News and Views

Our new VOIP (internet based phone service) by Ooma is now live, and we no longer have Century Link (né Qwest). Calls to our home phone number will arrive through Ooma. I have it connected to our in-house phone lines so all the phones work the same as before — it is basically transparent. Nothing […]

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I’ve just subscribed to a VOIP telephone service, Ooma. That’s “Voice Over IP”, which means it uses my internet connection to make phone calls. The main advantage is cost. The monthly fee amounts to about $4, which includes unlimited calls anywhere in the US and Canada. International calls are cheap too — Taiwan landlines cost […]

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There was an article yesterday from Reuters saying that GM is losing up to $49,000 on each Volt that they sell, and that it costs about $89,000 to produce one. You have to read the article carefully to realize that they are including the development cost, over a billion dollars, in the price by dividing […]

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NASA and JPL successfully landed the Curiosity vehicle on Mars this evening. What an amazing landing! It started with a heat shield slowing it down in the atmosphere, then progressed to a parachute, and finished with a soft rocket landing with the rover suspended from a cable. See the video for a neat animation of […]

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I’ve had my Volt for 4 months now and have driven 4000 miles. So I’m doing just 1000 miles/month. I have burned 22 gallons of gas, most of it on the trip up north to see the eclipse in mid-May. I have not added gas since then and still have about a half tank left. […]

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June solar energy generation was just about the same as May, and the savings were about the same too — $175 saved in May, and $185 in June. The days are a little longer in June, but the warmer temperatures reduce the solar panel efficiency too, so it’s just about a wash. I’m still generating […]

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The UCS is preparing to release a report titled, “Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings Across the United States“. You can download the full report here. They compare electric cars to gasoline-only and hybrid cars, and find that depending on where you live, electric cars (charged from the grid) generate the same amount […]

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I finally had my 240 volt charger installed for my Volt today. On 110 volts, the Volt takes up to 10 hours to fully charge. With the new charger it takes no more than 4 hours. This will make multiple all-electric trips during the day a lot easier. The electrician had to bury the conduit […]

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The electric bill for May went up compared to April with the higher temperatures and with charging the Volt, but we also saved more than in previous months. The total bill was about $87. Without the solar panels it would have been about $262, so we saved about $175! The Volt costs between $1.00 and […]

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I told the story of Derek and me driving to Northern Arizona yesterday to see the eclipse in some detail in my previous post, and I mentioned that I took my Volt. Here is some info on what it was like driving an “extended range electric vehicle” on a mountainous highway. As I’ve posted before, […]

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