Day 3 - Let's take a ride in an Electric Car...

Well, I had a lovely little drive on Sunday afternoon with a couple of friends. We took a brief stroll up the motorway towards Trim and then back along the old Trim road. We even saw an Easter Bunny hopping alongside the road. While we were driving we had a listen to this fantastic little tune pointed out to me by my good friend Mags. Have a look at the cool video on YouTube:

Day 2 - Ooops!

Well, not even one day together and we're already having problems! No, not with the car, thank goodness. I haven't had much time driving Pepé. But for the short while we drove around, it was great! However, when I came home last night, parked Pepé into the driveway and plugged him into my home Charge Point - NOTHING! Yep, my home Charge Point doesn't work! Frak! Here I am on Good Friday, the ESB ecar division (responsible for the roll-out of the charging infrastructure) isn't re-opening til Tuesday and I have no way to charge my car!

Well, fear not, the embryonic Irish EV community is here to the rescue. One of my very new friends, with whom I made contact during our attempt to put pressure on the government to move forward with the grant scheme, called over to my house this morning to help me figure out what was going on. After realising that the problem was indeed the charge point and not the cable nor the car, he very kindly offered me the use of his charge point for the day! His neighbours must have thought he had won the lotto with not one, but two Nissan Leafs (Leaves???) in his driveway.

Add this wonderful act of kindness to the phone call I received from the ESB late Friday evening to apologise and send out the contractor to replace the faulty unit! On Holy Saturday! In Ireland! A Semi-State! Amazing. Thanks Oisín, Philip and Nigel for your help this weekend! I really appreciate it.

Day 1 - Earth Day!

I LOVE this picture! It's a shot of NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell staring down at Earth from the International Space Station. This image not only captures just a glimpse of the extraordinary beauty of our planet, but also of the extraordinary ingenuity of our species. And while all too often we use that ingenuity to hurt each other, sometimes, just sometimes we can use it to capture something as truly inspiring as this picture!

I thought I should put this picture up today, of all days given that it is indeed Earth Day! And perhaps Mother Nature was saying something to me when I received that fateful call at 11:45hrs from Nissan Deansgrange. Yes, today is the day that I have finally picked up my first ever battery electric car! Pepé is now home!

Bye Bye Bradley! I will miss you...

This is Bradley, my first ever convertible! From the very first day I took down the top and drove on the motor way I fell in love with convertibles. There is just something so free about having the wind blow through your (hedgehog) hair while traveling at 120 KPH. It's even more amazing when you get to do that in Ireland without getting rained on! But actually, I managed to take the top off the car quite a fair amount during my five-year ownership of Bradley. And despite him being a 1.9L engine, he didn't cost me too much in petrol, due to my relatively conservative driving pattern!

However, more recently my monthly budget on Petrol has been increased, each month this year, to compensate for the rising cost of the 'black stuff'. But where Bradley really hurt me was in maintenance! I have had to get a new catalytic converter every year for the past three years just so he'd pass the NCT emissions test. Additionally, while the engine did run very well (and I'm sure will continue to do so for a few more years yet with his new owner) the parts (and labour) did cost a fair amount. By the way, I took this picture of Bradley beside what I hope will be the last ever petrol pump I will have to visit (at least with my own car!!)

While Pepé is most definitely range-limited (and this is just going to be a problem for many people), not having to visit the petrol station and having little to no maintenance (Pepé has five moving parts in his motor!) is just so worth it for me! Of course, we'll see if I am still saying that when I want to get to Cork in a hurry and I have to stop twice to charge up! Thankfully, my desires to rush to the rebel county have been few and far between in my ten years of driving! Let's see how I get on in the next ten!