RV Travels With Huggy

Earlier this month Pat started talking about maybe trading "Baby", her beloved VW New Beetle in on a new car. It was a diesel powered model and got pretty good mileage, especially out on the road. It was also a 2001 model with 69,000 miles on it and while hasn't caused any problems, she was aware that in another 11,000 miles it would be due for an expensive service call. So that started the thinking process.

We looked at the current models of the New Beetle but they have changed the car a lot. It is now bigger, almost looks fat, and they didn't seem to be able to get any diesel models in. On February 1st, we stopped again at the VW dealer, got the same message, so went to the local Kia dealer. She had watched the Kia ads (everyone must love those hamsters with the Soul model) so we decided to look at that brand. Neither of us is fond of those square looking cars like the Soul and we both appreciate the convenience of having a 4-door car, so that was what we looked at.

Some of them, the small and mid-sized models, were too low getting into to be comfortable so we looked at the one whose lines she liked best on the TV ads, the Optima. It was a car that she liked and they had one in stock that had everything she wanted it to have and then some. So, she bought it.

By this time it was dark and she didn't want to drive it home in the dark, so we went back to pick it up the next day. I have some photos of it:


Here Pat is about to get into the driver's seat for a "tour" of the dashboard, with our salesman, Mike explaining things. This car has almost everything that is available except a navigation system and we have a portable one so that isn't needed. It has the sun roof that will open just to vent or fully and there is even a sun roof for the back seat passengers. It has heated seats in both the front and rear and the front seats are even cooled. The radio system has something like eight speakers and a thing that we are really enjoying called the Jukebox where you can upload 700mb of MP3 music files for it to play. The cell phone connects through the Blue Tooth system that works like it does in the Prius for a voice call, but if she gets a text message it will ask her if she wants it to read the message. If she says "yes", it reads it in very clear English. The driver's seat is power operated and it has two memory positions. If Pat is driving, she presses #1 while if I get in to drive I press #2. The steering wheel is even heated if you want to turn it on.


The car in a frontal view. I think the lines are beautiful. Mike, our salesman, is from Germany and he told us the chief engineer on this car was hired by Kia from Audi where he worked on designing some very expensive cars. Much of what the Audi cars had has been included in this model of the Kia but it is much less expensive.


Here Pat and Mike are starting to connect her cell phone to the Blue Tooth system.
A closer view of the dash where the radio system is located as they are working with the cell phone connection. It works well and the text message reader is really amazing.

So far we both like the car. We have been driving it most of the time although the Prius does get better mileage so as gas prices are pushing up towards the $4 a gallon level, we will probably start to drive my car a bit more. But this one is very nice. Oh, and her beloved Baby is now being driven by Pat's daughter, so it is still in the family!

Labels: Cars, Pat and I, Photos

This weekend is the annual Berry Dairy Days festival in Burlington, WA, another small town near us. They also have a car show as a part of it and we went over there for a Father's Day lunch and to see the cars. Many were also at the show in Sedro Woolley two weeks ago but I do have some photos of three of them from today. We've had nice weather until Friday night but today is better than yesterday so quite a few cars did come out to play. This weekend is also the annual Dirt Cup at our local Skagit Speedway which draws participants from all over the western part of the US.

Here are photos of those three cars:


This is a 1950 Crosley, with the owners in the background. I think these cars were sold back then through Popular Mechanics magazine as a kit car that the owner assembled himself. They are a very simple, basic car but I expect are worth many more times what they cost in 1950 today. This is a nicely done car.


Here is the engine compartment for the Crosley. There is a simple hood that is sitting on the rear part of the car so the engine is visible. Notice how nice and clean it is.


This is a 1939 Chevy Coupe. My last post had a 1938 Chevy Coupe and that car was also here, but they were not sitting side-by-side. This car is owned by friends of Pat.


I like hot rods. This is a nice 1927 Ford Model T Coupe hot rod that is fairly simply done. So many of them have all kinds of exotic things added to the engine, lots of chrome- basically they involve spending a lot of money. This one looks to me to be one the owner is paying for as he goes. It is also something that I'd not be afraid to take out and drive. Some of them you've spend so much money on that they probably just live in their garage.


Here is the interior of this car and as you can see, it is very basic at this point. I am sure that more upholstery will be added but I hope he stays with the idea that cleaner and simpler is best.


This is a three-quarter rear view of the Model T Coupe. Clean and simple.

These two festivals, this weekend and the one two weeks ago, are the closest ones to the town I live in other than those that happen right here. These both have pretty good car shows that I enjoy going to but the weather for the last one was certainly better. Of course the forecast calls for nice weather for the next few days, starting tomorrow. Murphy's Law works.

Labels: Cars, Festivals, Photos, Small towns

What with the daily increasing fuel prices, I sure am glad that I bought my Toyota Prius a year & a half ago! I saw this cartoon today in an email and thought it was very timely:



As usual, my mileage over the winter months is down but I think I am getting more like what this little guy is getting (mine is around 44mpg) than the big one on the other side of the pump island. And spring starts this weekend with its warmer weather so my mileage ought to move back up to its warm weather 50 - 51mpg. I don't like to pay almost $4 a gallon for gas but getting to go 50 miles on that gallon really does help.

Labels: Cars, Electric Cars, Humor

I have been busy and not gotten to the other photos from the Oregon Coast trip. I will try to get to them before too much longer.

One thing that I've been up to is moving my small stock portfolio from a full service broker to one of the discount brokerage places. Since then (at the end of June) I have been having fun making some small trades and a couple of somewhat larger ones that I have wanted to do but was unwilling to pay the high broker fees to sell and buy more.

Another thing that I wanted was to have the dividends paid to me buy more shares of stock rather than paying to me in cash. The place where my former broker was when I started with him did allow that but then he changed companies and the new one allowed that only on mutual funds. The new place allows that at to happen with most securities as I understand. So far only one of them has paid a dividend since I changed (at least that didn't still go to the other place as it was my brokerage on the day they based the dividend on) and that one did buy more shares. It pays monthly, as does a new one I bought in my IRA that will pay its first dividend to me next Tuesday, so I'll find out then if it will also buy more shares. This is kind of play money that I don't need to live on so I'd rather have them buy more shares, which helps the portfolio grow quicker.

Anyway, I have been having fun with it now and am learning more about how to track investments. I also have my Honda moped scooter listed for sale on Craig's List. I have had it almost five years and it still has less than 800 miles so is not even really broken in yet. I have the electric bike which I have been storing in the sun room but Pat would rather I get it out into the garage, so the scooter needs to go. When it does sell I will probably move that money into the stock market. With the much smaller cost of making purchases with the discount broker, I can do that.

Our Old Coots did get together again this summer in Spokane (WA) and Pat agreed to go even though it was in July. She doesn't like hot weather and all three days we were there the daily temps were over 90. It was fun. The Old Coots is a group of us who went to school together in Spokane many years ago. In fact, it is so many years ago that next year we will celebrate our 50th high school graduation reunion. I definitely want to go to that. Since we no longer have the RV, we drove the Prius over and stayed in a motel. The car averaged right at 50 miles per gallon of fuel use so it is running right about where it is supposed to.

I will try to post a little more often and get around to reading those I like to read but I just don't seem as motivated to blog as I used to be. No promises.

Labels: Cars, Events, Friends, Reminiscing, Weather

Okay, I see that another week has gone by since my last post. There has been a lot going on in our lives so I'll use that as my excuse for not getting another done sooner. One thing that has happened is that our friend with the car lot has sold my Smart Car. I bought it about a year ago and when I look at what I got for it in this sale versus what I paid for it, including trading in my 2000 Saturn, I figure that it cost me about $10,000 to own it that year and drive it about 1950 miles. That cost figure doesn't include the fuel used but the fuel really wasn't much. If you figure the mileage that way, with my total cost included in the calculation, the Smart Car sure didn't do very well! Oh well, I did learn to not buy something like a car without first flying it by the wife.

Speaking of flying, most of you know that I bought a radio controlled model airplane a year ago last November and flew it. Once. There is nothing wrong with that plane, it is just that the pilot (me) and his flying adviser have failed to get together and do it again since that time. I have recently learned that there is a group near my home that meets a couple of times a month to fly inside a school gym, but they have to use smaller planes and they have to be electric powered. I get regular emails from a couple of hobby places and one recently had a small electric plane with a wing span a little over 18 inches that could fly inside. So I bought one from our local hobby shop.


Here is a photo from the web (I can't claim taking it, but it is a good action photo) of a plane just like mine flying. It is called a Playmate which is a good name for a R/C plane that is almost like a toy in some ways.

The directions with it say to fly it only when there is no wind if outside but they recommend indoor flying as the best bet. Not in an average house but in something like a school gym. Well, I was anxious to try it out so I took it out into the common area of our park where I live on an almost calm day, and flew it. After about six successful flights, the next one ended up with it looking like this:

Yep, I broke it. The breeze took it over the fence that runs around that yard and into another home's back yard area and when I turned it to fly back out, the wing hit the wooden fence. Yeah, I know, I was flying it too low but it was windier up higher. I am happy to report that my one ounce airplane did absolutely no damage to the three foot high fence, but I can't say the same for my airplane. The airplane is what is known as a foamy because it is built from a kind of hard foam that is very light but pretty strong. Until you bang it into a wooden fence.


Here is a closer view of the damage. It is actually a fairly clean break and I've bought special two part glue to try gluing it back together. I think that will work, but if not, I have also ordered another wing. Maybe I should have ordered two.

I think that I may also have done this

to the fuselage just in front of the tail assembly. This happened while I was lifting it out of the box it came in that I use as it's "hanger" as it holds it very well. I had my camera in my right hand and tried to lift the plane out with just my left hand. This may be a natural break in the body where two parts join together but I don't think there is supposed to be that much of a gap between the two parts, so I'll glue it, too. The shape of the break line looks too much like an intentional joint so I am thinking that this break was there but I've made it wider.

I have a lot to learn about these things, but they are still fun to fly. This one flies different from the bigger one and part of that difference is that there are no ailerons on the wings of this plane. To make turns you use the rudder. With the big plane when it is airborne I found I make most turns with just those ailerons and rarely use the rudder. Because of this difference, the control box for the Playmate only needs three radio channels- one for the rudder, one for the elevators and one for the throttle. That controller is fairly inexpensive, in fact the whole kit with the plane ready to fly including that controller is only $80. And it doesn't use fuel that costs $25 a gallon. Four AA batteries go into the controller and it is used to charge the small 130ma hour battery in the plane that runs the motor and the controls. It should be fun and inexpensive to fly for quite awhile. Oh, I guess I need to also add in the cost of the glue. I should have just bought it when I originally bought the plane.

Labels: Cars, Flying, Photos, Radio Controlled Airplanes

This El Nino winter has brought us an unseasonably warm winter and with it an early spring. The Skagit River Valley, where I live in Washington State, is still very agricultural and one of the main products of our farms are daffodil and tulip bulbs. Every year in the month of April the local Tulip Festival is held and visitors come from all over to stroll through the fields with these flowers in bloom. However, the flowers are not the main product, it is the bulbs in the ground. The growers try to leave the flowers as long as the can before "topping" them but it looks like this year that will come before the end of the festival at the end of April. If you want to come see them, come early, like at the beginning of April or even in late March.

As of today many of the tulips in our own garden are starting to bloom but I have no photos of them. However, this area has some beautiful flowering trees- some are cherry and some plum and I can't tell the difference. A week ago we had beautiful weather on Saturday March 6th and due to the early spring, the blooms on these trees were already changing into the red leaves of summer. I had wanted to take some photos and with colder temperatures along with strong wind & rain forecast for the next few days I figured I'd better get to doing it while it was still possible. So, I put my macro lens on the camera and took a hike in our park. Here are three photos from that trip.


There are quite a few of these trees that have grown large enough to partially cover the roadway in the northeast part of our park. These are a few of them, looking north from Phillips Loop East (yup, that is the name of the road I live on.) You can also see one of another kind of "tree" that our park has grown a lot of over the last couple of years- a For Sale sign on a post. We are a senior park and some residents sometimes need a higher level of care than totally independent living that we have here, so they move. The real estate market has not been kind to us here either. There are people who would like to move in but most have another house somewhere else that they have to sell before buying one here. So, right now we probably have a good dozen homes (out of a total of 120) that are for sale.


This closer view shows some of the red leaves along with the blooms. These trees are beautiful now with the flowers blooming and also during the rest of the growing season with their red leaves.


I have always loved forsythia plants with their early spring very bright yellow blooms. They always look so bright and cheerful after our usually dull, dreary winters. So we planted one in our yard a couple of years ago and it is doing very well. Our only goal with it is to try to keep it from getting too big. Last Saturday when I was on my photo walk, our own forsythia was too beautiful to ignore, especially with it brilliantly lit by the afternoon sun.

I have other photos of spring plants in our park and will try to include them in posts here and I'll try to do it a little more often that I have been. We are going east of the mountains for a couple of nights in one of our favorite local towns, Leavenworth, next Wednesday and I should also get some photos over there. I think I will also have some good news about my car "collection" when we get back.

More later.

Labels: Cars, Festivals, Flowers, Small towns, Trips to see things, Weather

So far it doesn't feel bad, what with it getting light earlier in the morning. That means on Mon, Wed & Fri when I go walking with the guys from my park it will be an hour warmer when we start at 08:30. But I know that at the other end of the "day" it will get dark an hour earlier and that is the part I am not fond of. The two things I liked best about Snowbirding was the warmer temperatures and more hours of daylight. In the north during summer our days are longer than they are down south but it is the opposite in the winter. And the winter difference between here and southern Arizona is about an hour, or the difference between having Daylight Savings Time and not having it. Oh well, in two more months the timing will start back the other way toward longer days.

We did go on a road trip last month in the Prius. We left home on Monday Oct. 12th and drove to Spokane, WA on the far Eastern side of the state. It is about 340 miles and most of the trip over was via I-90 with 70mph speed limits. I did set the cruise control for 70 and we averaged about 47 miles per gallon (mpg) going over. That is not bad but not as good as what I've heard these cars can do. I didn't do any extraordinary things like trying to draft behind semi-trucks or anything like that. Just driving at a pretty constant speed.

For our return trip we came west via US-2 which is a 60mph road most of the way, with some slowdowns for small towns. We didn't go quite as far as we stopped in Manson to visit friends but it was long enough to give a pretty good test. This leg didn't have us crossing any mountain passes (there is one on I-90 of about 3000 feet) but we did drop down to the Columbia River and climb back up. Our mileage average for this leg was about 53mpg. It does make a difference when you slow down a bit- 60 as compared to 70.

The last leg, home from Manson, had us on 60mph roads but also crossing two mountain passes, one over 5000 feet and the other just below that at 4800+, then dropping down to sea level. Out mileage for this leg was about 51.5mpg which I figure is very good, especially when considering the elevations we climbed to. To be fair, the area between the two passes is all at high elevation so the climb up to the second pass is probably less than 1500'.

The car was very comfortable and easy to drive. We both like it, other than Pat often getting a static shock when she gets out. I don't know why it doesn't affect me the way it does her. I keep telling her that she is an electrifying woman. I don't think that helps.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet my younger son and my youngest granddaughter and go watch K play in a soccer game with her team. They are in a U-10 league and I think all the girls on her team are age 9. The other team sure has some tall girls for only being 9 but the two teams were actually fairly well matched. Our team lost but the score was 4 - 3 and it really could have gone either way. Of course it was raining- isn't it supposed to when the kids are playing soccer? I took some photos of the game and after a quick look through them, I setup one to post here:


My granddaughter likes to play defender which means that her position is to hang out in front of their own goal to help the goal keeper defend it. But K is quite fast and her coach has been working with her to move the ball forward when she has it and to even go as far as taking a shot at the other teams goal. Here she is moving the ball against a much taller opponent and staying in front of the other girl. K's team are wearing the gray jerseys. I think she might develop into quite a good player if she stays with the game.

Labels: Cars, Family, Photos, Weather

I thought I'd report back on how the Prius is doing for us so far. We have over 800 miles on it at this point and our average mileage for that distance is right about 51 miles per gallon. I've filled the gas tank and will soon do it again, but it wasn't real low when I filled it. The tank was full when we got the car and I've read that you do not want to let it run out so, not knowing how accurate the gas gauge is, I filled it at only about 3/8 of a tank indicated. Most of our current mileage has been here around town with a couple of short freeway trips of 20 - 25 miles each direction. But, next week we will be driving to Spokane, about 320 miles away, so that will be a good road trip to see how it does on the highway.

So far the only negative we have found is that every time Pat gets out of it, either from the driver or passenger seat, she seems to build up a static charge and gets a spark that is very noticeable when she pushes the door closed. I keep telling her that it just indicates that she is a very electrifying woman but somehow I don't think she appreciates those little (or maybe not so little, according to her) jolts. We did add a static strap that drags on the ground but it didn't seem to help very much if at all. She has a static spray that she sometimes uses on certain clothes like slips and she sprayed the passenger seat with it. That, combined with the static strap, did seem to help. Now we need to see how long it will last. I'll have to post this as a question on the Prius Chat forum that I belong to and see if anyone else has this problem and if so, how did they resolve it.

It does look like our fantastic summer weather is over. We have had some rain over the last couple of weeks and rather than temps in the upper 70s, most days have been in the upper 50s or 60s. Right now we are in a few days of sunshine and daily high temps in the mid-60s, which is sure something we can't complain about. I just kind of hate to see the summer end.

A Blogger friend asked after my last post if I was going to change the name of my blog, now that I don't have an RV anymore. That is something I've wondered about before as Huggy hasn't traveled with us in the RV since we bought this new one in March of 2007, so the name hasn't been totally accurate for two and a half years. I probably should change it, or maybe just stop posting. All of these blogs seem to eventually end and perhaps that time has come for mine. My original purpose for starting it was to keep my family and friends informed of where I was and what I was doing as Huggy and I traveled around the Western United States in the RV. That has all changed, totally. I'll ask those who still bother to check my rare posts what you all think. Should I end it now? Or maybe just rename it and continue with no real direction?

Labels: Cars, Huggy, Reminiscing, RVing

I told you in my last post that things were changing around this Phillips household. That is almost an understatement. We gave some thought to our vehicles. We are just not using the motorhome enough to justify the expense of keeping it. When we do use it it's for fairly short trips as Pat doesn't want to be away from home for more than about a week at a time. She also has never cared for the Smart Car ever since I bought it and won't ride in it on the freeways. So we decided to get one of these

and traded this

in on it. The new one is a 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid car.

When we trade in a vehicle we of course are getting a wholesale price for it, although in Washington State there is a sales tax trade off up to the value given for the trade in against sales tax due on the new vehicle. Since we got more for the RV than the Prius cost, we didn't have to pay any sales tax and that probably saved us about $2200. We still lost money on the RV as compared to what it should sell for on the retail market but we opted for this method for its speed & simplicity. The offer for the Smart Car was too low to consider so it is in a consignment lot owned by a family friend to see if we can get closer to its true retail value.

My son and I went to The Green Car Company in Bellevue, WA last March 13th to look at an electric car. I didn't think that car was a good buy but when they suggested that I try a Smart Car I liked it and went ahead and bought it. As I said, Pat has never liked the Smart Car and this Toyota Prius, as a hybrid car, is much closer to the idea of an electric car. And it is fun to drive, too.

The 2010 model Prius is what Toyota calls the Third Generation of this car and there are quite a few fairly big changes. So, I guess it was better in that way to wait until now than had I bought one last March when it would have been at the end of the Second Generation production run. We have a lot to learn about this car and all of it's systems but I think that will be fun. And it will actually get about the same mileage as the Smart Car on the road and better than the Smart in town. Here are a few more photos. By the way, I took these photos this morning at the Lions Club Park along the Skagit River here in Mount Vernon. We got the car on Friday, a day after my birthday, so I guess you could say it was a birthday present. They are very popular and we have been waiting for it since ordering the car on August 19th.


This is a three-quarter view from the rear. The tail lights are all LED units so are bright but use very little electric power. It has four regular passenger doors plus a hatch back door to load things into the back of the car.


The car has five doors counting this rear hatch. It will seat four adults comfortably and there is a seat in the middle of the back seat that a child could use. Those seat backs fold down flat and I can actually carry my RC airplane and its wing back there. I couldn't do that in the Smart Car.


This photo was taken with my 10mm extreme wide angle lens and I see that I should have straightened the steering wheel before taking the photo. The cars come in four models, called II, III, IV and V. I don't know what happened to model I. We ordered a III which is very well equipped from the factory but we did add a Navigation System and floor mats.


Here is a closer view of the Navigation screen. The map displayed is showing the current location of the car. I didn't realize how dusty the small screen below it is until I saw this photo! This small screen reports on the car comfort system that sets the inside temp, using either heat or the AC to maintain whatever temp it is set for. Many of the buttons along the left side of the big screen relate to the car sound system.


This is the main instrument cluster. It displays the vehicle speed, odometer, gas gauge as well as some Prius specific things like your current miles per gallon as the vehicle is being operated, which system is moving it (electric or gasoline), what the mileage has been for the last 5 min, 10 min, 30 min, current tank of gas and total overall average, plus some others that I am still learning. I am having a hard time deciding which screen I want to leave up most of the time as they are all interesting. The car gets an overall mileage average of about 50 mpg and used regular 87 octane gas while the Smart Car works better on higher octane fuel.


The steering wheel has buttons to control a lot of the functions of the car. There is a built in Bluetooth system that really seems to work. We have tried to use those little things that clip on your ear but they don't seem to work well, for us at least. This system does and it integrates well through the car voice control system and the Navigation system. If, for example, we are driving someplace that we are not familiar with and decide we want to find a place to eat. Using voice commands we can get a display of restaurants that are close or ask about a specific one, like Olive Garden. Then we can have the phone call the restaurant to get a reservation and have the Navigation System direct us to the place. Isn't that fancy?

Pat has been in on picking out this car from the start. She likes it so it will be a keeper for us. When we ordered it, the dealer suggested we list more than one choice of colors as we might get it sooner. Pat wanted to list blue, blue and blue but Ed, our salesman at Foothills Toyota in Burlington, WA said he didn't think that would help a lot. We listed blue, silver and a darker metallic gray in that order. This was on Aug 19th when we were told it would probably take 4 to 8 weeks for the car to arrive. On Sep 3rd they told us that a silver one with pretty much what we wanted was on its way and that could be our car if we wanted it. We told them we would take it. The paperwork they gave me told the ship name that it was coming from Japan on and I found a way to track that ship. It arrived in Portland, OR to unload cars for the northwest on Sat, Sep 5th, so then it was just a matter of how long it would take to get it up here and cleaned up ready to deliver.

I go walking with some of the guys in our park on Mon, Wed and Fri mornings and I guess our salesman called while I was out doing that Friday morning. He told Pat the car was here and they setup an appointment for 13:00. Then Pat got called to work the rest of that day at her job where she is a substitute receptionist for the school district (this funds her "lipstick account") so she wouldn't be going with me to see Ed. She told me to drop her at the school district after lunch and go see Ed as he had a question for me. I got there and Ed said the car was ready. I texted Pat with "It's here!" and she texted me back with, "I know." The sneaky little rascal!

We've had it now just over two days and love it. I have a lot of friends with earlier editions of the Prius and they ALL say that they love the car. I think that will also be our experience. In fact, I'd guess that Pat will like it well enough that when we do sell the Smart Car, she might want to trade in her beloved VW New Beetle ("Baby") on a new Prius for her!

Labels: Cars, Electric Cars, Pat and I, Photos

I thought I would post similar photos of my Smart Car and the Wheego Whip that should be entering production this month. My car is a Smart 450 ForTwo, the original European model of the Smart Car. The Wheego Whip is an electric car based on a gasoline powered car that is built in China but imported to the US without an engine. An electric motor and battery pack is installed here and the car is sold as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) which in Washington State where I live is limited to a top speed of 35mph, but to 25mph in most states. The manufacturer says the car is capable of over 50mph and once the necessary tests have been completed they plan to ask to have that NEV limitation removed so the governor can be removed. The car will then be more useful as it could be operated on most roadways legally in the USA. It will still have the limitation of how far it can go on a battery charge and I expect the higher speed will lower that range which I believe is listed as about 40 miles now as a NEV. The Smart Car holds a little over 8 gallons of gasoline and mine gives mileage between 45 and 55mpg so it has a cruising range around 400 miles between fill ups. The Smarts currently being imported by Roger Penske do not get that good of mileage, probably closer to 38 - 40mpg I think, due to them being slightly larger & heavier as well as having a larger engine and a 5 speed transmission VS the 6 speed unit in mine. These newer cars are known as Smart 451 ForTwo cars.

Here is my car, the Smart Passion Coupe 450 ForTwo:


And here is a similar view of the Wheego Whip.

Mercedes Benz, the maker of the Smart Car, sued this Chinese manufacturer in an attempt to keep the gasoline powered vehicles out of Germany, claiming that they were a virtual copy of the Smart Car. They lost in the German courts but the cars sure look a lot alike to me. The Chinese company said there were only so many things that a designer could do in coming up with a car of this size and that no one would ever mistake the two with the considerable difference in the price they sell for.

Here is an interior view of my Smart Car:


And here is a similar view of the interior of the Wheego Whip.

These two cars look very similar to me and I can sure see why you might think the Chinese car is a copy of the European one. Many of the features appear virtually identical. But there is a lot of difference between them mechanically, at least this Wheego Whip version that is being sold in the USA. I think the currently imported Smart Passion Coupe is being sold for around $16,000 and the Wheego Whip was expected to sell for about $19,000 with production in the USA to start this month, in May. I don't know how the accessories compare on the two cars at those prices although I don't think air conditioning is very viable on the electric car due to the amount of electrical power it would pull from the batteries. I'd have similar questions on how well a heater/defroster would work.

I really liked both of these cars and came very close to buying the Wheego Whip. The only thing that really held me back is the battery pack. I think there are some new battery designs that will be available and affordable in a couple of years that will make this car a lot more useful. Pat and I are finding that we use the Smart primarily as a town car. Pat still isn't comfortable in it going on the freeway although I have and it is fine. The electric car, even the NEV model with it's speed limitations, would work pretty well as a town car, if it could go farther between battery charges. They are coming but I just don't think they are quite here yet, at least in a package that the average person can afford.

For a look at an interesting electric car, go look at the Tesla Roadster roll out in this 3 minute U-Tube video. This car will go more than 35mph (about 100mph over that) and has a cruising range of over 200 miles. It's acceleration is very fast and it's a fun car to drive. But, you'd better have a spare $120,000 or so if you want to buy one.

Labels: Cars, Electric Cars, Photos

Well, I finally got onto Blogrolling a couple of weeks ago after they reworked their system, and I thought I'd fixed my links display. It worked fine for awhile but now for the last week or so it has only been showing ten links. I just looked at the Blogrolling site and there are 18 of them listed there in my Blogroll. I tried to contact Blogrolling but they are requiring an "enter the letters you see" thing in order to send a contact note and none of them worked for me, so I was unable to get the question sent. I haven't gotten the paid version, just the free one and maybe that is best as I guess I'll have to drop them and use something else.

My blog is on Blogger and I understand Blogger now does have their own system to make this kind of a link list on a blog. Are there fairly clear directions on how to do this located on the Blogger site? Do they allow listing of regular web sites and blogs that are not with Blogger, like those on WordPress? It would appear that it is now time for me to change, after being happy with Blogrolling since Feb, 2006.

By the way, has anyone noticed how similar in appearance my new Smart Car is to the Wheego Whip electric car? The two posts are one after the other with photos of both cars. The Wheego Whip is built on a Chinese copy of the Smart Car. So it is no wonder that they look a lot alike.

Labels: Cars, Electric Cars, Griping, Internet, Software

Last Friday my son, M, and I drove down to the big city of Bellevue to see and drive an electric car known as a Zap Xebra. It is a 3-wheeled vehicle, carries four passengers and under Federal definition is a motorcycle because of it's 3-wheeled configuration. It was interesting and sure gets a lot of looks as you are driving around but I was afraid of a couple of things. With its Federal motorcycle category, I could find it defined that way here, too, and if that were the case I would have add a motorcycle endorsement to my drivers license in order to drive it and other people would not be able to drive it who didn't have that endorsement. That, plus a few other considerations caused me to decide not to get one.

BUT, the same company, The Green Car Co., has a few of the European versions of the Smart Car. This car was developed by Mercedes Benz and I understand that it very popular in Europe where you can buy one with either a gasoline or diesel engine. The car is sold here in the US but those imported here have an engine produced by the Japanese company, Mitsubishi. I don't know why, but it does not get the same mileage as the original version. There were about 3000 of these cars imported from Europe that are the actual Mercedes Benz powered ones and this company had four left. M & I drove one and I fell in love, at least as far as you can with a car, with it. It drives very nice, has plenty of room for two people and will even carry some luggage or other items behind the seats. And it will go a lot farther than the 25 miles the Xebra is rated to go on a battery charge and operate at speeds much higher, so that you can drive on freeways and other highways. That Wheego Whip electric car I posted about earlier is built on a Chinese version of this car.

So, we started talking about me getting a Smart Car. I guess SMART is sort of an acronym where the S stands for Swatch, the watch people and the M for Mercedes Benz. The car is very customizable with different color panels and many accessories, kind of like a Swatch watch. I added a few of the accessories but actually like the "standard" Mercedes Benz silver/gray color best so stayed with it. I did add rubber floor mats of course (I live in an area where it has been known to rain) and couldn't get one without the double cup holders to have a place to put a mocha. Then I like having a tachometer so you know how fast the engine is turning over and that also comes with a matching analog clock, so I added that. The roof is clear so sunshine comes through and I thought the sliding sunshade would be needed on those days in the summer when our sun does shine, or if we take it into Eastern Washington where the summer sun shines a lot. The stock oil pan doesn't have a drain plug so the old oil has to be sucked out of the dip stick hole. They now have a replacement oil pan with a drain, so that will go onto the car when it gets it's first oil change.


Here is my car, sitting in our driveway. It is just over 8 feet long and not quite 5 feet wide. As I said, the seating is very comfortable for two. You sit up fairly high rather than dropping down low like both the Miata and Saturn, so I think Pat will like it better.


Here's a straight on front end view. Some have told me that it looks kind of like a smiley face. I have never had a car with this kind of headlights but they seem okay. I haven't driven the car yet after dark- I forgot to bring my gate & garage door openers from the Saturn so will have to wait for them to come from the dealer via mail, hopefully tomorrow. Right now with Daylight Savings Time it doesn't get dark here until well after 19:00 and our gated community closes it's gates at 18:00. After that you need the clicker.


This three quarter rear view shows how close the rear wheels are to the back of the car. It's engine is in the rear and drives these wheels through a Tiptronic 6-speed transmission that can be manually shifted or let run in full automatic mode. There is no clutch even when manually shifting- it is just like those used in European race cars. The glass part of the rear hatch hinges up and the solid part hinges down. I think I will be able to carry my RC airplane with that upper part open so it can stick out a little. I haven't tried that yet.


A closer view of the labels on the rear of the car.


You are looking inside through the driver's door. The seats are cloth- leather is available but I really prefer cloth. I've still got a lot to learn about the controls, etc. This morning I got the rear windshield wiper going, making a swipe every 11 seconds or so, and had a hard time figuring out how to turn it off! It was easy once I discovered the answer and I suppose this car with it's blunt rear end will get that window pretty dirty so having the washer and wiper will be handy. Now I'll have to find out where I fill that fluid in that rear washer.


A closer view of the dash board. The tach and clock show up well. The radio is a Sony AM/FM with a CD player and it plays MP3 files. There is also an input on the front of the radio for axillary devices and the sound is pretty good. I was out with it this morning, filled the fuel tank and since it was only about 35 degrees F I got to test the heater & defroster. I'm glad to report that they both work well. It also has air conditioning which we sometimes use here more to de-humidify the air in the car during our rainy season than we actually do to cool it in the summer. Since it doesn't get above 80 degrees here very often, we do not have a big need for AC systems.


This photo was not taken in my car but it is the same. The engine is small and located in the rear of the car under the floor of the storage area where it drives the rear wheels. It looks to me like things are pretty well crammed in there but that seems to be the way many cars are built these days. The designers don't seem to really think much about those having to work on them.


This photo was one taken Friday and of a different car but they all come with this medallion on each side and the only difference is the different VIN number on each one. This tells a bit about the car. Like I said earlier, I don't know why these versions are not the ones imported by Mercedes Benz but I am glad that I was able to find an original. It had 8 miles on it when I bought it but is now getting close to 100.

I will miss my Saturn. It was our tow vehicle to take along behind the motorhome. Now we need to buy a car carrier trailer that we can drive the front wheels of the VW Bug up onto and will take that car when we travel. This one would have to be put fully up onto a trailer to take it along. Anyone want to buy an aluminum tow bar and a toad brake system?

Update: I have learned that there are only about 1065 of these European Smart Cars that were imported and of those, 750 are the Passion Coupe, like mine. I thought I had read somewhere that there were about 3000 but that is not true. The one officially imported now by Roger Penske is quite a bit less expensive but there is also a long waiting list to get one. And it doesn't get as good of mileage, at least partially because of its larger engine.

I haven't had the car yet quite two weeks and it has 199 miles as of tonight. I love it.

Labels: Cars, Photos

I've been toying with the idea of buying what is called a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), an electric car with a legal top speed, in my state, of 35mph. Why you ask would I want something like that? Well, think about most of the trips you make with with a car, or at least those that I make, with my car. I don't usually go on roads with a speed limit over 35, although I do sometimes hop onto the freeway to avoid more concentrated traffic areas. Most of my trips are not over 12 or 14 miles, round trip. Short trips like these are hard on fuel powered vehicles and our VW is diesel powered so they are probably even harder on it. Last summer the price of diesel fuel here got to $4.999 per gallon although it is down now, just as gasoline is but I don't think that will last long. A car that costs pennies to charge the batteries sounds good. And it is good for the environment, at least here, where most of our electric power is generated by water power so there is no coal burned to make that juice.

Anyway, I started this out thinking about a Zap Xebra. Some friends who live in the Eugene, OR area have one and Deb says that she loves it. But, it is a 3-wheeled vehicle so is legally considered to be a motorcycle. I'd have to get a special motorcycle license and then add a trike endorsement, just to drive it, and almost no one else would be able to do so. Legally. I continued looking and found one called the Zenn, which I guess stands for Zero Emissions, No Noise. It is a two seat car but does have 4 wheels, so is considered a car. It is based on a small French made car that over there is gasoline powered. The body is shipped to Canada where it is set up with it's electric package. It looks pretty good but I did talk with a gal in Anacortes who owns one and she isn't too happy about the life of the batteries nor the help with her problems she has been getting from the manufacturer nor the dealer in Seattle. I have continued to look.

Yesterday, I found this (these photos were downloaded from the Wheego web site):

It is called the Wheego Whip and is from a company in Atlanta, GA. The body is made in China and shipped to California where the electric package is installed. They have a few on the road now and will start shipping them to customers in May. The price is about the same as the Zenn and unfortunately the dealer in Seattle is the same one, but hopefully the factory will be more supportive. I've exchanged email with them and they seem to respond quickly. Maybe that would continue after one buys a car from them.


Here is a photo of the interior. It is a two seater but they do look to be comfortable. There is a choice of outside color but all of the interiors are the same.


The instrument cluster is a bit different. The speedometer only goes to 40 but that is okay with a car that isn't supposed to be driven over 35 and most states limit them to 25. The other two gauges relate to the battery power and how much power you are using. The car does have an AM/FM radio with a CD player & a USB connection for MP3 files. It has most of the things you'd expect in a regular car like power doors with remote access, power windows, power adjusted outside mirrors. A/C is available but I would not need it living where I do but I will use the heater/defroster and the windshield wiper. The back opens up like a station wagon and there is a pretty good amount of storage space there which is over the batteries. So it is very practical for runs to the store, over for a mocha, etc. Almost everything you would do with a regular car but not to the gas station. It has AGM batteries and they say its range is about 40 miles although it will probably make 50, but all that depends on how you drive it, how many hills there and what the outside temperature is. Batteries don't work as well when it is cold as they do when they are warmer.


Here in this final photo you can see the "gas cap" door. The battery charger is built in and the extension cord plugs in here.

I have also found one called a BG that looks good, so I need to learn more about it.

If I buy one I will probably go ahead and sell my Saturn along with it's towing system and the brake system I use when pulling it with the RV. Then I'll need a toter trailer that I can drive the front wheels of either this car or our VW New Beetle to take along on RV trips. I will also have to start locating places where I can plug in to recharge while eating meals in restaurants, etc. Kind of a new way of thinking about getting around, but it sounds like fun and if fuel prices go back up to the $5 a gallon range, one that will be much easier to afford. Anyone want a low mileage clean 2000 Saturn SL1 that is all setup to tow behind a motorhome?

Labels: Cars, Electric Cars, Photos

Yesterday I bought a DVD movie that I just watched. It is a documentary titled, "Who Killed The Electric Car?" from Sony Pictures. I had heard of the General Motors EV-1 cars but didn't know much about them. Now I know a bit more about the cars and about how they have been removed from the marketplace in 2001 and some of the maneuverings of various US car companies, oil companies and others in the industry of transportation to kill them.
Here is the cover of the DVD and I suggest that everyone should buy (mine was $9.99 at Fred Meyer) or rent this to watch:


These cars were affordable and with the later batteries they had a good range of miles that could be covered. It would appear that they were removed from the marketplace by GM because they didn't want people to be able to buy them. The petroleum industry seems to have also been against them as they used very little of their product, mostly only lubricants. And the large auto repair/maintenance industry was against them- no more oil filters, spark plugs, oil changes, etc. The dealers who did work on them (GMs Saturn dealers) said about all that they did to the EV-1 was to have them come in every 5000 miles to rotate the tires and fill the windshield washer fluid. Of course there would be wheel bearings to pack, tires and brake components to replace as they wear out, etc, but that would be pretty small amounts of work compared to other vehicles.

Our government was also a party to this. They did offer a tax incentive of up to $4000 for the purchase of electric/hybrid vehicles but much larger tax incentives, at least for businesses, on large SUV type vehicles.

These American car companies are now all close to failing. The government has already given them $25billion in tax payer money to help finance their "move" into smaller, more economical vehicles. They HAD them in the EV-1 and others from Ford! Now these same company executives are going, in their private jet aircraft, to Washington DC to beg for another $25billion in order to "save" their businesses. I am really beginning to think we would be better off if they all file for bankruptcy, restructure themselves and come back with new leadership and perhaps a different outlook on what they should be doing.

If you would like to see more on this subject (the EV-1 and electric cars) go to Who Killed The Electric Car to learn more about this film and Plug In America dot org to learn more about pure electric cars. It might also be time to contact your senators and representatives to express your opinion on this bail out.

Now I'll get off my soap box and go myself to explore those two web sites. And write my letters.

Labels: Cars, Griping

I don't know where the time has gone. I don't think it has ever before been two weeks between my getting at least a text only post made here. Until now. We have been busy, seem to be on the go most of the time. I have gotten involved again with my genealogy project for which I have moved my data from the old DOS program Roots III I used in the past, to Roots Magic which is a Windows program. Of course everything didn't transfer cleanly so I am spending many hours trying to straighten out the source records. I'm making progress but it sometimes seems to be awfully slow.

Anyway we really have been doing a few things. On Father's Day we drove out to Sedro Woolley (how is that for a town name- spell check burped at both of them) to attend a car show at United General Hospital there in town. It was pretty good, 40-some cars in attendance on a day when the weather was kind of iffy. Today we went to an even larger car show in the neighbor town of Burlington, part of their Berry Dairy Days celebration. I took some photos at both shows and have a couple to post here.


Here is a classic hotrod, a Ford Model T roadster pickup. I would love to have one of these things and when I noticed Pat standing there by it, looking into her purse (see the left side of the photo) I thought maybe she was checking her cash to see if she had enough along to buy it for me. No such luck! But it is a nice car.


I am partial to these cars as my first car was a 1938 Chevy 2-door sedan, much like this 1939 model. Mine was even painted about this color. My parents had the car from 1940 on and whenever they would get another car I managed to talk them into saving this one for me when I was old enough to drive (legally.)


Here is my car shown in a snapshot of it taken in front of a friend's house, probably over Thanksgiving weekend in 1961. We had just the month before finished installing the Oldsmobile V-8 engine that I had rebuilt over the past year into the car and got it running again. It was a fun car to drive, with it's big engine, rolled & pleated Naugahyde upholstery, etc. But it only got 12 miles to a gallon of ethel gas which at that time usually cost about 35.9 cents per gallon. I commuted about 40 miles a day to and from college in the nearby town of Cheney so I did use a bit of fuel. Happily, it wasn't nearly $5 per gallon like it is now!

School is out now in our area so there are no more school buses to delay traffic- we live almost next door to two schools. The weather is finally starting to be more like it should be for this time of the year so we feel like doing more outside. I think we are even going to take the motorhome out for a trip in a week or so, just a few days to a fairly close destination, but it will be an outing. I really do enjoy those trips even if they are short. And I'll try to do a better job at getting things posted here.

Labels: Cars, Events, Photos, Reminiscing