In last week’s Scooter Sunday comments, Dave2 mentioned how my scooter had been “oddly absent from Scooter Sundays as of late…” And he is right, albeit partially.

Scooter Sunday #17 was a recap of my vacation in Park City, with no scooter coverage at all.

For Scooter Sunday #16, I was on vacation that week, where my scooter remained parked in the shed while I updated my fun time at a concert and the start of my week off in Park City.

Looking at previous posts, there was Scooter Sunday #15 where I raved about my gas mileage I am getting, compared to my car. And then the posts for Scooter Sunday #12, #13 and #14 covered the saga of how the dealer broke my scooter, and it’s glorious [but marred] return.

So while the most recent Scooter Sundays were lacking in scooter coverage, I will do what I can to refocus coverage back on the scooter, at least until the end of the riding season, which I hope to extend well into October.

Speaking of…

I filled up my scooter’s gas tank this last week. The cost was $4.17 for exactly one gallon. It’s obvious that the Honda dealer did some good with my scooter when they did the regular maintenance on it. Either that or it’s broken in now that it’s been driven over 1,400 miles. Regardless what happened, I ended up getting 106 mpg… three more miles per gallon than last tank. I doubt it will get any better than this, but I’m just amazed at how lean it is on fuel [it helps that it doesn't go over 45mph]. And of course it’s still so fun to ride, getting looks from everyone, including fellow scooter riders.

Long Rides

Last night’s ride was pretty long. My friend had a party at his house. He doesn’t live too far away, but it’s at least five miles from my house. And five miles is actually a decent distance on a scooter. Since this was a drinking party, I stopped at the grocery store to get a couple bags of ice. One bag fit into the seat of my scooter and the other bag laid on the floorboard between my feet.

Then a couple of hours into the party, we ran out of few drink ingredients. Since I wasn’t at a state of inebriation that hindered my ability to drive, I offered to run down to the store to pick up the items. The ride home at 1:30am [I was mostly sober by then] was not bad. I brought my windbreaker with me, since the temperature gets chilly at night. Plus with hardly any cars on the road at that time, it made for a pleasant ride home. Can I say again how much I love my scooter. Oh yeah.

Breaking Dawn

The popularity of this book series by Stephanie Meyer is incredible. Older teens and adults of every age have snapped up all of these books, including the latest and final part “Breaking Dawn”. My wife just borrowed the first three books from a friend and will start reading them. I wouldn’t mind reading them, even though it takes me forever to get through a book. I love to read and as a budding author, I’ve got a vested interest in these books that consume the interest of a collective general audience.

Plus, as my daughter told me, there is a movie coming out, based on the first book “Twilight”, which just got moved up by three weeks to open on November 21st, 2008. Let’s see if I can read the first book by then, so I don’t sit in the theater scratching my head while everyone around me is in tune with the plot.

Next Week on Scooter Sunday

Next week, Scooter Sunday will be posted late due to my trip to San Francisco. If it all works out like I hope it will, I’ll have something different to post, which will involve scooters. Stay tuned.

One of the current topics of today is gas prices. You can’t turn on the TV or open a newspaper without finding a story about how much gas costs. Consumers everywhere are making changes. I ride my scooter as much as I can to help reduce how much gas I use for my commute. My car – a 2001 Nissan Sentra GXE – which I paid off in March 2008 and gets around 30 mpg on the average. I don’t have an exact figure of how much I’ve saved, both gas and money, but I’m sure it’s a nice sized dent of what others are spending that drive bigger cars or get less miles-per-gallon with their vehicles.

With the price of a gallon of gas at $4 [give or take 10-20 cents nationwide], people are wanting change. They want to save money. They are tired of big oil. But other than the ten or so models of hybrid and electric cars available today, there is not a large selection of options for someone who is both environmentally conscious and wants to reduce their reliance on gasoline for their daily commute. Change is coming, but not soon enough.

Chevy Volt

Original image found at chevy-volt.net

More than a year ago, GM announced the Chevy Volt, an electric car of hybrid proportions. It’s not a 100% electric car, as there is a gas engine under the hood. Technically, this makes it a hybrid. The talking heads at GM have been downplaying the word “hyrbrid” as to not lump it in with the current breed of hyrbrid vehicles on the market now. The Volt is technically defined as a plug-in hybrid, meaning you can charge the batteries without using the gas engine to charge them. You have a charging station installed in your garage that you plug into the Volt nightly, which takes approx. 6-8 hours for a full charge. Then when you drive off the next morning, you get about 40 miles of run time on electricity before the gas engine kicks in and starts charging the batteries.

The Volt will be available in 2010 and according to recent reports, more than 30,000 people are lining up to get one. And at a estimated cost of $40,000, it’s almost double what an average economy car costs, but (obviously) more efficient. Exciting, but two years is a long time to wait. Gas could easily be $5 a gallon by then. What consumers want is change now.

It Could Have Been Better By Now

General Motors, who recently posted a $15 billion loss, is trying to scramble, like all of the car makers, to produce cars that are either more fuel efficient or vehicles that use an alternative form of fuel. And many of them are announcing vehicles, like the Volt, that won’t be available for a couple more years. Personally, while I applaud their efforts, it’s a bit late in the game. A deathbed repentance if you will, to try and make things better. Well, back in 1996, a lot of companies like GM had their chance to make a change. GM was at the forefront of change with the electric car.

GM EV1

Original image found at Modern Racer

In 1996, General Motors came out with the EV1, an all-electric vehicle. I won’t bore you with all of the details, which you can read here. But just to summarize, it was a leased vehicle that had a strong following at the beginning. It was the start of what would have been the change to alternative fueled mainstream cars. There were some glitches and other shortcomings [like a short run time on each battery charge], but over the years, that all could have been worked out, getting these out there to consumers. But GM deemed it a failure and by summer of 2003, all cars were recalled, removed from the roads and either donated to schools or destroyed. There is a great documentary film called “Who Killed The Electric Car?” that brilliantly documents what happened, complete with first-hand accounts, discussions with owners, official statements from those that worked on the project and the group that attended the final protest/standoff when they hauled the cars away.

Now GM is claiming the Volt is the next step from the EV1, even going so far to announce that people who worked on the EV1 project are part of this new endeavor. An expected announcement, since it is a given that anyone that was familiar with the events surrounding the demise of the EV1 would be soured on any future work that GM would be involved in. Which is the same sour expression I had when I first heard about the Volt. My thoughts were, “Well, there’s 11 years that we could have been so much further along towards adopting electric cars.”

Don’t get me wrong. I really am happy about any progress made towards reducing our reliance on fossil fuels for transportation, regardless of who is behind it. But you have to wonder how serious people are taking GM for this Volt project and the longevity of it. I’m sure some are being open-minded, but the company is in a different place than they were 12 years ago. They are hurting big time. They have no choice but to finally embrace a change of how they make cars. It’s too bad they couldn’t have been smarter, because if they would have, it could have been them at the top of the heap, producing reasonable electric cars that most of the buying public could afford. But this is where we are today, everyone rushing to be part of the “me too” marketplace and still a couple of years out before they can deliver an overpriced product for the consumer.

Nissan Puts Their Plug Into The Electrical Outlet

Original image found in the post on Jalopnik.com

While we are on the subject of ‘vehicles a couple years out’, Nissan just announced their all-electric car a couple of weeks ago. The test model they showed looks very similar to a Scion xB. While I’m not that fond of the boxy design, I’m really looking forward to seeing what the final specs will be when it comes to the US in 2010. Yes, this one is also two years away, but it’s another option we will have at that time. I’m a fan of Nissan and I could see myself being an owner, quickly getting over my dislike for the body style in favor of driving a car that uses NO GAS.

My Plans For the Future

So you ask.. what are my plans for the future for personal transportation vehicles? Let me outline what I am thinking about.

• Riding my scooter – As most of the regular visitors to this blog know the love I profess of my Honda Metro scooter in my Scooter Sunday posts, it has been the biggest thing I’ve used so far to change my commuting habits. I take it instead of my car to work, to the store, to run small errands and it has become my vehicle of choice when I need to go somewhere [when I am not required to carry large items or additional passengers]. We are planning on getting a second scooter for my wife next year, which will help her save energy and money in her local travels. We are looking at both gas and electric models, depending on what is both practical and affordable at the time of purchase.
• Reducing trips – When we do take either my car or my wife’s truck, we do what we can to reduce multiple trips. If we are out, we plan to get all of the items we need in one trip, not driving all over to save a buck on some item. It’s much more cost effective to pay a little more and just purchase the products we need at one or two stores. Believe me, this helps a lot and goes a long way to not only reducing the gas we use, but reducing the effect on the air and environment.
• Walking – I need to exercise. As I recently told another blogger, I plan to start an exercise program that will help me reduce some of the load I’ve let collect on my body. Why get in the car to go 4-6 blocks when you can walk. My step-daughter lives 4 blocks away. Where possible, when we go over, we walk. Of course, with winter coming in four months, that may not be as feasible, but while it’s 80-90 degrees out, we plan to walk instead of drive. Same with some store visits. We live about 4 blocks from a couple of stores and the last couple of trips we made were on foot. So not only do we get exercise, we also leave the car and truck at home, further reducing our oil consumption.
• A new blog site – In an effort to really stretch myself thin with yet another project, I am working on a new blog that I will launch soon. It’s going to be based on cars, vehicles, transportation and everything that has to do with how we get around. I’ll announce it here on this blog when it’s ready.

Let’s Hear From You

So what have you done to reduce driving? Walking? Biking? Scooter? Bus? Train? Tell me. I really want to know. And the more details, the better.

Welcome to another edition of Scooter Sunday.

Efficient

Not a day went by that I wasn’t on my scooter. Which means that my car was parked most of the time [except for the days my wife took it to work instead of her truck]. The scooter holds just over a gallon of gas. When I figured my mileage last Thursday, I had ridden 110 miles since the last time I filled up [which was the previous Thursday]. I added 1.07 gallons to the tank. Doing the math, that’s 103 miles per gallon. My car, at best, gets 30 in the city. I normally use mid-grade in the scooter, which is $4.27 a gallon at this time. Unless gas really goes up, it will cost me about $5 a week to fill my scooter. The goal is to only have to fill the tank in my car once a month [which is now $55 per tank]. The weather should be nice through most of September to keep riding my scooter, and part way into October. Not only is that efficient, but it’s also saving me a decent amount of money on gas. Woo Hoo!

The Final Days

Mama cat – just a few weeks ago

Since Friday morning, we have been on cat watch. Our oldest cat, Mama [20 years old last month], has stopped eating and just lays around. It is now Sunday morning and she is still with us, but the time is fading. She has trouble getting up and will lay in the grass for hours without moving. She does not react to cat treats, tuna, milk or lunch meat. We check on her every hour or so, with the exception of during the night, checking on her before we go to bed and when we get up in the morning, although I got up at 5am this morning to get a drink and went out to check her status.

She tries to drink a little bit of water, but it’s all she can do to just stand up without falling over. It is sad to watch her in this state and we know she’s not comfortable, but we are doing what we can to make her last days as good as we can.

That’s all for now

It’s a short one this week, but time with the cat is more important right now. Will post later in the week.

Winters are too damn long here in Utah and I really don’t care what people say….. and let me tell you… I hear it all:

“We need the water”

“The snow is so beautiful”

“I just made a yellow snow cone”

Cold weather is not friendly to a lot of things, scooters being one of them. So when the weather gets even close to hitting 70 degrees, I start jonesing for my scooter. I’ve only had it one year, but in that year, I’ve ridden it to work and back as many times a week as I can, go for relaxing rides on smaller roads AND…. I can go almost 3 weeks on a tank of gas for BOTH my scooter and my car. And that was last summer when gas was $2.50 a gallon. Top that, Hummer owners!!

So it was no secret when I saw the weather hit close to 70 on Sunday, that I knew a scooter ride was inevitable. It was a short ride, but nonetheless, well deserved.

The ride was great… down the short hill from my house, past the Jordan River parkway, up the freeway overpass, past the Murray Golf Course, back up a bigger hill and straight down the road back home. It was about 10 minutes, but it was nice. I had been waiting for this day since the last time I rode, which was sometime in early October.

And since the weather was staying nice through Monday, I decided to extend my scooter-riding pleasure another day by leaving the car at home and riding to work.

And even though it must sit in the parking lot most of the day surrounded by ‘gas guzzlers’, it’s still out in the sunshine, knowing it’s days of regular travel are just around the corner.