Electric Car Diaries: The Inspection

So I’ve had my Nissan Leaf for about two years now, and since it was new when I acquired it, I had two years before I needed an inspection. Time is up, and today I got that inspection.

I don’t have anything new to report on the maintenance of the car beyond what you already know from my previous five entries. I still love this car. The only downsides remain my inability to take it on road trips and the fact that my kids make the backseat a mess on a regular basis — though the latter would be the case regardless of what kind of car I drove, of course.

Today I took it to a mechanic for the vehicle inspection, which could be done anywhere that does inspections. (In other words, no special technician needed.) The inspection took TEN minutes. And the cost? SEVEN DOLLARS. That’s right. SEVEN. No emissions, so, there.

HA!

I love this car.

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To read the entire Electric Car Diaries series, in which you can experience vicariously the sometimes astounding and sometimes entertaining story of how I ended up with this car in the first place, what its features are (from a practical standpoint), and what it’s like to drive it, please click on the links below.

Episode 1: Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

Episode 2: It’s Been A Week

Episode 3: Fingernails That Shine Like Justice

Episode 4: My Other Car Is A Valkyrie

Episode 5: No News Is Good News

Episode 6: The Inspection

Episode 7: My Lease Is Up

Electric Car Diaries: My Other Car is a Valkyrie*

Now that I’ve had The Red Ninja for almost a couple of months, it seemed appropriate to discuss, for those of you following along at home, what it’s really like, from a logistical (and to some extent financial) angle, to own an electric car like the Nissan Leaf. If you’ve been reading the other Electric Car Diaries (here, here, and here), then some of this information might already be familiar to you.

I still love this car. It’s enjoyable and comfortable to drive, and every time I pass by a gas station, I smile a little to myself. (Not smugly, though. Nope, not at all.)

Whenever someone finds out I have an electric car, the first question is almost always about the range on the car: how long can I drive on a single charge? An excellent question. Continue reading “Electric Car Diaries: My Other Car is a Valkyrie*”

Electric Car Diaries: It’s Been A Week

So I’ve had my Leaf for about a week, and to say the learning curve has been steep might be overstating things. The car really has been fun and not all that difficult to work with. There have been a few things, however, that I wish I had been aware of before I’d bought it.  Continue reading “Electric Car Diaries: It’s Been A Week”

Electric Car Diaries: Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

If you know me moderately well, you know that the environment is one of my chief concerns. Its dilapidated state terrifies me. I do a lot of little things daily in an attempt to reduce, reuse, and recycle, to spread the word and lead by example, but sometimes it feels like I’m really just cancelling out some of the thoughtless or destructive behaviors of the people around me who don’t seem to care. It feels painfully, heart-breakingly Sisyphean. Well, this weekend I did something that will make perhaps my largest impact to date. I  Continue reading “Electric Car Diaries: Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is”