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Tuesday, March 24, 2015

I'm just saying -- how does a leaf become a rock?

I love green stuff.
So I was reading material about the Nissan Leaf.
It's the greenest vehicle there is.
There's one small problem.
It takes 5 hours to recharge at home.
Nissan's website doesn't say how long it takes to recharge at a specific recharging station.

I take a trip every year that uses $30 of gas and six hours of time each way.
If I tried to make that trip with a Leaf here's what happens.
The web shows that I have to take a specific route to get there. 
If there's a wreck or road out (has happened) I have no alternative route with charging stations.
None.
I have to charge three times before my destination.
I have to stay near the recharging station,
At least once in a hotel.
Same thing on the way back.
Has to be within walking distance of the recharging station.  Better yet, has to be close enough to the recharging station to shlep my suitcase back and forth.
Has to be within walking distance of a decent restaurant.
Costs at least 5 times as much as my current trip, for just getting there and back.
If the station is closed, the Leaf becomes a Rock.

I don't have the parking space for two cars.
Besides, it's a waste of money to maintain one gas car (registration, gas to keep the battery charged and the fluids from gelling, etc.) for this once a year trip, plus the Leaf for trips around home.
And if I fly in and rent a car, that more than doubles the price of the trip.  Besides making me hang around the airport for at least 4 hours each way.  And maybe not get there at all in bad weather.  Happened in 2014 (to somebody else).
I'm all for planning ahead but there's no way to plan this trip without way too much spending.
The closest charging station to my house is 10 miles away.
I need to install a special connector to my electricity and run a cord down the front walk to the car to recharge at home.

Don't just go by the reviews.  They may have a lot of detail in them, but they can't take into account the details of the lives of over 300 million Americans.  It's called "logistics" and almost everybody stinks at it.  The only reason I thought of it is that it used to be my job when I was a civilian DOD employee.  I know people I worked with who would fail to apply it, because they never learned to use in the rest of their life, what they had to use to keep their jobs.

I'm just saying...
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved  

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