It should be easier to go green...

We bought a Nissan Leaf in early Jan to cut down on our gas cost as the big Toyota Sienna was not the right car for me driving alone most of the time on local roads.

It was one of the best decisions we made and now the Leaf has more than 2500 miles on it already!

Also, Daddy Narayanan seems to be setting a record of sort with ~4.7 miles/ kwh, if the readout is to be believed. Even at flat rates of 13 cents/ kwh, that crudely works out to 70$ in electricity bill for almost three months of use. My Sienna gas bill (mostly filled at Costco at cheapest rates possible) was ~ 270$/month!

So far so good. But there was a bigger incentive. If you went on an E-9 plan which has peak rates and off peak rates, you got cheaper electricity if you charged from midnight to 7AM. The Leaf comes with a charging timer, but ... there is always one, it can charge within that timeframe only on 220V. If you charge at 110V, it takes 21 hours.

This did not deter us. I would usually drive only 50 miles on a day and the max range was 110 miles and that meant top of charging as the strategy till we got the 220 V Blink charger installed.

Little did we know that it would be an ordeal. The whole charger install rebate program is winding down and it borders on  a scam. You get assigned to electricians who are not residents or licensed in your city. The city will not let anyone install it unless they pay for a City business license and Cupertino seems to be one of the most expensive city's just to get a business license, which you end up subsidizing out of your rebate! They need to make this part easier.

After San and me ran from pillar to post to work the permit process, install and final city inspection, we finally have the Blink Charger installed in our garage! It took almost 8 weeks, but it is finally here.

Now we get to charge the leaf between midnight and latest by 4AM. The thing sends me an email saying it has finished charging, connects to our wifi automatically and sends data to Ecotality for them to do the math, see where else I charge.. so they can figure out where to put charging stations, etc. etc.

In one way I feel happy to be an early adopter to help change the way we drive and consume gas. In another way it is interesting to see how the machinery does not favor a green solution as a default. The other interesting thing is that I now drive differently. If I see a person in front of me stopped at a signal light, I don't go as fast as possible and stop behind that person. Instead, I coast to a halt. I also drive at speed limit in the slow lane where possible. There is no range anxiety and I get to my destination..

The usual round trips are

local grocery store 4 miles 

Indian grocery store 4 miles

Kumon class 2.5 miles

swimming class 4 miles

Bikram Yoga 9 miles

work 24 miles

Which pretty much is the sum total of places I hit 90% of the time baring the visit to a friends place or some other destination during weekend! For this the Leaf more than does its job.

Do observe that there are at least 20+ Leaves that hit the same routes. Even the drivers kind of nod to each other on Lawrence expressway in the morning which I find amusing.

There is also a lot of Leaf haters out there, most of whom are in the 20-25 age demographic. Yes, I hate the racial profiling but it is true in this case.

Every time someone has taken a freeway exit on to the local expressways or main roads and they encounter a Leaf (not mine necessarily), they expect the other driver to just give them way to the point where even if there are other lanes, they won't move over. There wa this one kid in a brand new black Lexus going at 70 mph after he exit the freeway and ended up on a 50mph zone, where I was driving at 50 on my way back from work.  He kept honking for me to move over to end up in an exit lane and when I refused he had road rage and kept honking and giving me the finger. He even came directly in front of my car and put on the brakes abruptly. Knowing the kid was not stable, I was driving cautiously and was able to coast to a stop as other cars on the road watched with amusement.  Maybe his parents should have gotten him a Leaf instead of the Lexus! That way he could really go far if he goes fast and they can keep track of his every move!

As for these kids with the fast cars and no road sense, only wish the DMV had better scrutiny before handing out drivers licenses or we have a system where we can report such drivers. When I came home that day after this kid did all the honking, was really worried because he definitely seemed to have an issue with me to the point where he pointed his fingers at me as though he was going to shoot me. So came home and was tossing with the idea of calling the cops to let them know what had happened. After being on the phone for 25 minutes with various people, got put on to someone at Highway patrol.

The conversation was very short at that point.

Operator : You reporting a rash driver?

Me : Yes.

Op : when and where ?

Me : xyz location, almost 30 mins ago

Op : vehicle kept driving in which direction ?

Me : South

Op : what car?

Me : Black Lexus.

Op : Black, White, Hispanic or Asian?

Me : (was shocked by that question actualy. was expecting her to ask me male or female driver first..) White.

Op : Male?

Me : yes. young kid.

Op : Ok. Hangs up on me. 

That was it!  I kept saying .. I have the last three digits of license plate.. but nope. she hung up! Guess that was enough info for her.  A young white kid driving a black lexus south on a freeway 27 minutes ago..

Like I said, we need a better reporting system.

Only one thing remains with respect to completing the Leaf Saga.. and that is to get the HOV lane stickers. That way I can keep going in a steady pace on the local expressways without dealing with these road rage folks. Can avoid the freeways altogether.

Someday, sooner or later.. more folks will adapt to a battery operated car. The planet cannot keep going the way it does. It is just a question of time and economics and technology improvement.

Battery cars will be the default the same way Cell Phones, Digital Cameras and E-mail have replaced ther predecesors.

It is fun driving this car. It is a good ride. When you see folks race to stop behind someone, it feels bad now. But, I was one of those people and if I can change my driving habits so can the rest.

Time will do the job!

A new addition to the family !!!

Like SRK says in "Om Shanti Om",

Mind it, rascala!

San is not pregnant and no, there are no new pets in the house either!

We are talking about the new addition, to the long list of charging devices that clutter the house. There, if all that let down has made you angry, so far so good.

We are now running out of power outlets in the house. We have two cell phone chargers, two bluetooth earpiece chargers, a "universal" charger for camera and camcorder Lithium Ion batteries, not to mention all those outlets required for charging laptops etc.

Now, if you ask me, "So what? This is what everyone who is learning to go the hi-tech way is going through!", all I have to say is, we already had three different types of connectors. The latest bluetooth connector is circular! Looks like some smarty pants got the idea, to take those press buttons from my daughter's easy diaper change dress, and decided to make a charger plug out of it! The earpiece has the outie button and the charger has the innie button! Genius! Next, we can take the old "body" hook and make a charger connecter out of it!

Note, how on the outlet end, they all look the same. The output voltage, current, whatever, whatever, is all the same!!! The way to connect it to the device is different.

There are two reasons for my pain.

1. Most of these are left plugged into the wall by mistake when we go to work, and a friend tells me that when you keep these plugged in, they waste energy (however small it might be). Imagine 4-5 of these in each household, in every household in the US! What a waste of energy!

2. All these phones, devices break, and they usually do, anywhere between 1 day after warranty to 1 month after warranty, with clinical precision. The chinese have perfected the art of making things, as well as making things die exactly after the default warranty time. Guess where all these chargers end up after that? In the garbage can and eventually in some landfill. How much plastic, metal, and how much energy went into making these chargers?

If all these devices have to fit into the 110 V outlet(which itself is unique compared to the rest of the world), why cannot the government regulate that there be one type of connection for all such communication devices?

Now, as an inventor, I am all for Intellectual property and points that differentiate one technology from another. Here is why regulating the connectors is not going to impact the bottomline of the companies making these devices.

a. People usually buy the phones. They rarely go buy chargers. (They do buy extra chargers for Car adapters) but those are not the cash cows for the phone companies.

b. The phones are unique. The chargers are usually packaged with the phones, and are built into the cost of the phone they sell.

c. The chargers outlive the phones by a 3:1 ratio or longer. In other words, if you cell phone starts going kaput on the 366th day after purchase, the charger will work for another two plus years!

The cell phone companies could definitely buy public goodwill, by going to a single connector for the chargers.

If we can have one type of Compact Disc format all over the world, one type of high def DVD disk triumph over another, why cannot we have one type of charger become the only charger for the entire cell phone, handheld, earpiece device market?

It would make a significant impact to going green!

Who am I kidding? We live in the US of A, where we would make all the wrong choices when it comes to energy and energy policy, just to further the interests of the oily few, not to mention a population that is educated but does not feel empowered to do anything, myself included.

The worse part is that we live in a capitalistic world where we sincerely believe, "The customer is always king!". Even a USA today pie chart will show you that more than 67% of americans with cell phones would prefer a single charger! By the way, that number, has nothing to do with the cell phone issue. In "thorough statistical analysis" done by USA Today, in their front page news, the pie chart usually shows 67% of Americans favoring something!

Will the average customer, consumer raise his voice in unison to get a single charger?

Only time will tell!

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Patience is a virtue

That is one virtue that I don't have and I know it!

Jr. on the other hand seems to have been gifted with infinite patience.

As the video clearly demonstrates, she just sat there for a full 8 mins, then continued to be there for another 5 before she got all upset that the battery charger was not turning green..

Finally I took the half charged battery and put it in the camera. She now takes pictures with the old S30. Her hands shake when she finally clicks the shuttter but the pictures still come out okay.

I seem to be going through a Jinx. The Tamron lens wont autofocus when the subject is close. The Zune player's screen cracked and it was not even dropped. It cracked because of temperature fluctuation is my guess. To top things off, there is a viral infection in my eye and all this happens on Sunday.

This is one of those weeks where I just want to go close myself in a small room and shout .. no.. scream!!

Would like to think on the brighter side of life though. The manual focus ring still works and my fingers are not bandaged, so I can take pictures. The Zune dudes aka Microsoft, said that this is a most common failure mode on the player and I should be able to get this screen in any local electronics store (although they won't pay for it) and my eyes are getting better or at least the pain is gone with the drops they gave me.

It may be a day or two before I come back to blog...

Until then..

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