Goodbye Gasoline
Published Thursday February 20, 2014: Updated 9/9/2015
Goodbye Gasoline
Late last year, our gas van started having serious problems overheating. Since we almost never drove it (the gasoline in the tank was approaching 6 months old), we decided to cut ties with gasoline vehicles completely and become a 100% all-electric car family.
For those 3 times a year we actually drive more than 160 miles in a day, we just rent a car. It is actually cheaper to rent a mid-sized car 3-6 times a year than pay to register and insure an extra gas car all year. That doesn’t include maintenance and loss of garage space taken up by the un-used gas car either.
When we first got an EV, the thought of not having a gasoline backup vehicle was terrifying. But once we realized our daily need for a gas car no longer existed, this purely psychological and extraneous fear quickly melted.
That’s the funny thing about range anxiety. You may only drive 40 miles a day, but transitioning from a gas car to an EV with a 100 mile range fills your head with false requirements of needing to drive 1000 miles without stopping.
It is only after driving an EV for a few weeks or months do you realize how little driving range you actually need on a daily basis.
As the safety net of public charging infrastructure continues to grow, more people will realize the new paradigm and abandon gas cars too.
For those really long trips that still require a gas vehicle, those too will soon be replaced with longer range electric vehicles and a network of super-charger stations.
Tesla's super coast to coast supercharger network currently in place (2014).
It is free for life to all Tesla owners. Many of the charging stations also have PV canopies that provide 100% renewable energy to the cars.
Personally after driving 300 miles strait, I could use a breather to grab a bite to eat or to stretch my legs. But if you don't want to wait 40 minutes for a 300 mile range charge, simply pay a small fee and a machine will swap out your battery in 90 seconds, twice as fast as it takes to fill an ICE car with gasoline.
By the end of 2015, Tesla hopes to have a super charger network that will allow an EV to literally drive anywhere in the continental US, for free, for life. So long big oil.
Thanks Gasoline! You got us through some tough times and your energy density to this day is still amazingly high. But to be perfectly honest, YOU STINK! Since the sun provides all the energy we need, in our own backyard, for free, forever, without any pollution or wars, I think it’s time we part ways.
Thanks Oil! You built this country and powered our homes, businesses and vehicles for over 200 years. But I think it’s best if we stop burning you for fuel, like tenant farmers burning fences for heat. You are much more valuable as a mineralogical resource than as a fossil fuel. And since the sun freely gives us 10,000 times more energy than what we need each day. We’ll be fine without you.
No more carbon monoxide, smelly exhaust and oil stains in this garage.
Electric cars can even corral school kids, getting them to class on time.
How to Get Kids to Class in Time using an Electric Car?
Thanks Internal Combustion Engine! You powered our machines and helped us to cross continents and oceans faster than anyone else in human history. But to be honest, you are a suicidal, self destructive, overly complicated, high maintenance, expensive, inefficient cancer that has a nasty track record of breaking down in the worst possible times and places.
Thanks for the education in auto mechanics but my family and I have moved on. You will not be forgotten. We will visit and revere you in museums.
The following is an example of what our children and grandchildren's reaction will be when we tell them we used to drive gas cars and had to "pay" for fuel.
And a little embarrassed, we'll say "I don't know what were we thinking?"