Range Anxiety - The Electric Car Chronicles

Range anxiety. This is a phenomenon where the owner/driver of an electric car will fret the distance their electric car will go before the battery runs flat. The anxiety is often unfounded even in the face of clear evidence that the car will get them where they need to go. Logical, thinking people when behind the wheel will stare at that miles-to-empty figure and obsess over whether their journey will be cut short by no choosing of their own. The brain goes into overdrive, plotting and planning the most optimal course to point B, all-the-while consumed in the relentless calculation of distances… miles, kilometers. A calculation that inevitably will be entirely insufficient. After all, what if my journey takes an unexpected turn 20 klicks south and into the next county? How… how will I ever live to see another day? Did I get my will notarized? Did I clear the history on my browser? Death, it seems, is a very real possibility. Say goodbye to everyone you know.

Range anxiety is very real. I can say that I had a first-hand experience when I bought my own Nissan Leaf. It’s no laughing matter. I can truly see why the second-hand market for a Leaf is so poor, car shoppers don’t trust them yet. Range anxiety begins long before one takes the dive to buy an EV.

Fast Forward 7 months to yesterday. My range anxiety is entirely gone and I rarely give the “SoC”, or state of charge a second thought. I just know that the car will get me to where I want to go. Admittedly, I know before I leave that the trip is realistic. I’m also educated as to where the public chargers are located in the event my journey takes an unexpected turn. That said, I just don’t think about the range. I just… drive… the… car. And, what an excellent car it is. Comfortable, easy to drive, very few blind spots, lots of technology and widgets. This 31-year-old father couldn’t care less how atrociously dreadful the design is. The bulbous rear-end, the plastic’y looking tail lights. The bug-eye headlights, the disproportionate measurements of the midsection much like my own midsection. The plastic-chrome door handles….. …

No bother. I love the car, it drives nice.

… Until last night, that is. It started the night before. I forgot to plug the car in at home to supply the battery pack with its daily lust of coal electricity. I go out the next morning to leave for work and realize the state of charge was only about 54%. No big deal, I can make it to work and charge it there. The next bit was rather uneventful. The battery went from flat to about 65% throughout my 9 hours of indentured servitude. I made it home with about 25% to spare, but I needed to head back into town later that day. I figure I’d endeavor to visit the CHAdeMO quick charger at the Nissan dealer in the next town. I would need to drive a reasonable speed perhaps sans air cond. So, without giving it a second though I set off. Without suffering a single glance at the SoC, I took the I-15 onramp and barreled down the motorway to my destination at 84mph with the air cond chilling at maximum capacity. As I neared the desired motorway exit, I happened to catch the flashing of the instruments telling me I had run the battery flat before I’d completed my journey!!!!11 Just then, the Leaf entered into the dreaded “Turtle Mode”. That’s where the output of the motor was limited… the final breath of the electric drivetrain, a final farewell to the cruel world that would end just minutes down the road. I immediately ceased the use of all unnecessary equipments, reduced my overall speed and would barely grace the accelerator pedal with the weight of a feather. Range anxiety rears its ugly head once more. I desperately scoured the depths of my brain for the closest public charging station. The hospital! As if it was a beacon to deliver me from medical emergency, I pulled the car into the parking garage where I knew I could find a L2 charger. I come around the corner, only to find all EV parking stalls and charger cables were in use….

A Model X, Fiat 500e, Volt, and a Leaf.

“SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!” Passers-by gazing at my bemoan. I knew this was the end… It was time to abandon the car and check myself into the morgue just inside. We had a nice run, even if it was only just 7 months. Goodbye crueeeelll worrrl!!! Just as I had lost all hope, a thought crossed my consciousness… to perform the unthinkable. I would… GASP! UNPLUG The Chevy Volt. After all, I knew the Volt had a gasoline engine and a fuel tank on aboard as if a defector quell to my moral objective to violate another person’s charging vehicle.

I did it. I yanked that plug out of the Volt with a satisfaction that can’t be described with English words. I plugged my ill-gotten gains into the charge port of the Leaf to take delivery of that coal juice that was ever so sweet.

Reflecting on the atrocity of my crime, I endeavored to write a letter to the owner of the Volt to come clean and tell them what I’d done and put it under the wiper blade. Guilt sets in. Like a fever, I was 101.2% sure I didn’t want to be around when the owner returned. Emboldened with my felonious actions (and a 17% SoC), I set off on my way to find an unused charging station.

Decisions and consequences. Death.



-Serrated

Manual vs Automatic Transmission

Manual vs automatic... it's a question often asked by Americans. The answer is "automatic" 90% of the time, which really is a travesty of our era. It almost always comes down to a matter of choice, not requirement. The vast majority of the driving public (I'd estimate 99%) are fully capable of driving a manual transmission. I don't buy the argument "some families need an automatic". Baloney. It's only out of laziness and carelessness of consumption that almost all of Americans choose automatic of standard. It's estimated that nearly half of Americans are unable to drive a manual transmission. That is sad and treacherous. I don't buy it. I've never had a problem putting someone behind the wheel of my car and teaching them how to operate a clutch after some simple instruction and determination.

Go anywhere else in the world where fuel is much more expensive. A manual transmission is the rule, not the exception. And the notion that the "new automatic technology" is better than manuals of yesteryear or "the computer can shift better than you can" is preposterous. By nearly ever measure, a vehicle with a manual transmission is able to surpass EPA ratings, whereas automatics tend to fall short of their EPA ratings. Even the new CVT transmissions and fancy electronically controlled transmissions is just the proverbial "polishing of the turd". An archaic manual transmission design from the 60's is still capable of delivering efficiency that's on par with today's automatics.

It's simpler, costs less to produce, delivers better efficiency, cost less to maintain and above all, they last longer. Learn to drive a manual transmission and strongly consider purchasing a vehicle with a manual transmission for your next car. You will be a BETTER driver, you will be more in tune with the dynamics and capabilities of your car and you will have not settled for a fake and fabricated driving experience. Don't be the cliche American sheep consumer, ditch the automatic and never look back.




-Serrated

HOT and JUICY!

Back in December of 2009, I wrote an article on here about the things I hate. Number 8 on the list was about my experience at a local Wendy's in Spanish Fork, UT, near highway 6. (929 East 800 North, Store #2572) That entire rant was mostly about the customer service, but this article will focus on the actual quality of their food. --

A few months ago Wendy's introduced a new meat patty dubbed: 'Hot & Juicy'. More like old, barely warm, and dripping with fat! Their whole marketing ploy was that their patties were thicker and "juicier". I guess this lends to a perception that somehow this means better, so I decided to go give it a try. Not surprising, they decided that the new patty would also come with a 10-30% price increase on their whole menu. I ordered a baconator and a small fry. I took it back to the table and opened the wrapper. The "juice" was all over the inside of the wrapper and all over the bun. I took the first bite and realized immediately what they had done. All they did was increase the fat content of the meat, I would guess 70/30 lean to fat ratio. You can tell how much fat content the meat has simply by looking at the chunks of fat inside the patty that look like tapioca. It was just dripping fat. I ate it anyway because I didn't want to waste my money... that turned out to be a mistake. Later that day, I felt a churning in my stomach. The kind that comes only when you've over indulged on grease. Learning from experience, I decided to never get a Wendy's hamburger ever again.

Is 'MOAR MEAT'! better? In generally, I would say yes.... but I hardly consider manufactured, intensely processed fast food meat to be anything but the lowest common denominator. More crap is still crap... just more of it. Sometimes all I want is a simple, inexpensive sandwich that I can eat quickly. The Jr. Cheeseburger was one of those sandwiches. Well, with the new "juicy" patty came a 28% increase in cost and the quality and nutrition went way down hill. -- Not surprised.

Go way back to 2004, the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger was $0.99. It had a bun, Wendy's classic square patty, a little mayo, a piece of lettuce and two strips of bacon. It was a great deal and tasted great. I would often pay for a fry and drink with it as well. In my high school years, I probably spent $1,000 every year at that Wendy's store. My friends and I lived off of Wendy's. Well, they had their way with the menu again. They increased the cost of the sandwich to $1.39 over night, a 28% increase. Being the poor kids we were, we started buying from McDonalds who still sold great sandwiches for $1.00 (and they still do today) My friends, myself and everybody else I knew in high school pretty much quit going to Wendy's after that. It sounds funny, but the JBC was a staple and we were thrifty because we made $5.25/hr. -- Wendy's responded with their signature knee-jerk reaction and "slashed the price" of the burger. "$0.99 JBC is back!". Only to find that the lettuce was tiny, they took one strip of bacon, tore it into two pieces and called it the new JBC. Clearly they realized they made a mistake, their apology was a half hearted cop out and disrespect to each customer who apparently are just sheep to them.

Congratulations Wendy's... you've ruined your food (don't get me started on the fries) and any chances of taking my money ever again. The customer service issues, the blatant cost and quality cutting that come with price increases... Sorry, but your attempt to inflate your profits during a recession is a joke, just like the rest of your business model.

-Serrated

Music

A lot of people say the best times of their life were back when they were growing up. I'll invoke that cliché as well. Some of the best memories and experiences in my life were back in the 80's and 90's. Life was so simple for us kids. We didn't have to worry about anything, so long as we didn't cross Main Street alone and were home by dinner time. We went outside every day, no matter what the weather was like, just so we could see our friends and go cause trouble. Every day, we got dirty, got sand in our shoes, scuffed up our knees and elbows, caught lizards and snakes and added on our fort in the vacant lot around the corner. We didn't have to worry about waking up early, though we were expected to go to bed a decent hour. We didn't have to worry about where our next meal came from, or worry about whether or not our rooms would still be there when we got back home. We couldn't wait for school lunch. We looked forward to mashed potatoes every Thursday, and we ate every bite. We had the best cartoons EVER made, new every week on Saturday morning. We would wake up at the crack of dawn, sit on the couch while eating our Fruity Pebbles and watch shows like Looney Tunes, Thunder Cats, Inspector Gadget, Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, Ninja Turles and Transformers.

It was a damn good time to be a kid in America.

What do our children have to look forward to? Secret Mountain Fort Awesome? Cow and Chicken? Terrible, mindless crap. What about music? Justin Bieber and LMFAO? What happened to the real artists and writers that could consistently make great things over and over again? How have we lost so much passion and become so disconnected? Our attention spans are so limited that all patience for anything is gone. Art, music, food, drinks, movies, cartoons, and even cars are so intense... so over the top, so in your face, they will do anything to grab those precious seconds out of your day to get your attention and show you an irrelevant advertisment. It's like we can't see the true greats in life that are right in front of our faces. We are obsessed with "over the top", when we should be looking for the simpler things in life and try to learn to be satisfied with the elementary. Instead we soak up the crap they they want us to see, hear, and eat.

Now that I am older, I understand and appreciate the way my parents raised me. I know I have only begun to realize the wiseness and value of their advice. I had my own ideas and opinions, especially as a teenager. I thought I had the whole world figured out. I now understand my parents a little better. I used to make fun of their music, food and choices of entertainment... now that's just about the only thing I like any more. I look at some of the all-time greats like Tom Petty; the music just speaks to me. It's so powerful, so overwhelming and emotional. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for my parents to actually live the glory days of rock and roll as they were growing up. I can only hope that my kids will get the chance to grow up the way I did... to actually look back and be able to say "the best time of my life was when I was growing up". I can't with good conscience raise a child in social complacency like so many others do today.

Tom Petty and Thunder Cats are just some of the words that will continue to be spoken in my home. They're too important to me to let die.

-Serrated

Demolition Derby

I wanted to write a short note and wish you a final farewell, for Saturday is the Utah County Fair Demolition Derby in Spanish Fork. If I am killed, may this note serve as a memory of my existence. ---------- It was 1969. Richard Nixon was president, turmoil is brewing in Vietnam and Neil Armstrong takes the first steps on the Moon in the Apollo 11 mission (July 20^th). The New York Mets defeat the Baltimore Orioles in an unprecedented victory and one of the greatest baseball upsets of all time. Ford was producing millions of cars, including the Falcon, Fairlane, Torino, Ranchero, Pickup, LTD, Thunderbird, Mustang, and Galaxie.

I will be driving one of those Galaxies.

A 1969 Galaxie 500 Sports Roof. 1 of 217 made. The car began its life with a woman named Norma Anderson who purchased the car brand new in 1969 at a Ford/Mercury dealer in Ft. Collins, Colorado. The car was garage kept and driven every day for 30 years. Gentle care kept the car in showroom condition until the transmission failed with about 75,000 miles on it, she then gave the car to her grandson who now resides in Nephi, UT. He repaired the transmission and drove it for several years before an electrical issue caused the interior of the car to be burned to a crisp… it was more or less a total loss. It sat in his backyard until my neighbor in Spanish Fork sourced the car to participate in a demolition derby for a scene in an (apparently) upcoming LDS film. The car was half prepared for a derby so that it would look like a derby car, but didn’t actually function as one. The plan was to get a couple great wrecks on film, then trash the car. As luck would have it, the first hit in the scene caused a small part to fail in the engine would rendered the car useless. The car was towed back to the pit area and put back on the trailer where it would later be towed to a gravel pit and blown up in a last ditch effort to salvage some production value. After it was burned to a crisp (again), I happen to be driving by when my neighbor was unloading the car at his house, and I offered to buy it for $150. After tearing the engine down, it turns out all it needed was a timing chain for $27. The derby will be a fitting end for this old girl. She lived a glorious life and will go out in another blaze of glory (preferably without me inside of the car). It took three months to prepare, tireless welding, cutting, hammering and engine tuning.

I plan to destroy her in about 6 minutes.

This is my second derby. In 2009 I ran a 1988 Chrysler Fifth Avenue. The car was given to me by a woman who won the car in a divorce settlement. The car was her husband’s and she wanted to see it destroyed, despite having only 65,000 original miles and in mint condition. She attended the derby, filmed the entire thing (she thanked me graciously afterwards). Later on the that heat, my car caught on fire due to a pinched fuel line. To this day, I am the only one who has ever caught fire in the history of the Utah County Fair Derby. I was on the front page of the Spanish Fork press, the entry form for the next year’s derby and an instant celebrity around town. I had people from all walks sending facebook friends requests, emails and phone calls. “Were you the guy that caught on fire?!” It was true euphoria for me… total star power. Because of that, and because of my dangerous, risk-taking lifestyle, I was drawn to the derby again this year with my 69’ Galaxie 500, dubbed: “Proud Mary”.

LONG LIVE DEMOLITION DERBY!

-Serrated

Cancer

I was having a conversation with a colleague and he said something profound. It's caused me to research and reevaluate my stance on the whole brain tumor/cell phone thing. He said, "Perception is 90% of reality, isn't it?" while referring to Cigarettes. Tobacco products are perceived as "bad", right? It's continually beaten into our heads from a young age that they will give us cancer and all manner of other health ailments. The majority of lung cancer related deaths are in people from ages 65-74. I think it's safe to assume that most people start smoking at a young age... perhaps 18-20. Logical deduction concludes that it takes 30 or 40 years of smoking to contract lung cancer.

That begs the question.... What will 30 or 40 years of compulsive cell phone use do to our brains?

It's impossible to say at this point. Cell phones have only been around in the mainstream for 10 or 15 years and there's compelling evidence to indicate that cell phone use does increase the chances of a brain tumor.

Scary huh?

Just a quick note to think about.

-Serrated

RE: My Thoughts on the Think Tank

This is a reply to October 29th's installment. I'm writing about this again because I've conjured great joy in this achievement today. It was a victory for all men everywhere, except for one person, the man in the adjacent stall.

Let's rewind the clocks to 8:31am Mountain Time, April 1, 2011...

I walked into the restroom and proceeded to my favorite stall at the end of the room. There are obvious advantages of said handicapped stall such as, lots of room to move about, the handles on the wall to assist the standing up of the body, and the considerably larger bowl. However, there is one critical flaw. This stall has a door that opens outward, unlike the others which open inward. The inward opening stalls are easy to identify when they are in use. The door is shut. When they aren't in use, the door is slightly cracked, making it a simple task to identify an empty stall. On the flip-side, my favorite stall's door opens outward to accommodate those who may use alternative means of locomotion. Because of this, when the stall is empty, the door swings shut giving the illusion that it may or may not be in use. It's a gamble. Today, I took the gamble as I do most every day. Fate was not on my side, because as I put my hand on the lever to open the door, I was denied. The door was locked. A deep sinking feeling became my stomach. I was presented with several options at this point... do I leave the restroom and come back later? Should I select another stall to use? Decisions, decisions. I kindly responded with "Sorry..." My attempt to open his stall door must have been startling! Little did he know, the only thing I apologized for was the sequence of events that were about to unfold........

It was war.

I went into the adjacent stall. From past experiences, I've learned that other people in the bathroom refuse to make noise, resulting in awkward silence, thus forcing me to make the first noise. Today, it wasn't going to happen. I was armed with my new Droid phone equipped with Angry Birds. I whipped out the phone and played Angry Birds for what seemed like 5-10 minutes with absolutely no noise coming from the adjacent stall. I'd stay there all day if I had to. I wasn't going to loose this time. After the 20 or 30th level of Angry Birds, the man in the adjacent stall relented. I heard the unmistakable sound of the toilet paper roll spinning in the dispenser.

Victory!

There is no amount of propaganda, intimidation or demoralizing that can get the best of me. The handicapped stall is MINE and when faced with being forced to use the crappier stall (pun intended), I will fight with vigor, perseverance and determination. YOU WILL be the first to flush and leave. There WILL be peace in the men's restroom weather you like it or not! And so it shall be, amen.

-Serrated