Electric Vehicles
Dear Editor: Electric vehicles are becoming affordable.
Do you know the average American driver puts 15,000 miles under their wheels per year? And the average gas mileage for new cars and light trucks in 2011 averaged 22.4 miles per gallon?
Thursday, June 30, the gas price in Sitka was $3.04 and that is an annual cost of $2,042. Do you know how much energy is needed to refine one gallon of gas? 6kw. That’s enough energy to propel an EV 20 miles. We have less distance to travel here, say an average of 8,000 miles per year. That is still $1,089. I was recently involved in the purchase of a used 2011 Nissan Leaf. The vehicle cost $8,500 and the shipping $1,300 for a total of $9,800. If this electric car is driven in Sitka 8,000 miles, the cost of electricity to operate the Leaf would be $220 annually. Eight-thousand miles in a Leaf in Sitka is a savings of $869 a year as compared to a car with an internal combustion engine.
The electric vehicle would pay for itself in savings on gas in about 11 years. The technology used in developing batteries is expanding year by year with lots of new types of batteries being invented. Lighter, quicker charging and large capacity using different materials instead of lead acid or lithium ion – there are multiple manufactures going through the process of government testing and approval for these new technologies. In the time it takes to wear out of the Leaf’s lithium ion battery pack new better battery technology will be available when replacing the tired battery pack.
Nissan has a 100,000-mile life expectancy for their current batteries. At 8,000 miles a year, that is at least 12.5 years of driving in Sitka. There would be even more years of service for those who drive less. There are people who have put 150,000 miles on their Leaf. After 150k, your battery capacity might have a usable driving range of 20 miles per charge, which is good enough for some. In Sitka putting 150,000 miles on a Leaf might take nearly 19 years! Now that’s some real savings.
Electric cars keep the air and streets clean.
Fabian Grutter, Sitka
Dog Bites
Dear Editor: Regarding the recent article about dog bites, while I would never wish that every dog owner be attacked and bitten by a snarling, growling, out-of-control dog, I do wish there was some way they could have that personal experience.
I have been attacked and bitten by a dog here in Sitka. The dog was an Austrian Pinscher, a medium sized dog that was originally bred as a farm dog in Austria. Its job is to herd cattle and other livestock, and to control the livestock by biting and snapping to move the cattle and livestock along as it was directed by the farmer. A dog cannot exceed its genetics and breeding. It will do what it has been selectively bred to do and it will do what it is trained and allowed to do. The dog is not a person, it has no independent judgment of right or wrong, it has no self-control other than its training. Check out feral dogs and cats and see what you have without the limits of human training. They are savage wild beasts.
Human judgment prevailing over the dogs’ impulses are the only real controls that exist with a domestic animal. So why am I taking the time for this exposition? Simply to underscore the seriousness of this matter. I am now 8 years past the attack I received. As a human being animal, there is no longer a time in my life when I don’t react to a dog being within a certain distance from me. I never pass by a dog in the back of a parked truck where I don’t make my way out of range of a possible attack. There is no longer a time when I walk past a parked car in which a dog lunges against the window and barks and growls that I don’t recoil.
Am I over-sensitive? No, I don’t think so but I, for one, am willing to say there are serious and real consequences that go far beyond the actual attack. I would suggest that dog owners consider that an attack by their dog is their responsibility and their failure to institute proper controls on the animal is in effect condoning the attack. Oh, by the way, I have been a dog owner of two beautiful Samoyed dogs and they were well-trained and extremely well behaved.
Rob Parker, Sitka
