An Intro

This is an introduction of myself I wrote for a Chevy Bolt Forum.

Hi, I am a new Bolt owner.  I bought my 2021 on March 17.  I really love driving it, to the point where my Miata looks sadly at me every time I leave the house. (The Miata has 290,000 miles on it and I plan to put some money into getting it fixed up, to be my "convertible weather" car).

I'm a very nerdy, geeky kind of guy.  I have a blog about different geeky things I work and play with, mostly computers, but also houses (I have been building mine for 20 years now) and a little bit of cars.  

I have wanted an electric car for a long time, mostly for the economics of it.  I have always enjoyed driving and I live in the country and work 50 miles away in Austin, so I drive 100 miles a day round trip.  Now, my Miata was good on gas (about 29 MPG) but, still that's a lot of miles and a lot of gas (I had to stop for a fill-up every other day).  The last year has been a sort of reprieve, I can do my job from home most of the time so I have probably averaged one day a month in the office for the last year.  

When I drove everyday, I always thought "boy an electric car would be nice, just charge it at home, drive it all day and plug it in when you get home and save, save, save".  But I needed at least 150 miles of range to make that work, and I needed to be able to pay for the car.

My attitude about cars is a little different than most people's.  My dad told me: "The only way to get your money's worth out of a car is to buy it new, take good care if it and drive it until the wheels fall off, then pick them up and put them back on and drive it some more."  I have kept my "daily driver" cars for 8 to 14 years and they were all pretty much worthless when I was done with them.  I plan to own the Bolt for 10 years and I hope to trade it in for (or just replace it with) a much longer range electric car.

The reason it was time for a new car is my wife has been accepted at medical school.  (I am very proud of her.)  Unfortunately, she well be about 250 miles away in Galveston for school and I plan to make the trip often.  Currently we own three cars: the Miata, her 2006 Scion TC and my 1986 F-250.  All are surprisingly reliable for their age, but a 500 mile round trip every other week in any of them seemed unwise.

So with Bolts being discounted pretty deeply due to the 2022 updates, it was my choice for my first electric vehicle.  It could be better, longer range, faster DCFC but it's a very nice compromise between features and cost.  (For more musing on choices see here.)

I have had a lot of fun with the Bolt in the last three weeks.  I have my level 2 charger going and local driving is a breeze, every bit as nice and I thought it would be.  And I love it when I don't have to worry about range and can just drive like I want.  I live on a cul-de-sac that opens on a road with a 65 MPH speed limit (and, it's Texas so everyone is doing 75, well except for that guy everyone is passing in the no passing zone).  When I jump out there I want to jump (I made the Bolt say 160 kWh on the power gauge the other day).

I am studying on how to make long trips in the Bolt and will write more about that as I learn.

So, that's me.  Hi everybody.  Happy Driving.