car and say, "Look, buy this electric vehicle. It's not very fun. It's not what you want. You can't really haul anything. It's very likely not any better for the environment. But it is very, very quiet. Especially for the hours and hours it takes to charge."

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I have a lot of fun in my car. I spent 3 years researching before deciding on her and I love her every day. I moved my store with this car. I charge her with help from my friends at Sundog Solar and Bullfrog Power. I love the wind noise at top speed and how it charges every time I stop. I love my electric car. I hope everyone else can learn that too some day.

It's the realities we live with. Noah's Ark wasn't popular either.

I really don't care what people think, I know the truth and I'm living by my principles beyond just what feels good and I get what I want. There is too much suffering in a gallon of gasoline for me to be so wasteful with it. I had a motorcycle for five years but it only got 50 mpg if I was nice to it and that's a 650cc motor, too. My Nissan Versa could easilly get 43 mpg - I wasn't really saving much riding the motorcycle. That is why I never bought a hybrid, they don't get much better mpg and even a Prius at 50 mpg was only slightly better than my Nissan Versa.

While everyone is grumbling about the high cost of gas with the Iranian situation heating up, I quietly drive past the gas stations with the $4.09 a gallon signs. If gas weren't subsidized and cost what it really cost, these EV haters would be singing a different song. Like "Why can't I get an EV now, the manufacturers are backed up for months, I'm stuck with my gas sucking F250 that I can't give away."

I'm with you on this, I love my EV. Been wanting one since the 70's, came very close to pulling the trigger on building my own but I couldn't beat the price of the Mitsubishi i. Its been everything I expected and more, its the funnest car I have ever driven and it never leaves me tired like my ICE cars always did, that constant vibration wears on me. I'm glad to never give another dime to the petrolium companies, I'll never miss how they like to bend us over regularly on any hint of a disaster and screw us royally at the pumps. They'll never do anything for me except screw up the environment and hand wads of cash over to dictators and terrorist.

If EVs fail to take hold in Round 3, I'll be glad that I got mine and I'll replace the parts and pieces from the EV open market.

To Mlucas:
Could not have said it better. Thanks.

If you're going to get upset reading reviews written by those who 1.) Think they know it all but don't actually know much of anything about electric cars except what they read written by someone else just as misinformed as they themselves are, and 2.) Haven't owned or driven one for more than a few days or miles and 3.) Have a bias against anything new which threatens their favorite method of transportation, then you're going to be ranting for the next several years, because it seems that the most critical reviews were all written by those types of people

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/magazine/why-your-car-isnt-electric.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Me? - I could care less what they think because they're obviously not the sharpest knife in the drawer so their biased opinions shouldn't mean much to any of us who know better. If it was 1900, they'd be telling you how much better horses and carriages are than any of those newfangled motorcars - After all, their horse can refuel for free by the side of the road . . . . why would you pay a nickel for a gallon of gas?? :roll: - Though if they didn't want to buy gas, they could have bought a Baker Electric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Motor_Vehicle

Consider the source . . . . and then ignore what they say - After all, they seem happy with 4 buck a gallon gas while we can refuel for free with the sun :lol:

This makes way too much sense for them to ever see the light

Don

Articles like this do make me mad. Even if it doesn't change anything. The biggest issue with these kinds of articles is that so many people soak up the bad info. I guess that's where the actual EV owners come in, to correct the bad info and change peoples' minds. Sadly, it's the same way with renewable energy here in PA. People only hear the upfront cost and want nothing to do with it, not realizing they will have a little to no money owed to the power company for 30 years, or however long the system will last, they recoup their investment in 7-13 years, EARNING money after that, and help to weaken the deathgrip that fossil fuel companies have on the US. Personally, I hate the coal companies, from mountain(top) removal mining to the south to sink the land, take all the water, and monopolize public attractions happening around and under us. After they came under, it took 7 years to finally regain a stable water supply and get compensated for the damage, which we will never have the same land as before. I drive past two power plants everyday for work, and dozens of "Stop the war on coal, fire Obama" campain signs. It saddens me that these people are blindly supporting cancer and their own deaths by lung cancer and black lung.

Once I have an EV and enough solar power to run it, I will have much more ability to convince people that solar and EV's do work and are practical. For right now, all of my electronics and Ebike are powered by solar generated right outside my bedroom window. Also, I try to explain the benefits of ditching fossil fuels on my website: http://home.earthlink.net/~timster

Sorry about my rant, I guess this shows how much damage has been done by misinformation.

MLucas said:

I'm with you on this, I love my EV. Been wanting one since the 70's, came very close to pulling the trigger on building my own but I couldn't beat the price of the Mitsubishi i. Its been everything I expected and more, its the funnest car I have ever driven and it never leaves me tired like my ICE cars always did, that constant vibration wears on me. I'm glad to never give another dime to the petrolium companies, I'll never miss how they like to bend us over regularly on any hint of a disaster and screw us royally at the pumps. They'll never do anything for me except screw up the environment and hand wads of cash over to dictators and terrorist.

If EVs fail to take hold in Round 3, I'll be glad that I got mine and I'll replace the parts and pieces from the EV open market.

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Bravo! This is precisely my feeling when I read these pieces, especially those that so clearly miss the point of the i-MiEV itself. I didn't spend a penny more on this car (taking the tax credit into account, of course) than I would have buying nearly anything else of interest to me. The EV driving experience is quite different from the ICE experience; I can't imagine anyone liking it less, but it's certainly the case that many drivers, like MLucas and myself, enjoy it quite a bit more. I just don't see why people who appreciate and respect Corvettes and Miatas for the driver experience they provide, despite their impracticalities, for some reason dismiss EVs and their buyers as borderline insane.

EVs are better than they've ever been, and are now, finally, a practical alternative for a 2nd or 3rd vehicle in most American households. If battery technology follows the trends of the past 20 years (and that of most advanced technologies), temporarily subsidizing EV sales to narrow the gap between what manufacturers need to charge and what enough consumers are willing to pay should accelerate the "virtuous circle" of lower prices leading to higher sales leading to greater economies of scale leading to lower prices, etc. If you believe in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, in increasing the share of our transportation fleet that can be powered flexibly off the grid by the most effective available energy sources, then helping jump start the EV market makes a lot of sense.

At least everything's come together for now to bring us cars like the Leaf and the i. I had no intention of letting this opportunity go by, and if things don't work out this round, well, at least this time they can't seize these cars out of our garages and drag 'em off to the crusher (and yes, I'm looking at you, prospective Fit-EV lessees).

Same with me, I was very close to building my own EV, with onboard solar panels and a 150 mile range, but it was a couple grand cheaper and I had to build the whole car. Then I heard about the i, and thought an extra $2,500 would be worth saving the hassle building the car and going through the red-tape for a kit-car. I'm glad Nissan and Mitsubishi released their EV's, and I really hope they stay. Don't let these cars disappear like the EV1, EV+, and most of the RAV4-EV's and Ford Ranger EV's. By the way, what happened to the Nissan Altra? Are they still around?

They say America hates electric cars, I say they're asking the wrong people.

Have fun building an EV! I wish I had the time to, but I already work 12-14 hour days.

I don't mean to let people get to me; Don is right, I haven't had my car that long. It just gets me down after a while since I KNOW its better and everyone is trying to talk me out of a purchase that I already signed the papers for as if driving a pure EV is as faux pas as being homosexual (which is a whole other flame war waiting to happen).

Meh, either way, I'll be like those first guys who bought a mobile phone when most people though it was a gimmick that was going away.

Praxlus said:

...a pure EV is as faux pas as being homosexual (which is a whole other flame war waiting to happen).

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Quite funny actually. I am a member of the pink team and it does very much seem like a faux pas in the U.S. at least. That is why my little family unit lives in Canada where its not a faux pas. Try telling people you are going vegetarian, that'll get em' spinning. :lol:

Since Oct 1, 2012 , the day I bought my first electric car, that is 12 days ago, I haven't bought or burnt a single drop of gasoline. I have driven my I-MIEV to work and back, and all other trips that I needed to make. So WHY, WHY, WHY??? do journalists testing electric cars insist that they are good second cars. They are EXCELLENT FIRST CARS!!! The dinosaur juice drinking relics of the past are the 2nd cars. Like my 1999 Volvo which is collecting fall leaves and dust at the moment. Get with it people! My I-MIEV makes me smile each time I drive it. I get thumbs up and smiles from fellow road users all day long.

Joeev - I don't get that either. Probably written by people that are handed an assignment more so than by an EV enthusiast. Here, go evaluate this car and write about it. There is so much misinformation flying around, I'm sure much of it is simply spin. When I bought my EV, I've had to listen to a lot of that spin. Now that I've owned it for over three months, they aren't saying a whole lot anymore. Especially when I drive it over 85 kilometers every day.

Joeev said:

WHY, WHY, WHY??? do journalists testing electric cars insist that they are good second cars. They are EXCELLENT FIRST CARS!!! The dinosaur juice drinking relics of the past are the 2nd cars. Like my 1999 Volvo which is collecting fall leaves and dust at the moment. Get with it people!

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In one sense, I agree with you - I've had my i about a month, and I haven't driven our Prius once since getting it. It's my daily commuter and so far has been the only car we take out on the weekends. So the Prius is now just the car my wife drives during the day or when volunteering on weekends while I'm running other errands. In other words, it's the Prius that's become the second car.

But the flip side of that is that while I'm quite comfortable with the i as my FIRST car, I would be less eager about it being my ONLY car, and I think that's the general point of the journalists in question. Yes, the i could be a viable "only" car for people who are seriously considering living without any car at all. But for most households, the ability to take road trips, including day trips to other nearby towns and cities, is a pretty regular requirement, one that would be impractical to fulfill with rental cars alone. At this stage, if I was going to have just one car, today it would probably be a Chevy Volt, and early next year it would most likely be a Ford C-Max Energi. Those cars would let me do nearly all my routine driving as an EV, while preserving the ability to handle the occasional longer distance chores.

MLucas said:

...Try telling people you are going vegetarian, that'll get em' spinning. :lol:

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No kidding. My coworkers can't believe I don't eat meat. They keep threatening to buy me a steak for lunch. :roll: They're also trying to talk me out of buying the i. Last Thursday was the first trip where the i wouldn't have made it. Wouldn't have been a problem, I would've taken the Cavalier anyways, knowing 130 miles (75 miles in the evening on the highway with heat) was too far under my circumstances. I had to put gas in the Cavalier before going home because that trip drained the tank too far to make the morning trip the next day. Highway driving kills my fuel mileage, having to stop at the gas station 4 times last week, $30 a stop. This is at 56 miles one-way for both directions. The i would definitely be my first car, allowing my Dad to drive the Cavalier to work instead of the Tahoe, and we would switch on days I need to drive further.