You might remember the 2006 film, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
As I recall, General Motors made an electric car that appealed to so many people that GM had them recalled and crushed. What would happen to our economy if too many people drove around in cars powered by sunlight?
More to the point, would it be fair to people who own gas-powered cars?
But you can’t keep an electric car down, and the other day my sister drove one into my yard. It was not the first electric car I’d seen because 15 or so years ago, David Ford came by in an electric car that was made around 1912.
My sister’s car was blue, but don’t ask me who made it. Any old Maine man will tell you that since 1955, cars have ceased to have any identity and today you can’t tell a Mercedes from a Volkswagen.
Because I have 30 photovoltaic panels that provide all of the electricity for our home with enough left over to run an electric car, I looked at my sister’s treasure with more than academic interest.
My pickup has 306,000 miles on it, and Marsha’s new Rav 4 has 258,000. Because the Rav 4 will have to last us well into 2020, it would be nice to save it for long trips and use an electric backup for local errands.
Over 50 years ago, my brother Jim did the same thing. To save wear on his ’32 Chevy coupe convertible, he bought a four-door 1927 Reo to knock about in.
Wondering what my sister paid for her electric car, I looked online and found a practically new one with only 140,000 miles on it for $8,000.
The way I understand the science, electric cars have a large, expensive battery that will get you to town and back on a full charge.
The figures I saw indicated that when you compare the price of electricity and the price of gasoline, you could run an electric car for about half what it costs to run a gasoline car – even if you didn’t have your own solar panels.
Wanting to learn more, I called longtime friend Guy Marsden, an electronic wizard in Woolwich, and asked if he’d tell me about the advantages of owning a solar car.
Years ago, before putting solar radiant heat in my cellar, I had gone to Woolwich and looked at Guy’s heating and electrical systems.
Guy is a “cultural creator,” which is someone who improves the quality of life in a society.
He also creates electronic art. I pointed at a panel that showed constantly changing numbers and asked if it was a doomsday clock. He explained that the numbers meant nothing: He was “satirizing our implicit trust in electronically represented numbers.” I fell for it.
I was somewhat distressed to learn that my solar water heaters are sadly outdated. Guy says that when one has photovoltaic panels, it is now cheaper to have a couple of heat pumps, which are 400 percent efficient. In other words, you put in one kilowatt-hour of power and get four back.
Guy Marsden is so energy efficient that in the summer he even has the heat from his computer blown through a duct into the great outdoors.
But the primary purpose of my visit was to learn what I could about the economic feasibility of driving an electric car.
Much has been written in an attempt to discredit the economics of solar energy, and naysayers swoon in an orgy of delight whenever they can read that electric cars are not practical. So it’s best to ask the man who owns one.
These solar detractors remind me of my Great Aunt Ami, who almost perished in a paroxysm of joy when she heard I’d flunked out of college. Aunt Ami threw herself back in her rocking chair and chortled, “I knew he couldn’t do it. I knew he’d fail. Ha, ha, ha.”
I didn’t laugh when Guy said he drove 8,000 miles last year and needed to use only 40 gallons of gas. The car has three modes. Sport mode enables the car to accelerate rapidly for passing. Guy calls this his “midlife crisis” mode.
It’s a wonder every bank robber in the country doesn’t have an electric car because when it takes off, it presses you back into the seat cushions and it doesn’t make a sound.
After looking at all of Guy’s electrical art, solar gizmos and inventions, someone mentioned that Guy was able to think outside the box.
He replied, “There’s a box?”
The humble Farmer can be seen on Community Television in and near Portland and visited at his website:
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