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I've been off the list for many months. I'm back, and enjoying all the interesting messages. I thought that I'd contribute with an update of our experiences with our Honda EV Plus. We leased our car in May 1997 (it is serial # 3), and we've got over 7500 miles on it now. My wife does most of the EV Plus driving. I'm using our Civic conversion. The Civic works great, but the EV Plus does spoil you. Driving the EV Plus on weekends is still a treat for me. As a family of four, it meets over 95% of our driving needs. We've had a few minor problems, but nothing major. We leased our car at Mel Rapton Honda in Sacramento, and we continue to be very pleased with the support we have gotten. Our sales person, Joni Romer, is super. She's a great supporter of EV's. Our biggest challenge has been getting PG&E (our utility) to figure out how to handle a time of use account for alternative fueled vehicles. I believe we were some of the first PG&E customers to use the new "EV rate". We had the meter installed in May. It wasn't until November that everything in the billing department was working correctly. Car-wise we've had troubles with the 240V charging cord. After about 5000 miles, we started noticing that the car wouldn't always recharge. It turned out that the cord has a "pilot wire" that was broken. No pilot signal, no power to the car. We've gotten a new cord, so we're back to normal. (Are we over doing all this safety stuff?) We've had no other problems with the conductive charger setup. I'm still very disappointed that the industry hasn't agreed on a single recharging standard. We've just received a new version of the 110V charging cord. Honestly, we don't use the 110V cord very much. It is very very slow. That's to be expected with only 1.5KW. =20 During the summer months we were comfortable planning with at least 100 miles of range per charge. Now that the weather is colder, we estimate we've got about 80 miles. We still get lots of questions about the car from people every where. It is nice to see that overall it gets a very favorable reception. I think a lot of folks would love to have an EV as a second car. A few weeks ago we got a chance to test drive a GM EV1. I was very impressed. It is a rocket compared to our EV Plus, and great fun to drive. Rationally looking at our needs, the EV Plus is still a better match. Of course, it is fun to dream. I could easily see myself commuting in an EV1. I just need to win the lottery to be able to afford that. I'll continue enjoying my Civic. (I'm also in the process of upgrading my Civic from 96V to 120V. I hope all those positive comments about the 8V batteries are true. I need a bit more acceleration, range is not a problem for my use.) That just about covers it for this time. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me.
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