Who Killed the Electric Car?

This afternoon I watched the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?. It was a fantastic movie but reminded me of some festering issues I have so here is a random assortment of my thoughts on cars.

When I first started driving in 2000, my parents leased 2 electric cars and owned 1 gasoline car. From the movie, it has come to my attention that the electric cars we owned were crushed at the end of the lease (despite the fact that my parents begged to buy them outright because the dealer would be fined $150,000 per car for not turning them back in to the manufacturer). The electric cars were overall fantastic except for the fact that on the 3rd day I had my driver’s license the battery quit holding a charge and completely died which was an extremely stressful experience for me and I have resented electric cars ever since. But, from the movie, I have learned that the manufacturer had purchased the rights to use a better battery technology where that would not have been a problem but chose to use the worse batteries anyway to plant this idea that electric cars were not viable in the heads of people like me.

Now lets skip ahead a few years. In May 2006, my parents told me that I needed to get my own car because my younger sister was getting her driver’s license in a few months and the car I was driving would become her’s to drive. So I started researching cars. I eliminated hybrids as an option for the battery issue (which I now know is a lie). I’ve always loved the Volkswagen Jetta. Poking around on fueleconomoy.gov, I discovered diesel powered cars which average about twice the miles per gallon. And better yet, you can run them on biodiesel which reduces dependency on foreign oil. Biodiesel is hard to come by but there is one station in my area that sells it and I happen to pass by that station on approximately a weekly basis which would more than cover my regular need to fill the tank. Unfortunately, California outlawed the sale of diesel cars (they still allow trucks and SUVs for some backwards reason) so they are extremely hard to come by and have a gigantic price premium. I was looking at approximately $22,000 for a 2+ year old car with 30,000 miles already on it.

Next, PZEVs (partial zero emission vehicles) came to my attention. For the most part, PZEVs are compact or subcompact cars that get 30+ miles per gallon and thus pollute less than the average vehicle. I was able to get a brand new PZEV Jetta during the 0% interest sale for $22,000 last September. It’s a great car and I got a great deal but were it not for backwards laws and false advertising and sabotage of alternative fuels on the part of American car manufacturers I probably could have gotten a cheaper and more fuel efficient car.

So, my 2006 PZEV Jetta is listed as getting 19mpg in the city and 28mpg on the highway. But I am actually able to average 30mpg. Here are my tricks:

• Use the cruise control on the freeway
• Don’t speed on the freeway (so around here that means I drive a maximum of 65mph)
• Don’t accelerate too quickly
• When approaching a stop start slowing down earlier, glide to a stop rather than slamming on the breaks
• Don’t start the engine before I’m actually ready to go and turn it off if I’ll be idling for more than a minute
• Don’t keep junk in the trunk (additional weight reduces mileage)

I may not always be the fastest car on the road but most of the time I end up passing the cars that pass me after a few minutes and in the process I’m saving money (reduced fuel costs), the environment (pollution wise), and reducing my dependency on foreign oil.

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It’s easy to recycle batteries. Don’t forget to take yours to your local battery recycling point.

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Related posts:
Things I Remember about having an Electric Car
Unplug to Save Money on your Electric Bill

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