Yeah right, it’s that easy? If MacGyver can’t rig something up … oh wait… nevermind.
Not in the run of this thread,. but an interestring data [point. This weekend Pepper Mill and I parked in a garage in Salem, MA, and saw a few weird parking spaces.
The gizmos on the wall – which I assumed at first were some sort of high-tech parking meters – were actually charging stations for electric cars. It was a complete bolt-from-the-blue. There cwasn’t even a notice out front (not one we saw, anyway) telling us these were in there. Electric Car Chargers come to suburban Boston without fanfare.
They’ve been increasing in number steadily in the greater Boston area for some time.
Well that’s an interesting concept but what I’m talking about is the current method of storing electricity in the form of kinetic energy. This is generally done by transferring water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir during off peak hours.
At least at our company we only cared that you had been insured (we didn’t ask about limits for that question, and I haven’t personally applied for a policy that has). But your rate is still higher until that number reaches several years of continuous insurance - so your rates wouldn’t necessarily nose dive drastically holding state minimums for 6 months. Although looking at this article (Continuous Coverage on Your Auto Insurance) it seems like some companies wouldn’t even consider you with 0 months continuous coverage and you would be forced into the “high-risk” type companies like safe auto, etc, which you generally want to avoid. So it looks like for some companies 6 months could help a lot. Generally in this situation people who get a car probably take state minimums once they actually get a car, to start from somebody like safe auto and then move up to a normal insurance company in a year if they really want better insurance. I don’t think we actually wrote much business like that - most of the drivers at our company had been driving and continuously insured for decades.
No fanfare necessary. Those of us that use them are keenly aware of how to find them.
Thanks everyone for the responses I am learning a lot, for example I now know I am screwed when it comes to insurance. I am a 34 year old lady who has been driving for 14 years, I never considered that I would ever be considered high risk for insurance.
So to change topic a little, for a person with my driving patterns is there any environmentally conscious way to own a car. For this thought experiment lets assume that cost is no object (ha) and that I care mostly about carbon emissions including the energy that went into making the car. Any thoughts?
The problem is that the costs of owning a car are all upfront (purchase price, insurance, repairs) so it doesn’t cost you any more each time you use the car. Zipcar is the opposite, so it feels very expensive.
One thing that might help is to sit down and figure out how much owning a car would cost per year (insurance, repairs, and purchase price spread out over the lifetime). Then budget some percentage of that for zipcar/conventional rental cars/taxis, and tell yourself that it’s OK to use all of that budget – even if a particular trip feels expensive, you’re still coming out way ahead of owning a car.
Just thinking that way helped me when I was living car-free, and taking taxis on occasion – yes, I was spending a chunk of money on a taxi, but that was money I had because I wasn’t paying insurance each month (or gas, or buying new tires, etc.)
Yes, but those of us who don’t, aren’t.
You’d think they’d want to publicize this, to persuade more people to buy the product.
While pumped storage hydroelectricity storage as a means of load balancing is interesting (albeit not being stored as kinetic energy) I am still not getting then what it had to do with this thread or the post you were commenting on or with EV versus hybrids vs ICEs. Can you explain please?
I don’t think it’s you yourself that will make the insurance expensive. Rather it’s that the car is going to be driven and parked in a city, where accidents may be more frequent and car thefts more likely. BTW, do you have a place to park a new car off street?
Agreed; it’s very likely your ZIP code that’s driving the high insurance rates you’ve been quoted (esp. if, as Dewey Finn notes, you’d be having to park on the street).
The facts that you’re 34, and female, are actually two points in your favor; if you were a 25-year-old, single man, in your ZIP code, your insurance rates would likely be enough to put you off the idea of ever owning a car. 
Why do you use them? Most of them now price the electricity at a high enough premium that it is costs more to go per mile on electricity than on gas. Your Volt gets decent enough mileage in charge sustain … on the (probably few) days that you are exceeding your vehicle’s all EV range, why does it seem worth it?
Now funny enough I’d park at a free charger to just top off and then likely spend enough at the store to more than pay for my couple of kWhs (what? a quarter or so?) … but paying a huge mark-up for electricity? Don’ wanna.
I guess you’re greener than me.
the problem I have with this idea is while lead-acid batteries seem rather innocuous, they aren’t. They can deliver scary amounts of current without blinking; I’ve seen a normal car battery turn a 3/4" combination wrench into a glowing, melting mess in a single-digit number of seconds.
with lithium-ion batteries, you have to be nice to them or else they’ll burn and set your car on fire. With lead acid batteries, you have to be real careful or they’ll turn your wiring into heating elements and set your car on fire.
not something I would trust to some guy who likes to bung off-the-shelf motors and batteries into a car and call it an EV.
I haven’t checked in my area but there are people on the west coast who specialize in the conversions. Basically you’re looking for a builder of electric race cars. Someone with a track record (no pun intended).
and yes, I’ve done some welding before when the person I’m helping with a jump can’t tell positive from negative. I don’t even ask anymore. I do it all myself.
I would park the car inside an underground condo parking lot, also Toronto has a lot of downtown housing, so I think I’d be in a larger risk pool than a US city.
My friend who moved here from LA says that Toronto drivers are worse drivers than US drivers but they drive more slowly so it all pans out. I think she (who lives downtown) has the same rate as when she was in San Jose, but way more coverage since the law requires way higher liability coverage than the US does.