Anyone that argues that either a Leaf or Cruze is cool needs to turn in their Man Card immediately. Those cars each have their good points -but to argue a cool factor is really sad. And I don't care what you fly.

Real men don't need a "man card".

Mike C.

GREAT now you tell me as I just applied for mine

I thought swinging a cat in SoCal meant that someone from PETA would hit YOU with a Tesla, Leaf or Prius?

I thought swinging a cat in SoCal meant that someone from PETA would hit YOU with a Tesla, Leaf or Prius?

What kind of heater and defroster is in these battery electric cars? I would think that would consume a lot of battery in cold weather.
I dont see an electric car in my futur. I just have an electric forklift in the corner of the shop with a dead battery that got screwed up by not recharging it properly.

LEAF models other than the base have a heat-pump as primary. (Base LEAF has electric resistance heater only.) Also has heated seats (all around) and heated steering wheel to take some of the load, and can be pre-cooled/pre-heated from my cell phone or web browser. If docked to a charger, the power for that comes from the wall, not the on-board battery.

Smart electric uses a liquid coolant to air exchanger (like a normal car). This is based on salesman information, so don't take that one to the bank, but sounds possible.

Tesla can be pre-conditioned as well, so I assume it's also an electric heat pump, but don't know for sure.

Worst case condition for an EV is night (lights on), frosting (defrost needed), cold (battery capacity way down).

Significant impact to range.

Canadians won't be large scale adopters of EVs until something changes.

Californians, on the other hand, make reasonably good EVs candidates.


And people run ICEs to destruction without oil in them. There is always a way to screw something up.

Mike C.

That's right up until Big Electricity or Big Battery comes along. Now, we fight for oil in the middle east. Batteries all need rare earth minerals that come from China. The next energy economy will see us fighting in Asia for yttrium.


All of that aside, I've been thinking about a Tesla as my next car. They're especially well suited to aircraft owners. I never drive a car a long distance. If I'm going more than about 50 miles, I fly the plane.

Drive it to the airport, plug it in to the hangar, fly out. Sounds pretty convenient to me.

They work great, create recreation areas (lakes) and have very little maintenance. Unfortunately, there aren't many places to build one.

Is that off the shelf or did ya do some "home brewin"?

They are perfect. Plus, at least in a few states, you can get into the HOV lane with one person, which out here in SoCal is worth its weight in gold. It also means I can stop carrying around a blow up dummy (i have her back to Farmer).

I have the 85KW battery pack and I can honestly say I will get 230-250 miles of "real world" range. That includes driving 70-80, keeping the AC at 68-69, going up and down several thousand feet foothills, etc.

Being able to turn on the AC remotely is wonderful. Since I have on-board Internet, I usually turn it on about 20-30 minutes out of landing and really let the car cool down (I am parked outside). That's nice.

The one thing you get over is this idea of range. You generally plug in the car every day, so in essence you are filling up every night and have a fresh range. Not many people I know need more than 250 miles each day. I am sure there are corner cases, but that's decent range.

There is a vampire drain of something like 10-12 miles per night. The airport is 25 miles or so from my house and I have been very comfortable leaving the car there for a week without charging. Still had more juice than I needed.

The proliferation of Tesla Superchargers is great. There was a trip out to PSP that I needed to drive and it would have been longer than my range round trip. However, they just opened up a few charging stations along the way and I can get around 200 miles of range added back in for free in about 25 minutes. That's pretty cool.

I feel compelled to post my plate picture again from another thread...

My local airport has power available inside all the hangars and outside in a few spots. I'd have no problem plugging one in while gone.

That's what people have trouble getting past. You have a full tank every morning.

That's what people have trouble getting past. You have a full tank every morning.