Quote:
Originally Posted by slowmover
The really short answer to your “question” is to continually ask whether the trip is necessary. But that’s aggravating.
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Thanks for your help! Although I'm still reading through it and not understanding all of it.
But anyhow I am trying to lessen the amount I drive. I suppose how I do it is different than in Fort Worth. For one, there aren't many options for alternative routes here in the mountains. Usually there is only one route, or you go three or four times the distance the long way around. I might be able to choose between a couple different routes in each town, most of which are just a mile or two wide, but that's about it.
So for one I'm trying to stay with friends whenever I have to keep driving the next day in a certain part of the state. This was actually necessary with the electric car because it takes too long to charge and because it gets to cold at night sometimes to drive it. But even with a gasoline car I can knock off 130 to 260 miles per week just by staying in the next town with a blowup mattress and a sleeping bag.
I've gotten pretty good about forcing myself to drive as eco as possible in the electric car, but mainly because I have to. For an example, going from Montrose to back to home I have a total of 6,000ft ascending and then 4,000ft descending for 65 miles between charging stations. In order to do that in the Leaf I have to drive 35mph. Now some have ridiculed me for wanting to limit my gasoline car speed to 55mpg, but I do think 35mph is a bit more crazy, especially on narrow single lane highways with speed limits sometimes as high as 60mph or even 65mph.
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowmover
the next step is in avoiding cold starts.
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It's somewhat hard for me to plan for trips, other than the highway drives between towns, because my line of work means going to different addresses that change every day. But I do stop at each address for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, and in weather as cold as -40°F (-40°C). And this means I end up with several cold starts all day long, which was another thing that made me want to get an EV, the idea being I'd use the EV around town and the diesel out of town. But now the diesel is broke and EV is limited to a 20 mile radius from my house due to the weather. (I even ended up having to call a tow truck just yesterday for attempting to drive 65 miles between charging stations in my Leaf in -15°F weather
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Maybe I won't try to modify a car to only do 55mph. But I'm trying to decide what car to get and how to drive and take care of it to get the best fuel mileage as possible and best life out of it too while driving in these freezing cold, tall mountains.