News and Views

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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Yesterday Derek and I drove up to northern Arizona to view the eclipse. We drove the Volt, but that’s another post. This was an “annular” eclipse, meaning that the Moon was a little too small to completely block out the Sun as in a total eclipse. Seeing a total eclipse is on my bucket list, […]

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Dish network just released a new DVR (the Hopper), which I upgraded to yesterday. There are two improvements that stand out for me. 1) I can get HD on my remote TV. Before, the remote TV just received an SD signal, so this is a big improvement up in our bedroom. 2) Prime Time Any […]

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At the rist of completely boring everyone with more talk of my Volt, here’s a cost comparison I have worked out with my previous car (Acura MDX) and the prototypical gas miser, the Toyota Prius. Comparing the cost to drive my Volt (at 2.5 cents/mile) and the MDX (25 cents/mile), I have saved $360 this […]

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Devon has a very brief, but central, part in this new Ford Fiesta ad. The girls says, “Oh, a new car!” Devon replies, “Look at this: ‘CD Player’ “. They dubbed his voice, as they did the girl. The idea is that when he gives the voice command “CD Player”, it’s so cool that it’s […]

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I just passed 1000 miles in my new Volt (1024 to be precise). I am still on my first tank of gas — I’ve used about 6 gallons so far, leaving a little more than 3 in the tank. 807 miles were all electric, and the remaining 217 were using gas — most of them […]

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I took a trip out to see Richard and Dianna today in my Volt. They are staying near the village of Congress, about 90 miles from my house. I was interested to see how the Volt did on a longer trip. Here are some numbers: First a summary: — It cost the same to make […]

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After buying my Acura MDX a year and a half ago, I had buyer’s remorse. One comment I made below this post was that I could have bought a Chevy Volt instead, since it looked like I was going to keep my Honda mini-van anyway. Well, I finally did just that. I traded in my […]

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That’s how much electricity I bought from SRP this month. There is a $15 service charge each month and some taxes added on that, so my total bill is $19.21. Last March I paid $116. I would have been net negative this month except for a couple of cloudy days. As I’ve mentioned before, March […]

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