Driving on sunshine!

Solar panels + electric vehicle = emission free commute to work!

I have had a deep commitment to ecology and conservation for a long time. I was both alive and sentient on the first Earth Day in 1970. Two months shy of my 11^th birthday, I was at an impressionable age. My parents had sent us to day camps at the Kalamazoo Nature Center during the summer, and I took to it. When I was old enough—13 sticks in my mind—I worked as a junior counselor and continued to spend my summers there for most of the years up until I was 20. I have had a long association with tree huggers.

In recent years, I have gone all in for raising my own food, making my own yogurt, baking my own bread, mulching my kitchen scraps, reducing, reusing, recycling, and otherwise trying to leave the smallest possible carbon footprint. And I was well aware of my Great Hypocrisy—I burned through almost two gallons of gas a day just getting back and forth to work. Hybrids had just come on the market 10 years ago when it was time for me to buy a new car, but there were two problems. First, they didn’t have all wheel drive, which I needed when we lived at the Girl Scout camp. Secondly, my Subaru’s transmission was about to go, and there was a 6-month wait for a Prius. I bought a Toyota Matrix instead. It got 30 mpg, which was pretty good. You will always take a hit on mileage with all-wheel drive. I rationalized the emissions by remembering that Terry didn’t commute at all. Still, it rankled.

At first, I was skeptical of electric cars. It seemed like a simple displacement of CO₂ from the car itself to the generating plant. A few years ago, Terry and I watched a program on electric cars. I learned that the amount of fuel used to make electricity was less than the comparable amount of gas to power a regular car. One of the last statements on the program struck me—the longer you have an electric car, the cleaner it will become. But there were still problems. I drive 26 miles to work. The early electric cars had ranges that would not get me back home. I worried about getting stranded with a dead battery. The Chevy Volt had a certain appeal with the gas backup, but the range was still well under my round-trip commute. And I wasn’t ready to get a new car.

The first Volt stood the test of time. The reviews were good. The reviews for the 2016 Volt were even better. I thought I could get along without all-wheel drive if my parents were willing to let me drive their Subaru when the weather was terrible. They readily agreed that they had no business on bad roads at their age. Also, we live on the milk truck route now, and the road gets plowed early. I was ready.

Alas, the 2016 Volt was not available in Illinois. I would have to wait for the 2017 Volt, which was supposed to be available “in early summer.” I left my phone number at the Chevy dealers in Woodstock and Crystal Lake. They would be happy to order one for me. I didn’t want to order until I had driven one. They promised to call as soon as they got one in. And I waited.

Meanwhile, MCC installed two charging stations in the parking lot with reserved parking for electronic vehicles (EV). On April 28, Nissan representatives brought a Leaf to MCC for test drives. I was in class, so I missed it. The buzz after the fact was extreme. So fun to drive! So affordable! Range of 107 miles in optimal conditions! Tax credits! Educator discounts! When I mentioned to one of my co-workers that I didn’t think I could get home from Elgin after visiting Jane, he wisely suggested that I could plug in at her house while I visited.

Thinking that I would never, ever be able to get a Volt, I did some searching on the Web for Leafs (Leaves?) and found a dealer in St. Charles. I scheduled an appointment for 1:30 on Friday, May 6. Maybe I could make it work. I could rent a car if I went on a road trip. Kate (who went to the test drive on campus) said that there was a “quick charge” feature that took 15 minutes. Jane researched charging stations, which are few and far between around here. She also told me that the home charging station Nissan recommended was $1000 DIY, $2000 if professionally installed. I looked up the distance to Jane’s house and found it to be 45 miles. Would the Leaf make 90 miles if you also ran the heater or air conditioner?

I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment in Elgin on the day of the Leaf test drive when she called me. “There are 5 Volts at a dealer in Glendale Heights and one at Biggers in Elgin.”

“Glendale Heights?” I asked. “Isn’t that where Jesus left his shoes?”

“It’s not that far,” she replied. “It is on the same road as the Nissan dealer in St. Charles.”

I was done at the doctor’s office in record time. I called Jane to tell her to start cooking lunch. We ate as soon as I got to her house. It was 11:30 when I started calling Chevy dealers. Biggers had sold their only Volt the previous day. Sunrise Chevy in Glendale Heights would be happy to have me test drive one. I said we’d be there at 12:30. We took Jane’s car just to ensure that I wouldn’t impulsively buy a car that day.

We met Craig, a very nice young man who was Sunrise’s Volt specialist. I drove the car. I loved it. It was the car I had researched and dreamed of owning. But I still felt I should keep my appointment at Nissan. At 1:10, we told Craig we had to leave, but we’d be back.

The woman at the Nissan dealer was not very eager to sell me a Leaf. I told her right off the bat that I lived in the country and was nervous about being all electric. From that moment, she was trying to sell me the Jute, which was “comparable to the Matrix.” She also told me that there was no mechanism for charging the car from a regular 120V outlet. I would have to install a charging station before bringing the car home and have no mechanism for charging at Jane’s house.

I took a brochure and the woman’s card just to be polite. We went back to Sunrise and gave Craig $1000 to find me a red car with heated seats. So much has changed since I last bought a car. I had saved up a lot of money in anticipation of having to pay for a package of things I didn’t want to get one thing I did want, sort of like buying boxes of stuff at an auction. When I bought the Matrix, I got a moon roof and 6-CD player that I didn’t care about so I could get the all-wheel drive that was essential. But all I needed to pay for this time was the heated seats and the red color (which was $395—if it had been $2000, I would have had to think about it more). Plus, the salesmen at Sunrise don’t work on commissions, so it was all very low key. Craig found three cars that met my criteria. The car would in in Monday or Tuesday.

Craig called Tuesday to say I could pick up the car Wednesday. I took off from school as soon as I had the final exam grades posted. I picked up Jane and got to the dealer at 2:30. I surrendered all three keys to my Matrix with more than a little sadness. It was 10 years old and had 164,000+ miles. I am certain it had 200,000 miles in it. It was a great little car. Never gave me a moment’s trouble. It was hard to let it go. I hope that someone will love it as I have loved it until it gives out. Also, it was really a good red, which could not be said of the Volt. The “Siren Red” had looked redder on the website. In reality it was more of a maroon. I’ll get used to it.

Farewell, little Matrix. Such a good car, such a good red

It took an hour and 45 minutes to sign the papers and write the big check. Unlike the big checks I wrote for the solar panels, this big check was my own money. Paying cash for a car made me feel like such a successful grown up.

Despite Jane’s statement to the contrary, Glendale Heights is indeed where Jesus left his shoes, at least relative to where I live. Plus we got done at the dealer’s just as rush hour was gearing up. I hardly ever drive in heavy traffic anymore. Doing so in a brand-new car was nerve-wracking. I had a quick dinner with Jane and headed home. I ran out of electrical charge 14 miles away. The car seamlessly switched to the gas generator. It took 0.33 gallons to get me to my garage.

The charging cord stretched easily across the two-car garage. I plugged in at 7:00 p.m. The car told me the battery would be fully charged by 2:00 p.m. the following day. I left for work 12 hours after getting home and had enough charge to make it to campus where I finished charging it.

Reserved parking at the charging station

I will get a charging station put in soon, which will decrease the charging time to 6 hours. EV charging stations are available from Amazon at half the price of the one Nissan recommends, and Terry is willing to try to install it himself.

I’ve been about 200 miles so far and used less than half a gallon of gas. And our solar panels are offsetting some of the electricity that I’ve used. Driving on sunshine, baby! Pretty awesome.