Wednesday, March 23, 2011

good bye to our Honda; big cars vs. electric cars?

We took our 1991 Honda Civic to San Diego last week to return it to my mother-in-law, from whom we bought it in 1998.  We made it look spiffy--fixed dents, re-painted, tuned up, new tires, used transmission installed.  The car made it just past the Grapevine on I-5 when the transmission just started spinning.  Fortunately, it was a nice warm day, and we called AAA and got towed to an honest transmission specialist who spotted the leak and got us on our way.

I told the transmission guy about our new Volt and he was quite interested.  He said that his girlfriend drives about 50 miles each way to work at 15 mpg.  At $4 per gallon that's over $500 per month for gas.  She happened to call while we were talking, and he told her about electric cars.  Her response was that she liked having a big Suburban and didn't want a small car.  That's what we have to take into account.
I did suggest that he check out calcars and consider converting her car to a plug-in hybrid.  If people are attached to their big cars, we need to find a way to make them run on electricity and biofuels.

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