Recent content by oilerlord

The car is for me, not for my wife. I'm fine with 80 miles on a charge because I doubt I'll need half that in most situations. My point is that there are times when the EV is perfect for either one of us for grocery getting and other short trips and I want her to love the car - not only because...

We have Spark EV's in Canada, and I could order a new one from my local Chevy dealer but we don't have the any purchase incentives on the car. It's amazing that you guys are able to lease them for $1500 down, and $79 per month. I'm sure we'll see the Bolt on the Canadian website, but without...

I put in an offer on a 2013 FFE this morning, but I think the dealership is closed and will hear back tomorrow if it was accepted. That is a freaking incredible lease deal on the Spark! I'm sure that the federal and state tax credits are rolled into that, so no luck for Canadians. I suppose...

On your advice, I picked up a new-in-box Clipper Creek HCS-40P on ebay for a good deal. My electrician friend is upgrading the existing garage circuit to 50A, and installing a 14-50 outlet. This CC model allows for up to 7.7kW charging, so should be relatively future proof. All I need now is...

Good ideas. The outlet I have in the garage is a nema 6-15, so I'd be upgrading it anyway. Our panel is relatively modern, and the wiring run from the panel to the existing 240 outlet in the garage is only about 15 feet, so with the help of my master electrician friend, installing the "right"...

Thanks. Though a lot of cheap Leafs are available, ones with as little as 20K miles on them have already lost a bar or two likely due to the lack of the liquid battery cooling that both the Spark and Focus have. From what I've read, that goes a long way to making the battery last. Car &...

Still shopping. Used Ford Focus Electrics can be had for around the same price of a Spark EV with 2LT package. I posted earlier about fast charging, and if that's important in a city that doesn't have any L3 chargers. To that point, being able to charge at 6.6kW is much more important (to...

For me, I'd gladly trade the fast charging option for the ability to charge at 6.6kW. Why GM continues to saddle such a great EV with slow 3.3kW charging is puzzling. 6.6kW charging would also allow me to get a reasonably quick top up at home. There are several L2 chargers in my area...but I...

Thanks for the comments...appreciated! I'm going to wait for right deal to come along with or without fast charging. I'm watching a few dealers that have had their Spark EV's on their lots for a long time. There was a 2014 2LT with fast charge and ~12,000 miles - I offered $11,500 a couple of...

USD$10K. As of today, that's about CAD $13,400. No one really knows when DCFC will become available in Alberta but I think it's going to be a long time coming. Alberta has a population of ~4.2 million. To give you some perspective about how many EV's we have on the road in our province; a...

Hey, thanks for that. We don't have any subsidies for solar in Alberta, so for the project to make sense; I sourced all the hardware on my own and had a solar startup company help me install and provision the system. My PV is west biased which isn't necessarily by design, but rather the way...

"Cool" perhaps but a money losing proposition for sure. Typically, the only sensible reason go off grid is if there is no grid available. It's easy to calculate how much solar you need. The first thing you need to do is calculate how much PV you need on your roof. Assume that it takes up to...

I've been musing about putting up ~12 modules on the other side of the garage. https://easyview.auroravision.net/easyview/index.html?entityId=7466210

We'll see. New carbon taxes and rolling out $100,000 DC fast charging stations while Alberta's oil based economy is dying on the vine - isn't exactly vote-inspiring to a laid off oil worker that can't make their mortgage payment. Politics aside, my priorities are lowest price and fewest...

Hungry dogs perhaps, but ears don't necessarily perk up when the car is a zero-profit sale. I've done a few deals via long distance before...pretty standard stuff...CC deposit / wire transfer / title in hand before getting to the border. Logistics are easy to arrange too. Fortunately, the...