The Initial Decision- Adventures in EV Pioneering- The 2023 Summer Trip with Terri and Gordon

I am 60 years old this year. I live in an apartment with only a carport. I am not an adventurous car person. My income has been lower middle class for most of my adult

life. I knew nothing about driving an EV BUT, I did it anyway. I bought an Electric Vehicle with my best buddy of the last 45 years. I had a paid off 2015 Chevy Sonic but it kept having issues with plumes of smoke coming out of its Internal Combustion Engine. A day came that I could not drive it anymore. I had my reasons but it came down to more than just idealism and conviction. It came down to practicality. We knew the old one was close to dying.

The repair bill for our 2015 Chevy Sonic was over $2,000 every 4 months. That was higher than the car payment every month has been. I was afraid of hitting the gas while going up hills because that was when the smoke would pour out. Being someone who has spent years focused on the damage CO2 does to the atmosphere and driving an ICE vehicle caused me tremendous amounts of inner discord. I couldn’t take it anymore.

If you can’t rely on reaching your destination and you can’t afford the cost of using your vehicle, everyone comes to the same conclusion eventually and abandons their old vehicle. It is a simple and agonizing math problem.

It is really the same as the usual math problem everyone already has over their car ownership. Can I afford to drive this car? Do I trust this car to get me to my destination? If the answer is “no” to either of those questions, you will want to know more about electric vehicles before buying your next car.

To be honest, I am shocked at how much fun my EV is to drive. Even though I am technically unemployed, I have been so happy to make the car payments. In fact this car payment is larger than any other car payment of my life. Honestly though I have found myself smiling as I pay each month to drive what is essentially the bank’s car.

I want to share my adventures in learning this whole new way of life and assure you that everyone driving is already an electric vehicle driver, most just don’t know it yet. You will probably figure it out over the next few years so reading about my adventures will be helpful to anyone who is not as wildly adventurous as I am.

Join me in figuring out life driving an EV as our primary car.