Charging up a Leaf and Volt
It is a hot summer day in Worcester, Massachusetts. Good day for doing nothing. I had my first motorcycle ride this year in the New England woods last weekend and was reminded as the beauty and power of Mother Nature. In August the ACDC hybrid and plug-in cars will be at Stump Sprouts for our first ever “Up Your Voltage Graduate Week”. This is a few miles from the place I spend summer weekends, enjoying the beauty of the Berkshire Mountains and riding my 1986 Honda Reflex trials bike. It is also a short ride to Jamie’s house, one of our trainers at UYV. Jamie is a hybrid specialist and likes to remind people that he took my “First hybrid class”, the spring of 2000. Many of you have interesting lives and live in every imaginable place, many of those places I have had the good fortune to visit. Why destroy such a world?
It is amazing when I think back to the 60’s when I was being shown the mechanical wonders of a Honda Motorcycle or the first time I did a brake job by myself and the car stopped. Car polluted, the gas mileage was unthinkable but most of us were blind to future problems we were creating. Today, I plug my car in the wall, use a keyless system to “power up” the car and drive away using electron flow that moves the wheels (and quite fast). No tail pipe, gas tank, EVAP system, spark plugs, exhaust pipes, changing of gears, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrates of oxide and no carbon dioxide. NONE. The electricity that powers my home, shop and offices all comes from the wind. No pollution there either. In a world where the news is mostly bad and we think things are getting worse, all I need to do is take a ride in the Leaf or Volt and all seems right again. We have come a long way from 50 years ago. This is something to celebrate. Now I need to get an electric dirt bike.
