The Electric Vehicle rEVolution April 23, 2014
Posted by nrhatch in Books & Movies, Sustainable Living, Travel & Leisure.trackback
Last Friday, we attended a Lunch & Learn at Goodwill ~ The Electric Vehicle rEVolution. Chris Sharek, President of Sharek Solutions, Inc., discussed both pure electrics and hybrid vehicles from his perspective as an Environmental Engineer and Chevy VOLT owner.
A few fun facts:
* This is not “new” technology. Electric Vehicles have been around since the 1800’s. In 1900, 28% of all cars made in the US were electric.
Wikipedia ~ Electric Car (in Public Domain)
* EV’s are quiet, reliable, and easy to maintain. Sharek won’t need his first oil change until he hits 80,000 miles.
* EV’s get great gas mileage. Sharek has driven 46,000 miles on 200 gallons of gas in the past 3 years. That’s an impressive 230 mpg!
At present, the owners of Electric Vehicles tend to be Green, Tech-Savvy, Risk Takers . . . like my younger brother who just leased a LEAF:
* My little bro, a techie with a green streak, has solar panels on the roof of his home, soaking up the Colorado sunshine. For fun, he can watch his meter run backwards as he sells sustainable energy to the power company on sunny days.
* He purchased solar panels for his camper and hooked them up so he can move them around to catch the sunlight while the camper stays cool in the shade of Colorado Pines.
* He latest acquisition is a leased Nissan Leaf which he charges in his garage and at free charging stations around Ft. Collins. At home, he’s charging it with sunlight from his solar panels. It costs him about $15 a month for 1,000 miles of drive time.
Nothing like a Leaf to enhance your green techie streak. That said, the current ownership profile for EV’s will change and expand. Soon we’ll all be driving electric cars . . . powered by the sun.
Don’t believe me? Just ask Stephen King:
During a dedication ceremony for a public charging station in downtown Sarasota, Sharek met famed author Stephen King who autographed a novel for Sharek: “From one Volt owner to another.”
King later endorsed Sharek’s “lucid, fact-filled” book.
Sharek wrote “The Electric Vehicle rEVolution” in 2013 to summarize the first 26,000 miles or almost two years of his electric car experience.
To get your copy of his e-book for Kindle, Nook, or PDF: Buy Here for $5!
Also available on Amazon for Kindle for $7.49.
Aah . . . that’s better!
Related post: 10 Thoughts For Earth Day (Where’s My Backpack) * Frog Wisdom ~ Earth Day (Candid Impressions)
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Spirit Lights The Way 
Interesting factoid 🙂
I’m so excited about the advances we’re seeing in Electric Cars ~ with prices dropping and ranges growing. Someone at the lunch said his Tesla has a range of 300 miles. So cool!
Sunlight is a great source of energy, as long as the collection and storage doesn’t form hidden ecological costs …
I figure that even with our proclivity to muck things up, it’s got to be better for the planet than, say, fracking or mountain top removal or oil spills in pristine coastal areas. 😎
Undoubtedly!
I love the gas mileage and the ‘green’ nature of EV. I’m surprised solar charging vehicles aren’t more common. Seriously, in Arizona (and where you’re at, too) there’s plenty of sunshine, so why not?
I hope we get there before gas reaches $8 a gallon . . . as you say, why not?
Electric cars are cool!
They are so fun to drive . . . quiet and super fast from 0 to 60.
There are very few Electric cars around here with the odd charging base in a car park, I have yet to see a car being charged. We have a long way to go.
A journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single plug in. 😎
I haven’t really been looking for them, but I’ve seen several charging stations near here (Seattle area), one is about half a mile from my house. I had solar panels ten years ago. It was a little complicated for me. When things broke down, the guy who installed them couldn’t always be located and no one else knew anything about them. I hope the technology is farther along by now. I love all this green tech as long as they make it simple enough for me to use.
I expect that the technology is better AND that there are more companies to call when things go wrong. We don’t have solar panels (yet) but we are thinking about getting them.
Our place is small enough that our winter electric bill is only 25% of what it was at our last place so we haven’t rushed the decision. In the summer months, it’s about 50% of what we used to pay in Maryland.
This was so interesting. I learned a lot and am now interested in learning more about electric cars – especially living in Colorado where we have over 300 days of sunshine a year. Thanks for this informative post!
Colorado is a great place for solar panels if the roof space is available. And I expect that Colorado will be one of the leaders in terms of putting in charging stations at convenient locations.
I hope you’re right, Nancy. I would love it if Colorado could be a leader in something really worthwhile besides legalizing pot.
I walked into the produce department at Target and got “high” just standing next to a man who had obviously been partaking of the weed. I would much rather have Colorado known for being a leader in solar technology and helping to eliminate our carbon footprint than as the capital of potheads. Grrrr…..
Well, actually, I applaud Colorado for legalizing pot and hope that other states and the feds follow suit. To me, the dichotomy of treatment between alcohol and pot has never made much sense. But man cannot live by pot alone!
So here’s hoping that the Green Technology also leaps us forward.
We purchased a Prius less than a year ago and it’s made such a difference for us! As you probably know, L.A. traffic combined with a vast amount of freeway geography just guzzles gas. We had to do something. We love this hybrid and regularly get at least 50 MPG. We did look at electric cars, but we don’t have enough fueling stations for them quite yet to be practical. And they are still a little pricey! But I am so excited for what is coming with electric and all forms of energy-saving vehicles and all green technology. And out here the hybrids are really starting to proliferate. It’s the only practical way to go!
Yes! Prices are dropping and ranges are rising and charging stations are sprouting up.
It’s exciting to be on the edge of the rEVolution!