Slow Down

On Memorial Day, in a nearby neighborhood of Apex, North Carolina, a 10-year old boy died when hit by a car. The boy was riding on his scooter by his home and perhaps the driver of the car was going too fast - the cause of the accident is still under investigation. The NHTSA.gov reports that in 2021 speeding killed 12,330 people in the United States.

This morning I was reminded of this accident while walking our dog on the sidewalk and a car came speeding past me. The street in our neighborhood is narrow with parked cars on one side of the road. As the speeding car flew by just a few feet away from me, I guess going at least 40 mph in the 25 mph speed limit, I waved my arm to slow down. The driver slowed and then stopped and backed up to see what happened. I asked, “do you know how fast your were going?” The driver replied no and said he was not paying attention. “You were going at least 40 mph and we have kids on scooters riding around here too.” The man apologized and I felt grateful he seemed receptive to my concerns and did not get angry.

The chart from NTSB shows that pedestrian fatalities increase with speed - just an increase from 20 mph to 30 mph increases deaths by 40% and getting hit by a car going 40 mph you only have a 15% chance of survival! Several years ago a friend of mine lost his wife- a school teacher and mother - when she got hit and run over in a supermarket parking lot — the car only traveled about 5 mph!

Our neighborhood obtained from the Apex Police Department a traffic speed monitor to remind drivers how fast they are traveling. The monitor functioned for about two weeks close to the location of the speeding car and then we recently requested moving it to a parallel street. Another neighbor mentioned the monitor slows most cars down but some of the teenage drivers like to test how fast they can cruise by the digital sign.

Another reason to slow down is the faster you drive the more money you’ll spend. Gas milage efficiency generally decreases rapidly at speeds above 50 mph. According to Fuel Economy.gov, you can assume that for each 5 mph you drive over 50 mph on the highway is like paying an additional $0.25 per gallon of gas. So on the many local highways with 70 mph speed limits, people are typically driving 80 mpg costing an extra $3.00 per gallon of gas.

Conserve your speed to save lives, money, and so much more!

Driving Across the USA in our PHEV

This year we purchased and enjoyed driving across the United States, from Los Angeles to North Carolina, in our plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Our experiences are teaching us about making the energy-efficient transition from gas to electric motors and this blog is not a plug for any particular brand.

Almost six years ago I described our positive experience purchasing a 2016 Toyota Rav4 hybrid. We sold that car after five years to travel to Thailand one year ago. Over there we attended the 42nd Bangkok International Motor Show entitled “Shaping the Next Chapter” to compare several PHEVs. All the major brands were represented including new models by Audi, BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, MG, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Volvo allowing us to sit inside many cars all in one location. We also watched many videos of people test driving the new vehicles. In the end, we chose our most familiar brand hoping to make the sixth purchase of a Toyota vehicle. The challenge was being able to find the new Rav4 Prime with only about 3,600 vehicles projected to be made during the pandemic due to supply-chain battery and chip shortages. In July 2021, we found several dealers in Los Angeles had one or two Primes available per week with more customers than cars. Our dealer in Grand Junction, Western Slope Toyota, said they only had one Prime for the entire year and sold it quickly! We found out later that it was a friend of ours who bought that vehicle.

We ruminated over taking the risk to fly to LA and look to buy our dream car compared to going home to Colorado first. We took the gamble and within a few days in LA found that Carson Toyota provided the best deal in LA. Our credit union website facilitated our search and selection by making online offers for vehicles in advance of arriving at the dealer. However, the dealers charged an extra premium for the low inventory and for the first time we paid above the manufacturers suggested retail price MSRP.

Another decision we needed to make was choosing between two trim levels: SE and XSE. We chose the better package mostly for the SofTex® instead of fabric seating. According to Toyota, “SofTex® is a synthetic leather seat material designed for wear, easy cleaning and resisting spills. Soft to the touch, SofTex weighs about half as much as genuine leather. The way it's made generates around 85% fewer CO2 emissions and 99% fewer Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) than conventional synthetic leather.”

The Toyota Rav4 Prime mid-sized SUV features a 2.5 liter, 4 cylinder gasoline engine rated at 40 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway. The better fuel efficiency around town is a function of the hybrid battery capturing energy from the braking system. The 2021 hybrid improves efficiency over the 2016 Rav4 Hybrid which got 34 mpg city and 31 mpg on the highway.

Front and rear electric traction motors are linked to the powertrain hybrid system providing 42 miles of range from its 18.1-kwh lithium ion battery pack. The electric fuel efficiency is rated at 94 MPGe which is quantified by EPA in kilowatt-hours (kWH) per 100 miles. This is unit of volume per unit of distance, which is exactly the opposite of MPG. Basically, with kWh/100mi, lower numbers are better; with MPG, higher numbers are better. According to the EPA, burning one gallon of gas produces 115,000 BTUs (British thermal units). To generate the same amount of heat by way of electricity, it takes 33.7 kWh. Kilowatt-hours is the standard energy unit for electricity. In simplified terms, if an electric vehicle can travel 100 miles on 33.7 kWh of electricity, the EPA rates it at 100 MPGe. As you can see, this would be a very efficient vehicle, because a gas car would have to travel 100 miles per gallon to be equivalent.

Driving our new Prime off the lot in Carson, CA we caught the interstate and noticed the electric charge running out quickly in EV mode so we switched to HV gas mode. The EV is more efficient to use in town and the HV mode on the highway. Our trip along I10 to I15 took us from a morning of coastal rain into the rain shadow Mohave Desert with July temperatures rapidly increasing from 60 degrees at the coast to over 100 degrees F by the time we reached Barstow. We spent overnight at Lake Las Vegas meeting my brother and his wife for an enjoyable dinner. However, we did not find a charging station at the hotel and continued the next day running mostly on gasoline.

Employing the full-speed range dynamic radar cruise control (DRCC) became the biggest surprise of the trip. Before setting the cruise control I noticed a slight grab by the steering wheel to stay in my lane and when changing lanes only by using my turn signal would the steering wheel release the tension. When setting the cruise control on the interstate, the steering wheel takes over using the radar system to by guided by the traffic lines. This worked okay on straight roads but I did not trust the car to let go of the steering wheel and it seemed to weave left and right as if I was intoxicated. I also noticed cross winds made going straight more challenging. The DRCC slows the car down when getting close to a vehicle in front and I needed to anticipate sooner then normal to go around slower vehicles. Guess I still like to feel in control of the driving and using technology to supplement but not automate my driving experience.

We stayed in Grand Junction from July until November running primarily on EV mode. We could plug-in to the 110v outlet in our garage and full recharge took about 12 hours. We ran the gas engine once per week to keep the fluids moving and after four months only consumed about a half a tank or 5.5 gallons of gasoline. It seemed amazing that we could drive all around town and very rarely need to go more than 42 miles on one change. Luckily, the battery range improved over time and we noticed an improvement up to about 50 miles on one charge.

We got our first free service check at four months. We only put on about 2,500 miles and service is recommended before 4,000 miles or at four months. I asked about gasoline degrading after time and they suggested a BP fuel additive to clean the engine every 10,000 miles. I asked about the ability to recharge the electric battery using the gas engine but the mechanic was not aware of this feature.

Driving on our move from Grand Junction to the east coast, my wife discovered that by holding down the EV/HV button for five seconds allows the gas engine to recharge the electric battery up to about 80% or 32 miles. Using the extra energy stored in the battery helped when getting off the freeways and avoid idling at traffic lights. We still averaged 36 mpg for our trip so perhaps recharging the battery with the gasoline engine does not improve fuel efficiency overall. I still have more to learn and in the next blog will share our experience now that we are staying in an apartment with commercial plug-in charging stations.

In preparing this blog, I learned that Toyota in the second half of this year greatly accelerated supply for the Rav4 Prime and delivered about 20,000 vehicles to the marketplace overall this year. That should help reduce costs at the dealer and offer consumers more choices.

To Conserve & Pro$per: Let Us Count The Ways!

I heard a Chinese Proverb many decades ago that says, “The more possessions you own, the more possessions own you.” At the time I loved to collect books and possessed an extensive library. As I moved around with many boxes of books I eventually donated the books and relied on public libraries. This took a great weight off of my back!

For over six years we’ve demonstrated that even living in an area of no public transit we are happy with one vehicle for our family. We are paying less for car insurance, maintenance, fuel, car washes, and we have more quality family time together. Personal vehicles like personal computers might be the trend but the costs to our pocketbook and the environment will only increase.

So will a carbon fuel tax be one solution to combat global climate change? This would promote green energy sources and decrease demand on hydrocarbons and burning coal for electricity.

The essence of learning to conserve fits many themes to shrink our footprint, have less impact, consume less, 3R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle), and promote more green space. We must plant more trees and preserve the forests and wildlife that remain!

For a New Year’s resolution, let’s all go on a diet and exercise more! Eat less, get thinner, breath fresher air, feel our connection with animals and the environment and find ways to recognize and solve our local, national, and global challenges.

May we all promote a peaceful and prosperous lifestyle!

Consumers in the 1960’s Dictated Frugality to Detroit

My first car that my parents let me drive in High School and College was a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible. The vehicle was already 15 years old when I started driving -- the 8 cylinder, 289 hp engine got about 10 -15 miles per gallon of gas and burned a lot of oil as observed by the blue smoke.

So how did American cars companies in the 1960’s adopt to the megatrend change of smaller more fuel efficient cars?

Recall the counterculture hippy popularity of the VW Beetle and other small cars being made in Europe and Japan? For current fuel efficient vehicles, check out this DOE publication. The Toyota Rav 4 Hybrid that we purchased 14 months ago leads the small SUV category averaging 32 mpg.

The book Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks originally published in 1959 and updated yearly for another decade describes in one chapter “The Fate of the Edsel.” Ford Motor Company used public-opinion polls and motivational research to define what they thought American consumers wanted at the time. Ford invested over $250 million costing more than any consumer project in history (at least at that time). Brooks wrote, “…the fashion of the day…were cars that were long, wide, low, lavishly decorated with chrome, liberally supplied with gadgets, and equipped with engines of a power just barely insufficient to send them into orbit.”

The first Edsel’s came out in the fall of 1957 and just a few months later Consumer Reports published articles that were not complementary calling it “more uselessly overpowered…more gadget bedecked, more hung with expensive accessories than any car in its price class…The luxury-loaded Edsel…will certainly please anyone who confuses gadgetry with true luxury.” The 1958 Edsel E-475 V-8 contained 345 hp in a 410 cubic inch engine.

Brooks citing Consumer Reports concluded that the “car seemed to epitomize the many excesses with which Detroit manufactures were repulsing more and more potential buyers.” Many of the Edsels had serious quality control problems causing frequent breakdowns.

To break even, Brooks said Ford needed to sell 200,000 Edsel vehicles but after about 2 years sold only about half that number which was less than 1% of all passenger cars sold in the US during that period. Ford discontinued the series losing about $350 million. See Business Insider for details.

Brooks quotes Time Magazine: “The Edsel was a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time.” The Wall Street Journal stated, “Large corporations are often accused of rigging markets, administering prices, and otherwise dictating to the consumer.” WSJ commented on lack of consumer support for the end of the Edsel after only two years, “When it comes to dictating, the consumer is the dictator without peer.”

Per Hennings.com, Ford made up for its losses with the frugal Falcon, a mega-hit that became the Mustang's springboard. Its sibling, the Comet, became a Mercury instead of an Edsel.