Visiting the east coast…part II Continuing on the journey, we decided to take a hike along the Appalachian Trail in the Delaware Water Gap. Although it was very cold, it was nice to get out and hike. It’s a spot we’ve been to before, where I’ve done some fly fishing with a good friend. The...
Hey, thanks for the hike and tour!! Fun to do it from my easy chair, altho it would have been more fun to BE there!! I keep wondering IF Espen will remember these experiences on the East Coast–he’s so smart–he’s probably storing it all in his computerized memory bank!! Kakee
Washington Congressman Brian Baird reports on Gaza! Hey friends, I just received word from my good friend that the Washington congressman and another congressman visited Gaza yesterday, not officially under the Obama administration, but went nevertheless to see the situation for themselves. Here’s a snipet from the article: “It’s hard for anyone in our country...
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Who gave the Hummer a tax break??? We just watched the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” and it raised many questions about how people make choices…in my opinion. You should definitely watch it if you haven’t seen it, because for being a fairly “Green” person myself, I had NO IDEA that these fully electic...
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Thanks, Aimee! I’ll definitely check out the article.
Hey Joel! I just did a little bit of research about electric vehicles for an article I wrote for our local paper. The whole electric vehicle thing is very confusing. I just wanted to add two notes to this.
First, an EV dealer I talked to here is a bit skeptical about GM being the one to “kill” the electric car (as apparently the movie implies – I haven’t seen it). This dealer says that what is really killing the electric car is battery technology. The batteries are expensive and they just don’t give quite the same performance as a gas car (I am SO not saying gas cars are better though!). Batteries also perform worse (if they perform at all) in the cold. If battery technology was better, we’d be swimming in electric vehicles. Oh, and another thing that doesn’t help is that apparently car dealerships make most of their money from servicing cars that were sold from their lots. But since you don’t need much servicing of EVs, the bigger auto companies don’t really play up the EVs in their show rooms.
Second, there are a lot of wacky laws (state and federal) around electric vehicles and cars. These laws (surprise) are really written to the advantage of the big-four auto companies. For instance, there are electric vehicles on the road even now (a neighbor of ours has one) made by Zap. They make sedans and pick-ups and vans – all electric. But, they are three-wheel vehicles. A three wheel vehicle is considered a motorcycle by law so these are under motorcycle law. And, they don’t get tax deductions (so I hear) because they aren’t cars – legally.
Here’s the article I wrote which barely scratches the surface!: http://www.southsidepride.com/2009/02/articles/Electric.html
by Joel
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