[Painting the scene ... ] I decided to visit a grocery store on the affluent northern border of Silicon Valley (Menlo Park and Atherton). This is the largest store in their chain which caters to its more affluent Latino community patrons and the gringos that are happy with this medium-sized store that do not want to fight traffic to go the big-box Safeway. It is a pleasurable environment, despite being one of the few gringos in the busy store (and I really stood-out being the only big & tall one).
I was in a jovial mood as this store is always a good place to lift my spirits. I was able to crack a smile on a fellow shopper's face with a few humorous compliments on how nice every thing was (I broke the ice with is guy - not that I had plans to Evangelize EVs with him). When my shopping was done, as it sometimes happens, he was behind me in the check out line, and he was enjoying the pleasantries I was sharing with the young cashier. As I hobbled my way out the door (at a slow, old-man with stiff joints pace) heading toward the parking lot, he later followed at a younger brisker pace. I noticed a Leaf EV parked in and amongst all the huge family-sized SUVs and large work-trucks most of the Latino patrons had driven-in. It turned out my guy went to the Leaf. And before he could dart away, I said from a couple of spaces over in a loud (but not yelling) voice, "Ahh, another Leaf'r ...". He looked up at me, and after he recognized I was that friendly fellow, he smiled like 'this guy knows EVs (?)' ... Now that I had something to work with, I could do my EVangelizing schtick. It turns out he just bought his 2012 Leaf EV. He did have his Chargepoint and Blink cards, but never heard of recargo.com , carstations.com , or plugshare.com to look up all the EVSE in the area. I let him know that the Chargepoint and Blink charging maps are incomplete and focused on their brand of EVSE. Whereas the aforementioned EV Charging finder app/sites listed all the brands (you get the whole enchilada). I knew I had a limited time chatting with him as he was likely ready to leave, so I got in only a couple more crucial points to hopefully enlighten this new driver. He didn't know that his 2012 Leaf had a half-power 3kW charger, and if he had waited for the new 2013 model coming, he could get a Leaf with a full-power 6kW on-board charger. He said he usually just charged at home (I could see that if he did not explore his public EVSE options he would not utilize the Leaf's full potential). I said that is fine, but you ought to know how to find and use what is out there, encase ... I laid out the scenario of what if he had visiting friends or family that decided quickly that they wanted to go to San Francisco (a 75+ mile round-trip, his max range). What are you going to say to them, no ... (?) He had that epiphany look on his face. I said you know there is level-3 charging, so you can easily show off your EV by driving to SF in it (that put more of a smile on his face). He said when you say level-3, is that the 220 Volt? ... (Wow, this guy bought an EV and has a ways to go to know all the fun bits/details of his EV). I explained the different levels to him. I told him right now there is free level-3 EVSE so it would be wise to know how to use those tools to find them. He then mentioned that he had used a quick charger at Stanford Shopping Center http://www.recargo.com/sites/1565 but it was not free. I explained, that one was not free, but there are still many other L3 nearby that are (isn't it funny how an affluent fellow would be concerned about paying for a charge). I confirmed that he is familiar with the Leaf forum, so he knows to tap-into/network with them. With our conversation coming to an end, we said our goodbyes. I hope I had conveyed is that this new driver needs to explore all the free tools available to him which will let him enjoy EV driving fun even more. On the way home, I remembered to stop by a different store for the items I had forgotten to buy at the first. When inside, I did a quick chat with an elderly gal (~10+ years my senior, bent over, yet muddling her way through what time she has left). Again as it turned out, we were in the same checkout line, but I was behind her this time. As we both hobbled our way toward the door, and pausing to let large families go through the exit door first, and let the impatient rude ones by-pass us old&slow-folk (like the way people drive only with their feet), I paused as the elderly woman unloaded her cart. I left her with knowing some other stores nearby she might enjoy shopping at. But she does not go far in her fairly new ice, nor have (nor likely want) a computer to know of these places. I left her with, "You know, at that different store I mentioned, I saw a new Electric car made by Nissan" (I figured she would likely not even acknowledge an interest in such things and I would let it go). But to my surprise, she stopped and turned to me, and said "An Electric car?" I gently chided her before leaving, that if she were part of the computer age, she could find out more. We smiled at our parting. I thought as I headed toward my ride, changing over to drive an EV is so much less work for an older person to have to deal with (you know the drill: no oil changes, no smogging, no this or that). As I age (I am getting up there), you need less complication in your life. What tasks seemed so simple to remember, are easily forgotten. An EV would reduce the amount of grief owning an ice causes. {brucedp.150m.com} ... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gringo ... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schtick ... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+whole+enchilada {brucedp.150m.com} -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Access all of your messages and folders wherever you are _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
