250,000 All Electric miles on my Nissan LEAFs

[DaveinOlyWA]

Lets be real. Moving is an option that is available.... to nearly NO ONE!

Let's be real, people move all the time for a new job. If you dont' want to move that is your decision, but don't play the old everyone is doing it peer pressure illogical nonsense card. I can sense a fallacy a mile away.

I guess its the ones directly in front of you that you have problems with.

[aluminumwelder]

I guess no one sees the irony that people are saying that driving a quarter of a million miles is some great environmental accomplishment because it was done on electricity, when in fact excessive driving is ACTUALLY BAD FOR THE ENVIRONEMENT, just a little bit less so in an electric vehicle
anyways not going to argue over it anymore my point has been made.

[Nubo]

how is suggesting reducing usage " bad mouthing"

It's not -- IN GENERAL. But criticizing an INDIVIDUAL when you have no idea of their situation finances constraints or obligations, is arrogant beyond belief. Who are you to demand that they get a new job, or move, or... what?

Nobody is saying that driving, in itself, is a virtue. Mostly we're applauding OP's ability to get so much more out of LEAF (despite design shortcomings) than most of us can imagine.

IMHO, EVs are a step in the right direction. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[WetEV]

excessive driving

What is excessive driving to a desk worker living in the city wouldn't even cover a farmer's daily checking of cattle on different pastures. Much less the weekly drive to do grocery shopping at the nearest sizable town.

[RonDawg]

So in your line of thinking "to save the environment" he should move so he would be closer to his job?

WOW WHAT A CRAZY LIBERAL IDEA THAT WOULD BE. WHO WOULD NOT WANT TO BE CLOSER TO THEIR JOB AND COMMUNITE LESS. COMMON SENSE! SEEMS LIKE A RHETORICAL QUESTIONS, BUT THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT prefer to waste time commuting. Normalizing this wastefull mindset is the first step towards saying NO to excess and saying Yes to reducing.

I don't think anybody really LIKES commuting far. They do it because they feel they have little choice for their particular situation.

I know my father made a hellish commute (not so much in distance, but the route) so that my mother didn't have to.

[cwerdna]

I guess no one sees the irony that people are saying that driving a quarter of a million miles is some great environmental accomplishment because it was done on electricity, when in fact excessive driving is ACTUALLY BAD FOR THE ENVIRONEMENT, just a little bit less so in an electric vehicle
anyways not going to argue over it anymore my point has been made.

From https://oaspub.epa.gov/powpro/ept_pack.charts, from putting in the 98584 zip code where the OP works, 47.2% of electricity there comes from hydro, a non-GHG emitting source of electricity.

Per https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do ... action=bt3, a '12 Leaf produces 110 grams/mile in terms of emissions (all upstream) in that zip code. '11 Leaf is the same. The average new vehicle in the US produces 410 grams/mile.

how is suggesting reducing usage " bad mouthing"

It's not -- IN GENERAL. But criticizing an INDIVIDUAL when you have no idea of their situation finances constraints or obligations, is arrogant beyond belief. Who are you to demand that they get a new job, or move, or... what?

Nobody is saying that driving, in itself, is a virtue. Mostly we're applauding OP's ability to get so much more out of LEAF (despite design shortcomings) than most of us can imagine.

Yes. I've been slammed similarly on another forum in a similar manner when I had 46 mpg combined Prius (almost certainly before I had a Leaf and possibly before Leaf existed). The guy suggested I essentially didn't care (much?) about the environment and should take public transit or move closer. (Not like he drove anything particularly efficient, AFAIK.)

Public transportation where I live is awful. I live rent free (long story). Taking public transit to work (back then) would take almost 3 hours one way, when driving ~24 miles to work would take 28-32 minutes in the times I’d go. I could've driven 10 minutes to a park and ride lot and took public transit from there. It'd have brought the outbound trip to only 2.5 hours.

Of course I could move closer but instead pay thousands a month in rent instead.

I can't speak directly to the OP's reasons or situations, but there is something about it at https://www.greencarreports.com/news/10 ... no-problem.

So in your line of thinking "to save the environment" he should move so he would be closer to his job?

WOW WHAT A CRAZY LIBERAL IDEA THAT WOULD BE. WHO WOULD NOT WANT TO BE CLOSER TO THEIR JOB AND COMMUNITE LESS. COMMON SENSE! SEEMS LIKE A RHETORICAL QUESTIONS, BUT THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT prefer to waste time commuting. Normalizing this wastefull mindset is the first step towards saying NO to excess and saying Yes to reducing.

I don't think anybody really LIKES commuting far. They do it because they feel they have little choice for their particular situation.

I know my father made a hellish commute (not so much in distance, but the route) so that my mother didn't have to.

aluminumwelder: Have you heard of situations like this https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/pr-rep- ... -rent.html? Crazy long commutes in the SF Bay Area happen usually amongst lower wage workers because housing prices are insane here.

Back when I was working in Mountain View, CA between late 04 and 09, a co-worker was commuting from Tracy (over 60 miles, each way), which was insane. He'd have to take ACE train (https://www.acerail.com/) for both directions and a company shuttle that picked up and dropped off at one of the train stops. Reason? He moved from another state where housing was much cheaper (and he had a relatively large house before). Housing prices in the Bay Area are insane and he'd either have to downsize MASSIVELY and it might not be doable (given he had a wife and kids). So, he TOFTT and bought something that was more reasonable in price and size in Tracy.

IIRC, it was 2+ hours door to door, each way for him. From where we worked and the nature of our work, I'd say our pay was about average for a Bay Area tech worker.

There are several folks on my team and MANY at my company that for whatever reasons choose to live in the city of SF which is 50 miles from work. Most of them take a free company shuttle but a lot of time is burned each day doing that. Most of them seem to just like living in SF. I sure wouldn't want to live there. I've heard some reasons from some of them (e.g. great restaurants nearby, like the life there, etc.)

[cwerdna]

I dont' see driving long distances as an accomplishment. It's a huge waste of time. With high speed internet available in so many places, more people should work from home instead of wasting time driving to work, polluting the air with gasoline or battery by products and work smarter not harder.

Not every job consists of "playing on the computer and talking on the phone", as one of my colleague's daughters aptly described our work. And in the Puget Sound area roads can't take you as the crow flies.

Indeed.

My team at work and some of the other teams we work with do require a quite a bit of face to face collaboration and proximity helps. It is far more efficient to walk 5-20 feet to someone's desk to show them something than to have to ping them online and have to describe what's going on. We have to work with user experience designers and the fact that they're no more than 50 feet away helps.

We do sometimes have meetings w/video w/folks working from home or at another office (rare for my team). On days when someone is working from home, it means they're harder to reach and collaboration is less efficient, in many cases.

[DaveinOlyWA]

The main argument is based on an individual but Steve is married and his wife works North, he works South. So the total commute would be the same no matter where they moved. He simply accepted the longer commute.

This doesn't even address issues of kids in school, etc. Said it once and will say it again, moving is not a viable option MOST of the time.

[GRA]

The main argument is based on an individual but Steve is married and his wife works North, he works South. So the total commute would be the same no matter where they moved. He simply accepted the longer commute.

This doesn't even address issues of kids in school, etc. Said it once and will say it again, moving is not a viable option MOST of the time.

Yes. While I'm single and was able to choose to live where I could walk and bike to everything local and have convenient (6 blocks) rapid mass transit for most regional destinations (at a price I could afford), that wasn't always the case. Anytime you have two or more people co-habiting who need to go different directions, odds are moving will just exchange who commutes further/longer, and as cwerdna notes, the Bay Area is going through one of its periodic housing bubbles where rents/home prices are even higher than they normally are, and public transit isn't a viable option for all. So, while I understand where aluminumwelder is coming from, and (being a proponent of New Urbanism/Smart Cities etc.) concur that the changes he suggests are the best solution from an environmental standpoint, its simply not an option for everyone. TaylorSFGuy has made a choice that works for him in his situation.

Of course, there are also those who make a big deal out of how green they are, while freely choosing to live an energy and resource-extravagant lifestyle (I've seen this approach called 'Gizmo Green*' and also 'LEED-brain', i.e. throwing money/energy/resources at the problem rather than prioritizing the 3 Rs). You know the type, someone who builds a super-insulated, PV/solar water-heating on the roof etc. 4,000 sq. ft. McMansion which has two occupants, and is located where it's necessary for each person to have a car (presumably both Teslas) to access anything, and then boasts about their environmental consciousness. Individually-owned and used BEVs are one way to reduce energy use and environmental impact, but they are by no means the only or even, when the option exists, the most effective one. Everyone decides for themselves just what level of environmental accommodation they're willing/able to make between all the conflicting requirements and desires life offers, at least until they're compelled to accept less than they want by outside factors.




*See http://atlurbanist.tumblr.com/post/4067 ... ainability and

http://www.originalgreen.org/blog/2010/ ... ndrum.html for more.

[LeftieBiker]

OTOH, the best environmental choice to make - one that has a vastly larger benefit than everything mentioned so far - is to choose to not have children. As I sit here in my gizmo-laden old house, with my $38k EV parked outside, heating with resistance heat to reduce fuel oil consumption, I at least know that I (and the woman with whom I live) didn't start an ever-multiplying horde of consumers. I have to laugh (to prevent a more angry response) at all the Yuppies and Liberals who think they are making the world a better place by having two or three or four kids to go out there and keep their "environmentalist" dream alive...or more likely, to rebel against their parents hypocrisy by rejecting their beliefs.