Horrors, what have I just done?

[flathill]

Electric Vehicle Techno
dorks

[jonescg]

I was looking at the maths on buying a car, and it scared me. I thought, maybe if it's electric it would keep me interested for a while anyway, and then I realised unless you use it every day, which I won't, it's just plain old bad economics.

Hope you don't use it that much

Chris

[dogman]

Would love to go carless, but even when I was healthy carring 1000 pounds of cement, potting soil, or lumber to work gets awkward, even on my longtail cargo bike. My work requires this vehicle. I could change jobs, but that would involve about a 7 buck an hour pay cut. I have it good there, even if the job requires me to carry some stuff to work a few days a week.

It's always been about saving money, to service that debt I had from hot air ballooning for ten years. I put about 30-50 bucks a week in my pocket riding the ebike. Call it a $150 a month raise. Car trip is 15 bucks, bike trip 3 bucks. The length of the commute, 30 miles round trip, meant the savings was pretty good. It also makes just riding the bike when I've been sick not possible. A two hour comute when you have a 3 hour day as your maximum effort doesn't compute. Remember John, in the USA you can't just ride 45 mph on the street everyday on your Ebike. Would have kept riding if I had a 10 min commute I could handle.

Being green is a nice side effect to ebiking, but not why I did it. It was love of bicycles and motorcycles. A silent 25 mph bike that climbs hills with low effort is heaven. As for being green, you can't beat me. I never reproduced. So you could ebike for a lifetime and never have more impact than not crowding the earth with 2.5 more american style consumers.

My current health problem is improving, but typical for post viral fatigue syndrome, it's a very slow improvement. It's a result of having West Nile Virus last summer. When I overdo, my body goes into a shutdown somewhat similar to a diabetic coma. So I can't just suck it up and keep riding the bike. I have to do my pitifully small work effort, and then get my butt home before the daily afternoon shut down comes. Most weeks, I'm so hammered by saturday the dirt bike just sits in the garage.

One thing is garanteed, I'll be biking to work as much as possible asap. It's the love of it that got me so into it, to the point where my ebike stable has 6 running bikes. I am unbelievably frustrated that I can't go racing this year. I hope to get better enough to go ride pikes peak, but that's not very likely this summer. We'll see, a road trip is in order with the new car after all. The ride itself is now only 12 miles. No big deal, my weakest commuter can do it now that they cut the ride in half.

[boppinbob]

Congrats dogman, sometimes a car or truck is a necessary evil. PS I was born I Carlsbad NM. Have you ever been through there?

[John in CR]

For me it's not about saving money or being green. Those are just nice side benefits. My ebikes are simply a more enjoyable and quicker way to get from point A to point B. I commuted by motorcycle a lot of years, and while that was better than a car, it wasn't close to an ebike. Being silent, more nimble, and building your own more reliable transportation make ebiking unique.

I understand if you've gotta haul a heavy load daily, but Dogman turning cager really puts the pressure on for me to finally build a family capable etrike. Until I get you back into the fold you need to change your forum name to Carman.

Hurry up and get yourself healthy, so you can build the big cargo hauler you need.

John

[dogman]

Yeah whatever. Send me $20,000 and I'll trade in the wifes focus and get a leaf. How would you know how much energy a 30 mile daily commute takes anyway. It's not like I left the fold, just taking a break till I get over a nasty illness.

Would love to see a really good lithium light truck hit the market. Not that I could afford one. For 90% of the hauling I do, a zap would nearly do it. For 75%, the longtail cargo bike was doing it.

But overdoing myself to ride to work is counterproductive to getting better. It's crucial that I not drive myself into a coma daily.

[flathill]

Just giving you a hard time
Everyone knows electrics arent ready for prime time
And hydrogen is too dangerous and can only be used in too expensive fuel cells
Could not be combusted or detonated for sure
Selling out is just part of the natural aging process

[999zip999]

How's that new natural gas Honda ?

[Dauntless]

I'll tell you what. Dogman says he bought a new car, I start saying "KEWL!"

Someone else starts in:

Electric Vehicle Techno
dorks

I say "KEWL!"

I love little cars, then I bought my 8,500 pound Duramax Diesel Silverado 2500 with the 6.6 liter turbo and had the Neon and Beetle die on me, so I drove the truck that's so hard to park all the time to get some 21/30(?? Haven't had a long enough freeway drive to be sure)MPG and it's KEWL!

I've never going to be sympathetic to car haters. Only reason I don't like Volvo's is they're cars for people who hate cars. Hell, I love the greenline into LAX because I don't have to sit in traffic. One of the few truly practical electrics out there.

I keep wanting to get a replica kit for the Ford GT and put some 450,000 watts of electric in there, that way it would be more powerful than even the 550hp engine that was available for the reissue in 2004-05. KEWL!

You can pout over wanting all the cars gone all you want, it ain't gonna happen.
You can pout about wanting the perfect electric for you, it ain't gonna happen.
You can pout about the cheese returning to Cheese Station Three all you want, it ain't gonna happen.
Meanwhile, as you're demanding just one more fish from the place where the fish never come anymore, I'll be off having a good time with---whatever's available at the time.

Kewl!

[dogman]

True enough. The best practice is to use the minimum vehicle possible for each trip. That's how I paid down that nasty debt I had, by practicing that. My one ton truck just died as well, so it could be worse. If running, I'd be driving it, with an 8 mpg vehicle dragging my sorry carcass around.

I assure you, I dream of the day that I can start riding an ebike to work again. The game plan is definitely to make this subaru last just about the rest of my life, by driving it as few miles a year as possible. For sure, it will last till I retire. Without the previous owners abuse the last one had, seeing this one go 200,000 miles is likely.

[Pure]

Sorry dog, as I didn't mean to open a can o worms on you.

I do however think that the reclined seated position of a recumbent trike (I say trike cause that third wheel offers a lot of stability and means you never have to fuss with keeping the bike upright) would be a great solution for you. If not now,def in the future.

[number1cruncher]

Yes it is hard to know your limitations. Dogman, I'm glad that you are getting better and creatng an environment for yourself to do so. Doing the right thing isn't always easy.

I wouldn't have thought Wes Nile to be out in your area, because its so dry. My city finds crows with it every year here. We also have ticks with lyme disease everywhere too. I had a lot of health issues between mid-2010 until late-2011 that I thought may have been from WN. Fatigue, random nausea, headaches, etc. I went to the doctor, but did not bring up WN, because I didn't want to do the Docs job for him. Anyway, I'm better now, but next time I'm requesting a test. My aunt has had lyme like four times since 2004. She lives in the woods. Damn bugs!

[dogman]

Plenty of skeeters down by the river, and the irrigation ditches. And a ditch right by my workplace. 90% of people with west nile never get sick enough to know they had it. I just had to be special. Nearly had it develop into encephalitis.

If it was legal to ride the ebike 60 mph, the commute would be short enough to not take up too much of the 2-3 hours a day that is my current limit. I need my daily limit to be closer to 6 hours before I can really get back to commuting by bike. I'm hoping by midsummer I can at least drive halfway there, and do a 14 mile bike ride daily.

It's the time guys, get it. I almost bought a burgman scooter a month ago, but that wouldn't have solved the problem of how to carry lumber or cement to work with all my old junkers dead and dying. Woulda been a fun scoot though, able to do the commute at 100 mph.

[Pure]

Ah, understood.

[e-bike-is-fun]

So for the first time in my life, I bought a car with less that 90,000 miles on it. A 2010 Subaru Forester.

Just broke in for that brand of vehicle.

[dogman]

You mean you recently got one? This is my third. If you do your own wrenching, you are gonna love it when the time comes to do an alternator. Right on top, not buried like in hondas. CV's are quite simple too.

[cal3thousand]

I was eyeing a Subaru to replace my 94 Volvo 850 turbo, but the family needed a larger vehicle, so I ended up with an 11 Ford Edge.

THEN, I found e-bikes. Now my goal is to see how many miles I can trade out from the Ford onto the e-bike.

I like how you put it as a $150 pay increase. I've only managed to reduce my fuel consumption by 2-3 tanks, but that's about $100-$150. Hopefully, it will pile up someday. Keep riding dogman!

[dnmun]

i am like the dogman about hauling tools and concrete mixers and other big stuff without using a big truck.

you gotta have a car to haul that kinda stuff. i am a fan of the honda wagons because i like to take the passenger seat out so i can carry long lumber inside sticking out the back. but you gotta have the 4 wheel drive when driving on the steep dirt and loose rock in the mountains. the subaru is really great for that without being too big. but the honda civic wagon front wheel drive has a hard time with that, but i would not want a 4WD myself since i don't drive on that kinda road much, and can usually manage it anyway.

i just got a 20' long stick of 5/4 x 8" primed trim they through away at the building site. i got about 8' inside the honda and had 12' sticking out the back. piled a buncha lumber on the front end of it inside the car to carry it home.

my old girlfriend just loves her "Soob adoo".

[John in CR]

If time is the issue, then the choices are an ebike like LFP's or a cage.

Dogman, I mean Carman, best wishes to getting well soon.

John

[dogman]

Yeah, makes a lot of sense, ride 30 miles a day on the freeway through an american town at 60 mph on a bicycle. The state, city, and county cops seen daily will never see me.

Yeah, I'll do that instead.

[John in CR]

Yeah, makes a lot of sense, ride 30 miles a day on the freeway through an american town at 60 mph on a bicycle. The state, city, and county cops seen daily will never see me.

Yeah, I'll do that instead.

Just slow down a bit around the cops like I'm sure LFP does.

Hurry up and get well.

The topic does have been thinking of swapping the Nissan Quest for a Subaru though. I've never owned one, but those of you who have seem to love them.