This article says the Leaf electric car is selling well in Atlanta:
http://green.autoblog.com/2014/03/03/february-2014-nissan-leaf-chevy-volt-sales/
Nationwide they sold 20,000 of them last year:
http://green.autoblog.com/2014/01/03/nissan-leaf-ends-2013-best-sales-month-ever-chevy-volt/
I see them all over the place around my house. There is dealer down the
street who gets a truckload a month. The Leaf is ideal for urban driving.
It would be useless in rural areas.
I talked to a fellow who has one. He says it takes forever to recharge with
a 120 VAC plug but he doesn't care. He lets it sit overnight recharging.
The 240 V charger is not expensive.
I would think about buying one but my 2004 Geo Metro is still chugging
along, with 58,000 miles on it. It has some minor problems. One backdoor
does not open, and the rearview mirror is glued in place. DeKalb County
says it is worth $300 which I find it insulting. The guy who services it
says he has seen riding mowers with bigger engines.
One interesting problem has cropped up with it which illustrates why old
machines become unusable. Cars in Atlanta have to be tested every year for
emissions. Starting in 1995, all cars were equipped with a computer system.
You tap into the computer data with a plug, which simplifies the emissions
test. Prior to 1995, you had to put the car up on a dynamometer. When I
went to the garage this year they said: "Sorry, we can't test it. Our
dynamometer is broken and we cannot get parts." They said try the guy up
the street. I drove up the street. The guy there said: "my dynamometer is
broken and they want $2,000 to fix it. We don't get many customers for this
anymore so it is not worth fixing. There's a place in Sandy Springs . . ."
The place in Sandy Springs said their dynamometer died last year. The
fourth or fifth place I called finally had one so I had to go to Cheshire
Bridge Road, which is a seedy nearby neighborhood filled with strip joints
with comical names. The web site says the place is "next door to the
Terrific Package Store." ("Package store" is Southern for "liquor store.")
The point is, all of these dynamometers are breaking at the same time
because they're all 20 years or older. They are not worth fixing because
few people have 20-year-old cars. The guy on Cheshire Bridge Road says he
meets many odd people between those of us who drive 20-year-old cars, the
Terrific Package Store and the strip joint clientele. He says oddballs come
from miles around to use . . . the dynamometer.
Old machines and sometimes last a long time. Here is an article about a
punchcard system that has been in use since 1948:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_fix_it_ancient_computers_in_use_today.html
Machines become unusable not necessarily when they wear out, but when the
technical environment changes. When the people who know how to repair them
retire. When spare parts are no longer available. In the case of this punch
card system, when they run out of punch cards, I suppose. Or in the case of
my car, when something you never thought of happens, such as all the
dynamometers in Atlanta wearing out.
This is analogous to a species going extinct when the environment or the
ecosystem around it changes.
After 25 years you do not have to do emission tests anymore, so if the
dynamometer on Cheshire Bridge Road holds out another five years I will be
okay.
- Jed
