RV Travels With Huggy

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

The Nissan Leaf is a 5-passenger fully electric car (called a BEC for Battery Electric Car) and it has been touring parts of the US over the last few months. It is to be built in a factory in Tennessee as will the lithium ion battery that will give it a range of about 100 miles and speeds up to 90mph. The cost has not yet yet been announced but Nissan says it will be in the same range as other regular sedans, suggesting it will be in the low $20,000 after a $7500 government rebate. That puts it in the ballpark with the Toyota Prius we recently bought.

I missed going to see it in Seattle when it was here in December but I've been looking over the Nissan web site here and there is a lot of information available. I have captured a few photos from the web that I'll try to upload here. I usually put my photos for the blog into my Flickr site but don't really want to upload these there as they are not my photos. I'll see if I can get them to go into the blog with what is provided by Blogger. The photos are from Nissan and some from Autoblog, a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network where you can also see many more photos of the car.


This shows where the power connections are to recharge the battery system. There are two of them, one a high powered system that isn't something you will find all over but will find more of in the future and a second one (shown being hooked up here) that will plug into more standard outlets.


I see they come out backwards from the way I enter them. This is one of the two instrument clusters.


And this is the other instrument cluster, the one behind the steering wheel.



This is an interior view looking forward. As you can see, it is a right hand drive car but of course those built for use in the US will be left hand drive.

I see that I've got a bit to learn about using photos with Blogger's photo handling system. I think I like working from Flickr better, but this does work. Anyway, these will give you an idea of what this car is like. The Nissan site says the first of them should be available in Dec. of this year in limited numbers and locations and within a year or so, the plant in Tennessee should be up to full production and the cars available almost everywhere. It is looking good!

Labels: Electric Cars, Photos

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

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