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Turning over a new leaf
Jun. 28th, 2011 11:38 pmSo the plan for Monday was pretty low-key. We checked out of the Salish Lodge, packing up the remnants of the wedding decoration and some gifts. I had a quick coffee and got DrB a tea, we had energy bars for breakfast, a quick goodbye to my folks before they head to the airport, and we did a little browsing at the gift store before heading back home. We unloaded and headed to Sea-Tac to pick up DrB's car which her mom left at the airport on her way out earlier in the day. We then headed off to Southcenter for a low-brow meal at the mall and to catch a matinee of X-Men: First Class--it was quite good--and then DrB left quickly to pick up Rhys from Pacific Science Center camp. We were planning to meet at home, spend a quiet evening at home unpacking and cleaning up after a week of house guests, and ordering in pizza.
Then I checked my phone and saw I had a call while we were in the movie.
A month or so ago, we had gone to test drive a Nissan Leaf. My Honda was a 2001 car, and would need replacement sooner than later... and we were seriously considering getting an EV. I would use it for daily commuting, and we would keep DrB's Saturn for roadtrips. The problem is that there's a really long line to getting one. In fact, while we could sit in the Leaf they had onsite, we couldn't actually test drive it because it was being delivered to someone else.
We registered to be notified when they reopened the reservation system on their website, which was basically getting in line to get in line. However, the dealer said that occasionally a Leaf will get 'orphaned'... the person who it was built for after obtaining a reservation order gets to the point of receiving it and decides not to go through with it.
The call was about an orphan vehicle that as basically what we would've ordered had we gotten to that point. So an hour later, we met at the house, loaded up the Rhyser and head down to Auburn to test drive the vehicle. It's pretty sweet and about 4 hours later we were the owners of a shiny new car, and my old Honda was left in the lot. They are indeed pricey, but it was the vehicle we wanted, there is a $7500 EV federal tax credit and Washington state waives sales tax on EVs--both of which would be going away sooner than later with all the public budget fights.
Normally we'd have had a long process that included getting scheduled for a charger unit, but as an orphan that whole thing got bypassed. While it will recharge from a standard power plug, it takes a really long time to trickle charge. My garage at work, however, has some of the ChargePoint stations with a level 2 charger (called a 'standard' charger) which means for now I can recharge it at work rather than at home daily--although it isn't free, it's pretty cheap. That should hold us over until we get our own level 2 (probably a Blink unit). Thankfully I had my house electric service upgraded already, so I shouldn't have a terribly high installation cost.
The Leaf we got also has the "DC fast charge" level 3 port (they are optional on the vehicle), so it is possible that we could use some of stations that are supposed to be deployed on the West Coast. Of course, they haven't actually fully standardized this option (the Leaf uses the Japanese CHAdeMO), and they don't think you should do it to the battery that often anyhow. Still, options.
Then I checked my phone and saw I had a call while we were in the movie.
A month or so ago, we had gone to test drive a Nissan Leaf. My Honda was a 2001 car, and would need replacement sooner than later... and we were seriously considering getting an EV. I would use it for daily commuting, and we would keep DrB's Saturn for roadtrips. The problem is that there's a really long line to getting one. In fact, while we could sit in the Leaf they had onsite, we couldn't actually test drive it because it was being delivered to someone else.
We registered to be notified when they reopened the reservation system on their website, which was basically getting in line to get in line. However, the dealer said that occasionally a Leaf will get 'orphaned'... the person who it was built for after obtaining a reservation order gets to the point of receiving it and decides not to go through with it.
The call was about an orphan vehicle that as basically what we would've ordered had we gotten to that point. So an hour later, we met at the house, loaded up the Rhyser and head down to Auburn to test drive the vehicle. It's pretty sweet and about 4 hours later we were the owners of a shiny new car, and my old Honda was left in the lot. They are indeed pricey, but it was the vehicle we wanted, there is a $7500 EV federal tax credit and Washington state waives sales tax on EVs--both of which would be going away sooner than later with all the public budget fights.
Normally we'd have had a long process that included getting scheduled for a charger unit, but as an orphan that whole thing got bypassed. While it will recharge from a standard power plug, it takes a really long time to trickle charge. My garage at work, however, has some of the ChargePoint stations with a level 2 charger (called a 'standard' charger) which means for now I can recharge it at work rather than at home daily--although it isn't free, it's pretty cheap. That should hold us over until we get our own level 2 (probably a Blink unit). Thankfully I had my house electric service upgraded already, so I shouldn't have a terribly high installation cost.
The Leaf we got also has the "DC fast charge" level 3 port (they are optional on the vehicle), so it is possible that we could use some of stations that are supposed to be deployed on the West Coast. Of course, they haven't actually fully standardized this option (the Leaf uses the Japanese CHAdeMO), and they don't think you should do it to the battery that often anyhow. Still, options.
