Milestone: No gas in July 2012

[Cheezmo]

July 2012 marks the first month that my family of four purchased no gasoline.

That is down from an average of $330/month in 2011.

Won't make it through August (have to drive to Abilene), but I am sure we have many more gas free months to come.

 

[adric22]

Congrats! It feels great to be off of gasoline.

We seem to be filling up our Volt about once every other month. So that averages out to about $15 per month on gasoline for a household with 2 cars (Volt + Leaf) that drive about 2,100 miles per month. I guess you could sort of say we're getting about 700 miles per gallon as a family.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

drove 818 miles on Prius in July. got gas about the 11th. then did not get gas again until Aug 1st. sooo "technically" i paid $32 for gas for month of July which is about $80 less than normal

 

[DarkStar]

Unfortunately my lawn mower is still gas, so I do "use" gas every month. The good news is that a couple of gallons easily lasts all year. As soon as I get my workshop built, I'll be getting an electric mower that will be solar charged every week.

 

[Reddy]

What's gas? :lol: Oh, ya, I remember that stuff. Let's see, I think I bought some of that smelly stuff in March. Oops. That reminds me that I need to go start/charge the ICE.

Reddy.

 

[torgazm]

What's gas? :lol: Oh, ya, I remember that stuff. Let's see, I think I bought some of that smelly stuff in March. Oops. That reminds me that I need to go start/charge the ICE.

Reddy.

I needed gas for my lawnmower... kinda felt silly driving my LEAF up to the pump and whipping out my 1 gal gas can. I apologized to my car and said, "Don't look, I'm sorry for this..." :lol:

 

[WetEV]

What's gas? :lol: Oh, ya, I remember that stuff. Let's see, I think I bought some of that smelly stuff in March. Oops. That reminds me that I need to go start/charge the ICE.

Reddy.

I needed gas for my lawnmower... kinda felt silly driving my LEAF up to the pump and whipping out my 1 gal gas can. I apologized to my car and said, "Don't look, I'm sorry for this..." :lol:

+1

If I have a lot of time, I might look into turning the mower into a BEM (Battery Electric Mower).

 

[RegGuheert]

I needed gas for my lawnmower... kinda felt silly driving my LEAF up to the pump and whipping out my 1 gal gas can. I apologized to my car and said, "Don't look, I'm sorry for this..." :lol:

+1

If I have a lot of time, I might look into turning the mower into a BEM (Battery Electric Mower).

I will recommend the Homelite 20 in. Cordless Electric Walk-behind Lawnmower from Home Depot. I bought one about a month ago and it has been great! Now I see the price has come down quite a bit.

I had used the B&D CMM1000 for the previous five years and I have to say this mower is better in practically every way you can imagine. The best feature is that you can remove the battery, which allows charging in the house and also allows you to swap in another one and keep mowing. It also handles tall grass very well, which is something I really need.

I'm still buying gas for our other vehicles. Not very often, since we use the LEAF for most of our driving, but I don't think we'll wean anytime soon.

 

[torgazm]

I needed gas for my lawnmower... kinda felt silly driving my LEAF up to the pump and whipping out my 1 gal gas can. I apologized to my car and said, "Don't look, I'm sorry for this..." :lol:

+1

If I have a lot of time, I might look into turning the mower into a BEM (Battery Electric Mower).

I will recommend the Homelite 20 in. Cordless Electric Walk-behind Lawnmower from Home Depot. I bought one about a month ago and it has been great! Now I see the price has come down quite a bit.

I had used the B&D CMM1000 for the previous five years and I have to say this mower is better in practically every way you can imagine. The best feature is that you can remove the battery, which allows charging in the house and also allows you to swap in another one and keep mowing. It also handles tall grass very well, which is something I really need.

I'm still buying gas for our other vehicles. Not very often, since we use the LEAF for most of our driving, but I don't think we'll wean anytime soon.

Thanks for the recommendation... I may go price that at my H.D. this weekend.. I really need to ditch the gas mower... It's just not right pushing it into the garage and hiding it from view of the LEAF !!

 

[DaveEV]

I'm a big fan of electric mowers - personally I prefer corded mowers - the inconvenience of having to deal with the cord outweighs the inconvenience of having to charge the battery - and we all know how batteries will lose capacity and lead to expensive replacements down the road!

I have the cheapest Black & Decker corded mower that's quite a few years old which I modded to "mulch" the clippings so they stay on the lawn which helps to reduce fertilizer requirements.

 

[gsleaf]

I'm a big fan of electric mowers - personally I prefer corded mowers - the inconvenience of having to deal with the cord outweighs the inconvenience of having to charge the battery - and we all know how batteries will lose capacity and lead to expensive replacements down the road!

I have the cheapest Black & Decker corded mower that's quite a few years old which I modded to "mulch" the clippings so they stay on the lawn which helps to reduce fertilizer requirements.

+1 I love my corded mower. It's not as powerful as a gas mower, but it works. I hate using gas and I don't want the added cost of replacing a battery.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Stuck driving the wife's Prius for some of the campouts so probably won't be gas free until there's a 300 mile range. But awesome for you.

I guess that's one good thing about a heat wave, no one has mowed the yard since the first week in June. The downside is the kid keeps asking for money with no work to compensate for it. Silly teenager.

 

[Metalman]

I have the Homelite corded mower, works great.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Managing the cord its really not as difficult as most people make it to be. For me, I developed a pattern where I only have to stop and move the cord 3 times. I have my 100 ft extension cord on a portable cord reel...its all pretty easy really and the best part was that I bought both the mower DVD cord together for $45 which was not too bad a deal since the cord alone was worth that much

As far as gas use, well leaving on a600 miles road trip tomorrow for our 2% of trips the LEAF can not do

 

[RegGuheert]

I'm a big fan of electric mowers - personally I prefer corded mowers - the inconvenience of having to deal with the cord outweighs the inconvenience of having to charge the battery - and we all know how batteries will lose capacity and lead to expensive replacements down the road!

I have the cheapest Black & Decker corded mower that's quite a few years old which I modded to "mulch" the clippings so they stay on the lawn which helps to reduce fertilizer requirements.

+1 I love my corded mower. It's not as powerful as a gas mower, but it works. I hate using gas and I don't want the added cost of replacing a battery.

I have the Homelite corded mower, works great.

Managing the cord its really not as difficult as most people make it to be. For me, I developed a pattern where I only have to stop and move the cord 3 times. I have my 100 ft extension cord on a portable cord reel...its all pretty easy really and the best part was that I bought both the mower DVD cord together for $45 which was not too bad a deal since the cord alone was worth that much

I'm in full agreement with all the love for corded electric mowers! They are cheaper and lighter, but can still handle the tough tasks for longer. OTOH, they occasionally eat cords, at least if you have children. But they really are quite useless 500 feet from the house!

As a result, we have both corded and cordless mowers. We've had all B&D electrics in the past, but I'm really loving the Homelite. It mows more like I remember our old Toro gasoline mower mowing. The B&Ds always were somewhat of a compromise in terms of mowing performance. In fact, I would say our new 20" Homelite cordless is a better mower than our B&D 19" corded mower. My only hesitation is I don't know how long the steel deck will last given my unwillingness to clean under the deck after each mowing. We'll see.

 

[Reddy]

Well, no gas mower either. Bought a corded mower 10 yr ago, then inherited a 2nd one a couple of years back. Now I have two, but eliminated the lawn to reduce water use. Since we normally get around 7" rain, xeriscaping seemed like a good idea. I just recently bought an electric mulcher, so will be playing with that for a while. Hmmm, which to choose: Smelling $4/gal gas or clean, hydro electricity at $0.07/KWH? :?:

Reddy

 

[Publius]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm wondering if more people have gone 100% electric or how you have minimized your gasoline consumption. I cannot say that my family has eliminated all gas power engines-- my wife still drives a VW, and I doubt that will change anytime soon-- but I've switched everything in my control to electric. I've had a cordless electric push mower (Earthwise 20") for one season, and now I've just about completed my first winter with a battery powered electric snow blower (Ariens AMP 24"). That's been a lot of fun to operate, and I don't miss smelling like exhaust fumes after clearing the driveway. I also dumped the two-stroke engine string trimmer for a cordless string trimmer, which is so much nicer to use (no cloud of smoke, less noise, no handling gas and mixing oil). Why didn't I do that before? I also picked up a small corded chainsaw for cutting up small branches in my yard. At first I was hesitant to go electric, but now I'm thrilled that I have. I don't regret any of my purchases.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm wondering if more people have gone 100% electric or how you have minimized your gasoline consumption. I cannot say that my family has eliminated all gas power engines-- my wife still drives a VW, and I doubt that will change anytime soon-- but I've switched everything in my control to electric. I've had a cordless electric push mower (Earthwise 20") for one season, and now I've just about completed my first winter with a battery powered electric snow blower (Ariens AMP 24"). That's been a lot of fun to operate, and I don't miss smelling like exhaust fumes after clearing the driveway. I also dumped the two-stroke engine string trimmer for a cordless string trimmer, which is so much nicer to use (no cloud of smoke, less noise, no handling gas and mixing oil). Why didn't I do that before? I also picked up a small corded chainsaw for cutting up small branches in my yard. At first I was hesitant to go electric, but now I'm thrilled that I have. I don't regret any of my purchases.

there is at least one EV driver in Seattle that has sold their mini van when they got their Tesla. so now its Tesla S, LEAF SL for them

as for me? wish I could but have tipped the balance to the extreme. with a bit of manipulation at work, I currently have over 1400 miles on the LEAF and only 241 miles on the gasser as of Friday Evening (it hasnt moved since then) month to date.

even at that rate, The gasser has still cost more money to run and it will drive another 50 miles or so this week but should keep it under 300 miles for the month. not bad considering two commuters going opposite directions each morning

 

[adric22]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm wondering if more people have gone 100% electric or how you have minimized your gasoline consumption.

Well, we have a Leaf and a Volt. We put about 6 gallons of fuel in the Volt every month. All of our lawn equipment is electric. So we spend about $20 per month on gasoline. We could probably replace the Volt with an EV that gets a real-world 100 mile range.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I last bought gasoline for my ICE car in December, so gas-free in 2013 so far. However I will be making a trip to Moab next month and a 2200 mile trip to Oregon in May, so the ICE car will get used. (In the meantime I've been putting a battery tender on it once a week to keep the battery in good shape.)

Also have a gas powered chainsaw, since I have five acres of forest to thin for fire safety. But that's it for gasoline devices: no lawn to mow in the forest—I grow nothing but native plants—and my snow clearing tool is a shovel.