January 2022. Central California.
This morning I saw a Lucid Air driving along Rt 80 in central California. This was the first time I’d seen on in person and I got a pretty good look at the exterior design and a bit of the interior as I drove alongside for several miles.
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July 2021. Monterey, CA.
Five years ago we drove our Rav4 EV to Monterey to cool off and visit the aquarium. We’d added QC Charge‘s JdeMO DC charging port to our Rav, which greatly reduced charging time and made the trip doable. The kids got to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium and other landmark buildings in the area. Great trip, and all electric thanks to QC Charge.
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June 2021, Virginia. Guest writer Courtney Noctor describes her new Volkswagen ID.4.
I picked up my first EV – a Volkswagen ID.4 Pro – several weeks ago and I am obsessed with it. The ID.4 is a cute little crossover SUV that is similar in size to a sedan but very spacious. It has 30 ft3 of storage behind the back seats, and 64 ft3 of storage with the back seats folded down.
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April 2021. California.
Part 3 of my three-year review covers: Energy Use and Carbon Emissions from driving 42,500 miles in our Model 3. Links to Parts 1-4 of the review are at the bottom.
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April 2021. California.
Part 2 of my three-year review covers: The places we’ve been; Where we charge; and Battery pack status. Links to Parts 1-4 are at the bottom.
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April 2021. California.
Part 1 of my three-year review covers: Reliability inside and out; What could be improved; and What I like. Links to Parts 1-4 are at the bottom.
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March 2021. California-Grand Canyon: There & Back
This spring we drove to the Grand Canyon to get outdoors and to get a break from virtual schooling during our children’s spring vacation. This post is a ‘road trip primer’ for those considering an EV and is another example to demonstrate that electric cars work well for families.
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October 2022, Central Valley, CA
This is a living document so I’ll keep adding pics as time passes. At the moment we have 59,000 miles on our Model 3 and it’s 4½ years old.
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Emissions from producing electricity for the U.S. grid have been steadily dropping. This has resulted from long-term trends of more renewable and cleaner burning sources of energy used to produce electricity. One upshot of this: EVs are cleaner than gas-powered cars, and keep getting cleaner.
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November 2020. California.
This week I checked out Ford’s Mustang Mach-E in person at a local dealership in Sacramento. The Mach-E is Ford’s all-electric version of the Mustang, and I was excited to see it since the Mustang has been one of my favorite cars for as long as I can remember.
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July 2020. California.
Last week we took our Model Y on a short road trip to visit Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Crater Lake is 350 miles from our town, not very far, but it was a long enough drive to get a feel for what it’s like taking the Model Y on road trips.
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June 2020. California.
In March of 2019 we reserved a long range dual-motor Model Y with standard wheels in midnight silver. Yesterday we went to our local Tesla Service/Sales Center to pick it up. We had been scheduled to pick up our car back at the end of March 2020, but at the last moment delivery was understandably delayed by the pandemic. Three months later we got our car on the summer solstice.
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May 2020. California.
Our Rav4 EV is 7 years old now, has 88,000 miles / 140,000 km on the odometer, and continues to serve us well. Nowadays we use it most for commuting back and forth to work (35 miles / 55 km per day), for shopping, and running errands. But we’ve also gone on lots of family trips in our Rav4 EV over the years.
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January 2016. Sierra Nevadas, California.
This article was originally posted on the Transport Evolved website in January 2016.
We live in California’s Central Valley about 100 miles from beautiful spots in the Sierra Nevadas, and we try to get up there as often as possible. Our town sits just above sea level, so traveling to the Sierras involves a climb of 7000 feet. This could be a problem for EVs that have 80-100 miles of range and no options for rapid DC charging, especially in the winter.
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April 2020. California.
Have you wondered how much of a difference it would make for the environment if you started driving electric? This year for Earth Day I analyzed our data from 15 years of driving to compare the carbon emissions produced by the gas-powered and electric cars we’ve owned.
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