Dear Mr.
Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) - did you really think our romance
could last? Did you notice it's $1.36/L for gas in Toronto now? As if gas was ever a swell price to begin with. No, Mr.
ICE, you’ll have to do better to win back our love.
And the
thing is, you’ve got competition.
Last Sunday we attended the 2012 Electric Vehicle Fest at Toronto’s
Evergreen Brickworks and our hearts were seriously swayed.
We liked a dark red
2011 Nissan Leaf, nicknamed “BEV” for Battery Electric Vehicle. Owner Renny adores BEV’s generous tush and sang her praises like a love-struck schoolboy. She even
talks to him as he drives, letting him know how efficiently he’s driving. Her
dashboard sprouts trees to encourage him. When Renny turns BEV on, she
welcomes him into the driver’s seat with his choice of sounds. Best of all, she
only costs about $1/day to run. And even though BEV cost $49,000 (minus
a government rebate of $8,500), Renny reckons he will have paid the difference between what he paid for BEV and a similar ICE vehicle in three short years. That’s great news, since he has a daily commute of 60k.
Renny loves to advertise how much he’s saving on gas – BEV’s licence plate
reads GAS LOL. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Renny doesn’t miss much about the Internal Combustion Engine. He says BEV rockets up
to speed with no sweat, since electric vehicles all have torque at the low end.
And he’s got a handy iPhone app that not only lets him know how much battery
power is left, it allows him to cool or warm BEV’s interior remotely. Now THAT's magical.
Mitsubishi’s
adorable 2011 i-MiEV (Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle) isn’t quite as
fancy, but that’s the whole point. It gets the gasoline equivalent of 248 mpg,
and owner Michael estimates it costs him about $1.25/150 k to operate. He had
been crushing on the i-MiEV since he saw it at the Green Living show – it set
him back some $30,000, after which he received an $8,200 government rebate.
Another i-MiEV
owner, David, points out that the Mitsu dash was deliberately designed to look more
like you, Mr. ICE, with a speedo, fuel gauge and heater, so that we won’t miss
you that much. (As if!) The i-MiEV has no touch screens or butterflies on the dash, just a gauge that shows if you’re driving in eco mode. The Mitsu’s range is about 155 k’s – its battery is
only 16 kwh, compared to the Nissan’s 24 kwh, which makes it lighter. Note that
Mitsu makes its own battery!
All of
which makes us wonder, where are all the charging stations? After all, if we’re
going to head out on the road in an EV, we’d like to know where we can fill up.
Here’s where it gets a little confusing. There are some websites like plugshare.com
which show charging stations everywhere from public stations to private
residences in North America. But how up-to-date is it?
Apparently
Hydro can’t develop their own charging stations – that’s been left to the
private sector. But although the private sector can, and has been building
these stations, they can’t charge for the hydro. And what about charging etiquette?
Can I reserve a spot at the charging station of my choice? Or is it like the
local wings‘n’ribs joint – first come, first serve?
Maybe
things were different in 1916 – that’s when the Rauch and Lang electric
carriage was built. Ladies and gents had separate doors, the engine started with
a crank, and a tiller controlled the steering. Another lever controlled the
speed. Brakes were a button on the floor, and a bell in the floor shooed horses
off the roadway.
It’s
practically civilized. Which – is more than I can say for you, Mr. Gas Guzzling
ICE. Unless you clean up your act … our romance may be over.
