Dependency

Oil Dependency

It occurred to me recently that I managed to remove one major dependency from my life.  I removed the necessity for gasoline.  It's never so noticeable while I was in the belly of the beast, but I've been out for six months and I'm becoming aware of the after effects.

The most direct item that caught my eye was a Win Free Gas for a Year contest offered by a popular snack food company. At first I thought, well, that might be nice, but the second thought reminded me that I don't use gasoline any more.  And then it hit me, this idea that I have removed myself from not just a monstrous fuel bill each month, but the necessity for all that goes along with the use of gasoline.

Like anything new in life, college, marriage, children, you never really know what it's like until you do it. The same goes for giving up gasoline.  It's a major change and although I was very excited about it, I did not actually understand how it would change my life.

A friend commented the other day to me that she almost missed visiting gas stations because she would forget to clean the windshield and put air in the tires.  Most people visit a gas station on a frequent basis, whether weekly, or biweekly.  These features are taken for granted because we've all grown accustomed to the necessity of visiting the station.  In fact when a station does not have these amenities, it may upset us.

You might hear from the electric car evangelist that you know, that driving electric is amazing.  You might hear of how that person laughs as he or she drives passed each gas station.  Or how they feel liberated from the need to perform oil changes every X thousand miles.  But what you don't hear, unless you're privy to their club chatter, is the more subtle changes in their lifestyles.

Efficient Thinking

For now, electric cars have a limited range by comparison to gasoline-powered vehicles. That means EV drivers spend more time considering where to get the next charge.  But the accidental benefit to this is that EV owners are much more conscious of efficiency.  They don't tend to joy ride.  They plan their routes very precisely. They become familiar with all the best charging places, whether those places are likely to be busy and at what time of day.  In short, electric vehicle owners aren't just driving more efficient vehicle, they are changing themselves to be more efficient people (at least when it comes to motorized transport).

The other change is the concern for the costs of maintaining a vehicle.  The naive person looks only at the price when considering a motor vehicle. But like most things that endure, there are upkeep costs.  The upkeep costs for gasoline-powered vehicles tends to run about 70-80%  of the price of the vehicle over the first 5 years.  Whereas the upkeep for an EV is about 16-20% of the price.  This change is perspective on cost is only realized when the EV driver sees, as I did, after six months the immense cost savings.  It was truly shocking to me (no pun intended). I was paying myself to drive an electric car.

I did not think that driving electric would be such a stark life changer.  It's not like I became a parent, or lost a limb.  But my whole paradigm regarding modern living has shifted slightly, and definitely for the better. I just see things differently, in a manner that I believe people saw when the first motorized vehicles became available over 100 years ago.