Peapod NEV

Peapod is the recently announced, next generation Neighborhood Electric Vehicle announced by GEM. I was pleased to find the website at http://www.greenecomobility.com/peapod , but not price info. I'm hoping it is about $12,000. I can't find video.

Chevy Volt PHEV Car

A couple videos on the Chevy Volt to go with the videos on other makes in my post from a couple days ago. Facebook readers may need to click through to the original blog to see the videos.

Solstice!

The good news is that the days will become longer and the days sunnier. Even if the air is subzero, sunshine makes all the difference.

Minor milestone this morning: The children's Christmas program at church this morning, rescheduled from last week's blizzard, was the last for our kids as our youngest daughter is in 6th grade. That ends a 12 year run of at least one child in the program.

Hybrid, PHEV, or NEV?

We aren't scheduled for a vehicle replacement until 2012, but on the recent cold drives home after work and after supper, I've been thinking about that next vehicle which might be greener. Of course there are the current hybrids like the Toyota Highlander. We looked at the Highlander in 2006, but settled on our Mazda5 which had about the same gas milage at half the price. It is smaller, but we kept our Mercury Villager for the times we need the cargo capacity. (FaceBook readers may need to click through to the original blog post to see the videos.)



The Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) are due to market in 2010 with the Chevy Volt being the best known. Lithium Ion batteries will replace the Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries of current hybrids and allow operation up to 40 miles before the gas engine would need to kick in. At night, the car is plugged in to recharge the battery with (wind generated) electricity. This would handle our Fargo driving quite nicely which, like for most people, would be under our typical daily driving distance. GM may not survive long enough to get the Volt to market and prices for the PHEVs have not been announced. I would have more confidence in a Toyota PHEV.



This week I leanred that GE was working with A123 Batteries which is an MIT spin-off and the Norwegian company ThinkCar. An interesting option as well as a PHEV MiniCooper ($$$$) with 500 available for lease soon.



An option available today is Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. My favorite is the Fargo-produced GEM car. I don't like the 25 mph speed limit and the $15,000+ cost (including doors), but it would support much of our Fargo driving. I'm also unsure how well it would work in the winter. A new model called the Peapod is due out in 2009 and it might address some of my concerns.




Another NEV with a bit nicer appearance is the Zenn car from Canada. Cost is about $17,000 and the nearest dealer is in Minneapolis.

Mr Snuggles Big Blizzard Safety Video

The latest video from Mr Snuggles, created on this hunker down blizzardy day. He gives tips on preparing a winter survival kit and things to do if you are snowbound at home.

This blizzard had been well publicized and arrived pretty much on time at 6:00 PM last night. Today pretty much everything in Fargo ended up shutting down by mid-afternoon except the Subway in downtown Fargo and the ERs in the hospitals. Schools are closed tomorrow. We've had over 10 inches of snow, subzero temps, winds between 30 and 50 mph, and windchills below -40 F. Things will start easing up by bedtime tonight, but then the temp will start dropping and by Tuesday morning we may be pushing -30 F (air temp, not windchill), representing a 50 F drop since Saturday night.

Since this blizzard was early in the winter, we didn't have snowpiles along our east-west running driveway. Thus it has been blown relatively clean. We do have some 3 ft plus drifts in other parts of the yard, including the front door. I'll probably head oputside after sunrise to do some shoveling and figure out when I want to head in to the office. I brought my laptop etc home, so could easily work from here.

After daughter L's piano recital and supper at Cafe Aladin last night, we've been pretty liad back. Church was cancelled by 10:30 last night and we all slept in. Ilene and the girls trimmed another tree (we do multiple small trees rather than one large tree). I paid some bills and then went to the basement to read and watch the Vikings win nicely over Arizona. Tonight I've been helping with video distribution to Facebook and now here.

My regular blog is at www.xanga.com/DakotaNoel, but I'm migrating to Blogger and Blogger seemed to have the nicer video upload capabilities.

Under Construction

Stay tuned for the Grand Opening...