smkettner
Well-known member
Q: what is the difference between an environmentalist and a developer?
A: Environmentalist already has his house built in the woods.
A: Environmentalist already has his house built in the woods.
Does owning a Leaf = your an environmentalist?
- Thread starter GPowers
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hodad66
Well-known member
Came up with this one while trying to think up pithy bumper sticker slogans...
Many millions of dollars were given to Al-Qaeda by Saudi Arabian billionaires who make their money selling oil. It's a fact that the petroleum industry directly supports terrorism - if we want the problem to go away we need to stop giving them money.
=Smidge=
Many millions of dollars were given to Al-Qaeda by Saudi Arabian billionaires who make their money selling oil. It's a fact that the petroleum industry directly supports terrorism - if we want the problem to go away we need to stop giving them money.
=Smidge=
hodad66
Well-known member
golly, the peanut farmer might have been right!!
adric22
Well-known member
I think I'm the "other" guy that the original poster was talking about. Here are my list of reasons for wanting an electric car in order of importance:
- Because I think the technology is cool. I'm a geek too, and think of myself somewhat as an amateur engineer or physicist. I love the digital-display for the dashboard and all of the cool readouts I can get about the kilowatts being used by different systems in the car, etc. I like the way it sounds (or doesn't sound) when driving. Combustion engines seem like stone-age technology by comparison. It is like the difference between flying a plane powered by a propeller or one powered by a jet engine.
- I like to try different ways of doing things. I'm the kind of guy who tries out a new operating system (like Linux, or BSD) on my computer just to see what it is like. Another example is that I would like to go to a mosque some day even though I'm not a Muslim, just to see what it is like. Driving on a fuel other than gasoline fascinates me.
- I am an early adopter. I was the first one on my block and in my family to buy a cell phone, digital camera, and a DVD player. Even though my family were all convinced these were niche items that would never catch on. (Granted, I also had a laserdisc player, CD-i player, a Windows CE laptop, and a few items that actually never did catch on) This reasons probably is related to the 2nd reason about trying new things.
- I hate working on ICE cars. I have owned quite a few and it is ridiculously expensive to pay somebody else to fix them when they break. So I've learned to maintain and fix most problems on ICE vehicles. Did I mention they are usually nasty to work on, leaving me covered in oil. Did I mention I'll never have to worry about oil leaking onto the floor of my garage. Now I'll only be buying cat-liter for the cat, and not the garage floor.
- I hate buying gas. I hate pumping gas. I hate my money going overseas for gas.
- The Leaf is good for the environment (despite what some of the idiots out there say)
Drivesolo
Well-known member
Can't say that I am an environmentalist at all. I'm all for reducing carbon emissions but I'm not going to go out of my way to do it. Yes, the Leaf does produce less carbon over it's expected lifetime than the typical economy ICE, but I believe that it is safe to say that even if there were a million Leafs/EVs on US roads today it would essentially mean nothing in terms of global carbon reduction. Not in a world where there are over a billion vehicles (and that's not including scooters, construction equipment and unregistered off road vehicles).
My primary reason for buying a Leaf is simple; dollar-wise for the amount and type of driving my family and I do, the cost of fuel vs electricity where we live, maintenance; it makes sense for us. There is still some concern about resale value years from now, but it's a risk I am willing to take.
My other reasons are as follows:
- Big motor sports enthusiast; I believe that there will be a future in EV racing, I want to understand how it all works and the best way is to own one.
- 2 wars for oil is more than enough for me, thank you. Blood for oil is not cool IMO, and the costs...whew. Going back to my previous comparison, although a million EV's will do nothing for global carbon emissions, the reduction of our dependency on foreign oil would be significant.
- I asked my wife if she was cool w/ me picking up a Nissan GT-R. She was not happy w/ me asking and suggested a Nissan Leaf instead. What can I say? Happy wife; happy life, right?
My primary reason for buying a Leaf is simple; dollar-wise for the amount and type of driving my family and I do, the cost of fuel vs electricity where we live, maintenance; it makes sense for us. There is still some concern about resale value years from now, but it's a risk I am willing to take.
My other reasons are as follows:
- Big motor sports enthusiast; I believe that there will be a future in EV racing, I want to understand how it all works and the best way is to own one.
- 2 wars for oil is more than enough for me, thank you. Blood for oil is not cool IMO, and the costs...whew. Going back to my previous comparison, although a million EV's will do nothing for global carbon emissions, the reduction of our dependency on foreign oil would be significant.
- I asked my wife if she was cool w/ me picking up a Nissan GT-R. She was not happy w/ me asking and suggested a Nissan Leaf instead. What can I say? Happy wife; happy life, right?
Stoaty said:
I like Stoaty's response; the end result is more or less the same for each LEAF owner.
To the original poster's point, I brought up a similar question in our regional Nashville forum;
My "ultimate" decision was based on potential savings of owning a LEAF compared to a traditional ICE vehicle... all of the other benefits were just pluses!
Yodrak
Well-known member
You'll be able to add me to your list when and if sales are ever opened up in my state. Like several others, I liked walterbays' comment:
My Leaf will be coal powered. (Does that make me an environmentalist by thankyouOB's definition?)walterbays said:
GPowers said:
adric22
Well-known member
Drivesolo said:
I'm not sure of that either. I think we have well over a million hybrids on the road, and they are still just a drop in the bucked compared with gas guzzlers. According to Carlos Ghosn (CEO of Nissan) even if the EV industry reaches 10% penetration of the car market in a few years, the ICE market will still be a growth industry. Meaning that even if we get a few million EV's on the road, there will still be more ICE's on the road than there are today.
I suppose you could look at it from the standpoint of this: If we don't have the EV's on the road then there will be that many more millions of ICE's over the current predictions.
I believe it will take selling somewhere around 10 to 20 million EV's before we can get to the point where they start to make an impact on our oil imports and before we could say they have gone mainstream. Even then, probably 9 out of 10 cars on the road would still be gas guzzlers.
Drivesolo
Well-known member
adric22 said:
The comparison of EV's to hybrids (not plug-in hybrids) is not applicable in this scenario of 1 million EV's. Hybrids still run on gas/diesel which primarily comes from oil. An EV uses entirely electricity. In the US virtually none of our electricity is generated from oil. Assuming that a typical economy car requires 1 barrel of oil (estimates are probably slightly less) a month. 1 million EVs can potentially reduce the need by 1 million barrels a month. A million hybrids would reduce the need for oil slightly but in this scenario but for the most part would not make a significant change in the demand when compared to EVs.
GPowers
Well-known member
Smidge204 said:Came up with this one while trying to think up pithy bumper sticker slogans...
Many millions of dollars were given to Al-Qaeda by Saudi Arabian billionaires who make their money selling oil. It's a fact that the petroleum industry directly supports terrorism - if we want the problem to go away we need to stop giving them money.
=Smidge=
Put the bumper sticker on http://www.cafepress.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; so other can buy it.
GPowers
Well-known member
So far this has been a supprising number of peoplr that purchased a Leaf for non-environmentalist reasons. Nissan need to take a look at their marketing plan and change it up to appeal to this segment. It might be larger then Nissan thinks.
GPowers
Well-known member
lukati said:
Here is an image of the sticker form the volt-gm forum:
Bassman
Well-known member
Bought it to stick to the Big Oil man and because it's an ELECTRIC CAR! How cool is that? 
abasile
Well-known member
EVs initially caught my fancy in the 1990s for air quality reasons. Living in smoggy inland valleys near Los Angeles, air pollution constantly affects one's life, particularly if one enjoys outdoor exercise as I do. At the time, though, I wasn't prepared to buy one.
Post-9/11, I became increasingly concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, particularly from the Middle East. We've been "dealing with the devil" for too long. Further, the oil price spike of 2008 reinforced the fact that our economy is overly tied to the price of a single commodity over which we have only limited control. Even if all EVs used electricity from nothing but coal and natural gas, that to me would be a major improvement over depending on hostile parties for our day-to-day energy needs.
On top of that, the evidence that humans are substantially contributing to global warming seems quite convincing, Rick Perry's views on the subject notwithstanding. While I am not an alarmist and and am not going to stop enjoying life in ways that require energy, I enjoy adopting technologies/products that lessen my impact on the planet we have been blessed with. So I do hope to add solar PV at some point. If that makes me an environmentalist, then so be it.
Don't take my comment on Rick Perry too far, by the way. I'd like to bring back the "conserve" in conservative!
Post-9/11, I became increasingly concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, particularly from the Middle East. We've been "dealing with the devil" for too long. Further, the oil price spike of 2008 reinforced the fact that our economy is overly tied to the price of a single commodity over which we have only limited control. Even if all EVs used electricity from nothing but coal and natural gas, that to me would be a major improvement over depending on hostile parties for our day-to-day energy needs.
On top of that, the evidence that humans are substantially contributing to global warming seems quite convincing, Rick Perry's views on the subject notwithstanding. While I am not an alarmist and and am not going to stop enjoying life in ways that require energy, I enjoy adopting technologies/products that lessen my impact on the planet we have been blessed with. So I do hope to add solar PV at some point. If that makes me an environmentalist, then so be it.
Don't take my comment on Rick Perry too far, by the way. I'd like to bring back the "conserve" in conservative!
LEAFfan
Well-known member
lukati said:
I believe that sticker needs to be changed to: 'hated'. It looks kind of silly with that verb tense.
ebill3
Well-known member
I just want an electric car. Maybe this week???
The fact that a lot of our electricity here in the NW is produced by wind and water power is a nice plus.
Bill
The fact that a lot of our electricity here in the NW is produced by wind and water power is a nice plus.
Bill
Drivesolo
Well-known member
+1ebill3 said:
At 10.3 cents a kWh (assuming you will use more than the 8.4 cents rate), this is factors in very well into owning an EV here in Western WA.
While were on the topic of being environmentally motivated; considering that the 3 hydro damns (Baker River, Snoqualmie Falls and Electron) basically provide more power output than what the Puget Sound area consumes, you can say that it is nearly carbon free.
