Drove my Leaf to the gas station to get gas

[Rat]

Today I started to mow the lawn and realized I didn't have enough gas in the can for the mower. My wife had the Acura so I drove the Leaf to the gas station and up to the pump to fill the can. It would have made a good picture. No one said anything about why an electric car was at the pump. The pump had a big sign that said CASH OR ATM ONLY so I went to the pay station and pushed the button for my pump and then a menu came up with two choices: credit card or ATM (both of which cost extra). Under that was a notice that if I wanted to use cash I had to go to a different pay station. Grrr. I canceled the transaction, went inside, and complained to the attendant, who said I could pay him, which I did. Boy, I'd forgotten what a pain it is to buy gas. Now my Leaf smells like gasoline.

 

[Nubo]

... Now my Leaf smells like gasoline.

Ewwwwww!!!

Lol, ours just smells like dog. Thank goodness for seat covers :lol:

 

[GlennD]

I did that once to get gas for my standby generator. It took a couple of days with the windows open for the smell to go away, but it did go away.

With the exception of the gas can I have purchased no gas since December 18, 2011.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Stopped at the gas station in my Leaf to get Pepsi. Office only has Coke and that gets annoying sometimes.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

I too have pulled up to a gas pump in the Leaf to get gas... for the leaf blower. :lol:

 

[EricBayArea]

I stopped by a gas station to put air in the LEAF tires. Felt a little guilty at first but then again it's the station I go to to fill up our ICE car. I was wondering if someone was going to say something but no one was the wiser.

 

[TomT]

I do it all the time to fill up the tank for the outboard on the dinghy of our boat... (Don't ask how much the boat itself takes!)

 

[Electric4Me]

Today I started to mow the lawn and realized I didn't have enough gas in the can for the mower.

I too have pulled up to a gas pump in the Leaf to get gas... for the leaf blower. :lol:

Ditch these polluting beasts and buy electric! (or use a rake/broom instead of a blower)
[/offsoapbox]

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Ditch these polluting beasts and buy electric!
[/offsoapbox]

If I wanted to drag a couple hundred feet of extension cord around the yard that would be a great idea. Besides, where do you think the electricity comes from? COAL!!!

or use a rake/broom instead of a blower
[/offsoapbox]

If I wanted the spend all day accomplishing what the blower does in five minutes that would also be an option.

 

[derkraut]

Ditch these polluting beasts and buy electric!
[/offsoapbox]

If I wanted to drag a couple hundred feet of extension cord around the yard that would be a great idea. Besides, where do you think the electricity comes from? COAL!!!

or use a rake/broom instead of a blower
[/offsoapbox]

If I wanted the spend all day accomplishing what the blower does in five minutes that would also be an option.

I never did understand lawn/leaf blowers. So you blow the debris from one spot to the other. Unless you gather it together in a pile and pick it up, what have you accomplished? Now...a vacuum makes a lot more sense.
btw: I got rid of my gas mower about 10yrs ago. I have a B&D cordless 24V rechargeable electric (no cords to drag around). Haven't done a thing to it in all this time, except sharpen the blade one time.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

I never did understand lawn/leaf blowers. So you blow the debris from one spot to the other. Unless you gather it together in a pile and pick it up, what have you accomplished? Now...a vacuum makes a lot more sense.

You don't want to pick up the leaves and grass clippings and put them in a landfill, you want to blow them off the street, driveway, walks, etc back into the grass, where they decompose into mulch that is good for the environment. You know, some of us are very concerned about the environment.

 

[adric22]

Actually, I bought all-electric lawn equipment 10 years ago (Mower, weed-trimmer, and blower) because I was fed up with the poor reliability and inconvenience of operating gas powered equipment. I think I was spending more time working on my lawn equipment than I was working on my lawn. That changed when I switched to electric.

The one irritating thing was at the time my weed-trimmer required a 100 foot extension cord. I spent more time unwinding and re-winding that thing, not to mention getting the tangles out of it, than I did actually trimming weeds with it. Fortunately, a few years later they came out with lithium powered weed trimmers and it changed everything.

I still see my neighbors out fighting with their gas powered lawn equipment. I just go get mine, flip a switch, start working. When I'm done, plug it back in, go take a shower.

Interestingly enough, my switch to electric automobiles has been for pretty similar reasons. Time & convenience play a big part.

 

[Electric4Me]

Ditch these polluting beasts and buy electric!
[/offsoapbox]

If I wanted to drag a couple hundred feet of extension cord around the yard that would be a great idea. Besides, where do you think the electricity comes from? COAL!!!

or use a rake/broom instead of a blower
[/offsoapbox]

If I wanted the spend all day accomplishing what the blower does in five minutes that would also be an option.

I have to assume that you're just posting that to get reactions. You would be doing the world a favor to run coal/electricity powered outdoor equipment instead of gasoline powered. They are the furthest thing from clean & efficient.

And fine, blow all you want, just consider doing it electric.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I never did understand lawn/leaf blowers. So you blow the debris from one spot to the other. Unless you gather it together in a pile and pick it up, what have you accomplished? Now...a vacuum makes a lot more sense.
btw: I got rid of my gas mower about 10yrs ago. I have a B&D cordless 24V rechargeable electric (no cords to drag around). Haven't done a thing to it in all this time, except sharpen the blade one time.

It has been a lot of years since I've had a lawn but back when I did I just used a push mower. As long as it was kept sharp it worked quite well.

However, the easiest way to avoid mowing a lawn is to not have one in the first place. I never understood the attraction of having lots of water-sucking turf around a house, but that might be because I've mostly lived in dry places where wasting water on landscaping isn't a good idea, even though lots of people do it.

 

[caffeinekid]

It has been a lot of years since I've had a lawn but back when I did I just used a push mower. As long as it was kept sharp it worked quite well.

However, the easiest way to avoid mowing a lawn is to not have one in the first place. I never understood the attraction of having lots of water-sucking turf around a house, but that might be because I've mostly lived in dry places where wasting water on landscaping isn't a good idea, even though lots of people do it.

The other nice thing about "analog" mowers (and to a lesser degree electrics) is that if you happen to live in a place like Texas where it is stupid hot during the summer, you can mow your lawn at the crack of dawn without angering your neighbors.

And I agree with replacing the grass with as much native landscaping as possible....I forget what the term for that is. Also keeping rain barrels is nice.

 

[dgpcolorado]

It has been a lot of years since I've had a lawn but back when I did I just used a push mower. As long as it was kept sharp it worked quite well.

However, the easiest way to avoid mowing a lawn is to not have one in the first place. I never understood the attraction of having lots of water-sucking turf around a house, but that might be because I've mostly lived in dry places where wasting water on landscaping isn't a good idea, even though lots of people do it.

The other nice thing about "analog" mowers (and to a lesser degree electrics) is that if you happen to live in a place like Texas where it is stupid hot during the summer, you can mow your lawn at the crack of dawn without angering your neighbors.

And I agree with replacing the grass with as much native landscaping as possible....I forget what the term for that is. Also keeping rain barrels is nice.

I'm not sure that there's a term for native plant landscaping but the term for low water landscaping is "xeriscape". It was invented by the Denver Water Board decades ago as part of a plan to encourage reduced water use for landscaping and has become widely adopted.

With one exception, I grow only plants native to my neighborhood but that's because I am an amateur botanist and I like to experiment with them and teach my neighbors to appreciate natives. But it isn't landscaping in the usual manicured "English garden" sense of the term. One advantage of having the native plants is that I get lots of wildlife, especially in winter when food sources are limited for the animals.

 

[Rat]

I agree with the posts here about reducing water usage and approving electric tools and native growth. We landscaped both front and back, reducing lawn area by 50% or more and getting rid of our pool, which wasted time, effort, water, and electricity in huge amounts. A large portion is now hardscape and what isn't is mostly watered by drip line. I have electric edger (weed whacker) and electric hedge trimmer and electric leaf blower. The mower is still gas, though. In N. California electricity is about 0% coal-powered. I mow my own lawn, too, which reduces the hydrocarbon emissions from the gardeners' big old honkin' pickups I see all over the place. We could do better, but it's pretty responsible.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Actually, I bought all-electric lawn equipment 10 years ago (Mower, weed-trimmer, and blower) because I was fed up with the poor reliability and inconvenience of operating gas powered equipment. I think I was spending more time working on my lawn equipment than I was working on my lawn. That changed when I switched to electric.

The one irritating thing was at the time my weed-trimmer required a 100 foot extension cord. I spent more time unwinding and re-winding that thing, not to mention getting the tangles out of it, than I did actually trimming weeds with it. Fortunately, a few years later they came out with lithium powered weed trimmers and it changed everything.

I still see my neighbors out fighting with their gas powered lawn equipment. I just go get mine, flip a switch, start working. When I'm done, plug it back in, go take a shower.

Interestingly enough, my switch to electric automobiles has been for pretty similar reasons. Time & convenience play a big part.

i think you are trading carb rebuilds, gas conditioning, etc. (i switched from gas as well because of the annual 2 days of crap i went thru every spring as well) for battery loss, reconditioning, weight etc.

i have electric, its all corded and the hassles of managing the cord amounts to about 5 minutes or less every time i do yard work. solved it by one of those fluorescent orange plastic cord reels. cost me like $8 and it is a great time saver. should have done it years ago. i had 5 acres and a detached garage so managing cords was something i had a ton of experience with including a home made 8-3 250 ft cord which was always a 20 minute ordeal every time i used it. but it took a few years before i finally realized that there was no method of coiling that made the job as easy as just rolling it up. for that i modified one of those roll around water hose holder thingys. worked wonders!

 

[ERG4ALL]

I have two 5 gallon yellow diesel fuel cans. I go the gas stations in the LEAF to fill them up. We live almost 15 miles to the gas station and I figured out that it costs me more to drive the diesel truck to the gas station and back than it does to top off the truck tank using the 5 gallon cans. If people only knew the facts about the LEAF.

I had a repairman out to the house recently to adjust our stove/oven. We got to talking and he told me that "with some EVs it costs just as much for the electricity as it does for gasoline". I wanted to tell him how stupid he was to believe that, but I counted to 10 and said that was inaccurate and take it from someone that owns a LEAF. I then said my old car would go 20 miles on a gallon of gas which cost me about $3.60. The LEAF can do the same mileage with about 4 kWh which even at our prime rate of $0.10 per kWh it would only cost me 40 cents. I got no reply. I have no idea if he'll keep spreading the same fantasy or not.

 

[TonyWilliams]

The LEAF can do the same mileage with about 4 kWh which even at our prime rate of $0.10 per kWh it would only cost me 40 cents. I got no reply. I have no idea if he'll keep spreading the same fantasy or not.

If they listen to the same radio and TV crap that my parents listen to, your firsthand experience means nothing compared to the stalwarts of Beck, Hannity, Rush, Faux Noose, etc. The nutty conspiracy guy on late night radio (east of the rockies, call XXX, west of the rockies, call YYY) is another classic.

My mother has told me that wind powered generators use 60% of their produced power to "hold the brake", whatever that actually means to her. But, the assumption is that they are 60% efficient.

I told that gasoline cars were 25% efficient, and that's not including all the energy to convert that from a black goo in the ground to a refined product in your gas tank. Next time I saw them, same BS.

Solar doesn't work either (by the way, they've both been in my LEAF, and my dad was on my roof to look at the 35 solar PV panels). Volts are Obama's payoff to (fill in the blank to whatever theory makes sense that day). My mother could not fathom that driving a Volt would save her money when she retired. She wanted a Cadillac for her retirement present to herself, and I thought that the gas mileage of such a car, even with today's "cheap" gas wouldn't be a good idea for her. She didn't want her electric bill to go up, and could not actually get her mind around a $10-$20 bigger electric bill would be offset by not spending $100-$200 on gas. Absolutely could not get it; kept coming back to "I don't want a bigger electric bill".