It starts Saturday - National Drive Electric Week! (But not here.)

National Drive Electric Week - September 12-20

Fellow Lubbock people, if you want to attend the nearest NDEW event, you need to leave home early on Saturday, September 19. It's a five-hour drive east to Gapevine Mills Mall in Grapevine, Texas - the Dallas area.

Click here for more info on the Grapevine event

Yep, Lubbock is not the place to hang out if want to see, learn about, and possibly test drive electric vehicles. I posted a few weeks ago to gage interest in NDEW locally and one person sent up a +1 (Thanks, AK!), so I plan to celebrate NDEW in my usual way - by posting stuff on the internet and by cruising around on the electric Vespa and maybe work on ElectroPigeon 1. I might even swing by the local Nissan dealer to see if they have a Leaf in stock that I can test drive.

As for the posting part - let's get things started with a movie marathon. Here are trailers for three films I highly recommend if you are considering driving electric: (All three are avaialable on Netflix and various other outlets.)

Who Killed the Electric Car? (A great film about a big step back)

Revenge of the Electric Car! (A happy sequel!)

Charge (Trailer for electric motorcycle racing documentary - Go, Cedric Lynch!)

 

May you enjoy your time in the seat!

Switch to better bulbs and fuel up for free?

Don't you love sensational headlines? Don't you love pie-in-the-sky concepts that get peeled back to considerably less when you get there? I read an article a few weeks ago that just keeps rolling around in my brain because it seems like one of those headlines. But my own experience does back it up. Essentially, this person bought a Chevy Volt and was surprised to see his electric bill go down. When you read into the article, you learn that there was an unmentioned variable. He had changed from incandescent to compact fluorescent bulbs in his house at the same time he brought the Volt home. And that made all the difference. So, a little math (Feel free to let your eyes glaze over until you get past this little piece. I will put the conclusion in bold text at the bottom.)

Let's say you have a mixture of incandescent bulbs, but they average out to 75watt bulbs (75¢ per bulb per month), and you are the average American with 60 bulbs in your house. If you swap those 60 bulbs  for 60 17watt LED bulbs (17¢ per month per bulb), you get some math like this:

60x75¢=$45 per month with incandescent
60x17¢=$10 per month with LED

So, the swap would get you $35 per month in electric bill savings.
(all of this is based on 3 hours of use per bulb per day, and that is pretty conservative)

According to the EPA in 2011, your Volt will cost you $601 per year if you run only the electric motor

$601/12=$50 per month to drive a Volt.

So, if you go with NRDC and EPA averages, and you are the average American, your bill will go up $15 per month if you swap all your bulbs and start driving (and charging) a Volt.

Other math (for those who want to dig a bit deeper):

The cost of swapping those 60 bulbs will be between $600 and $800.
For the past year, we have been averaging $75 per week in our fairly efficient family pickup.

I think it's time for me to do some investigating at home. Maybe it's time for some grudge matches, maybe the Whirlpool refrigerator vs. the Zero motorcycle. I better bust out the the kill-a-watt meter and sharpen a pencil for this one. Check back next week to see how the grudge matches are going.

May math be on your side!

The Treehugger article that triggered this post

Links to resources for my math:

EPA Fuel Economy for a 2011 Volt

NRDC Light Bulb Comparison

Number of Bulbs per House

Somewhat Green High Speed Adventures in Netflix and the birth of S.P.E.E.D.!

[Ok, this one may take a little stretching, maybe some YouTubing, and a whole lot of tolerance for this blogger's sense of how life should be enjoyed.]

Start on Netflix and find a really great BritSitCom called The IT Crowd. In Season One, find and watch an episode called "The Red Door". Pay attention to a character named Richmond. (approximately 22 minutes)

Next, while still in Netflix, find a documentary entitled Charge. I would recommend watching the entire film; however, for today's focus, just watch through the section where you meet Cedric Lynch, inventor of the Agni motor.

Now, on to Mesquite Hugger type stuff:
Charge is a documentary that outlines the challenges and triumphs of the first teams to build and race electric motorcycles at the legendary Isle of Man (Not the "I love man" as some have recently speculated.)

Keith, Mesquite Hugger's most frequent commenter and the subject of one early post, recently saw the film, enthusiastically encouraged all of his friends to watch it, and now wants to build an electric motorcycle. I like movies that have that effect on people. So, please watch Charge, maybe throw in a little Revenge of the Electric Car, and wash it down with a little WALL-E this weekend. Maybe we can start a local EV club. South Plains Eccentric Electro-Dorks (S.P.E.E.D.) or something like that...

May y'all have a great weekend and may you be warm!