Deceleration

We’re in the car today, our “Flying Car” because it has Falcon Wing doors and it can fly down the road. We’re heading north to visit family and our trip consists of three Tesla Supercharger stops, one ferry ride, one child that has intermittent car sickness and one blind child who only wants to run.

My husband has planned the trip around rush hour traffic, super charger locations, ideal time to stop for lunch and the ferry schedule.   And so far things are going well.   Oh wait, I spoke too soon, my daughter is just now saying she has to go potty and she can’t hold it and it’s too late and we’re on a road with no stops for several miles.

Driving in the electric car is comfortable and quiet.   There aren’t engine vibrations and you can ask the car to play any song you want.  

I’ve been driving an electric car almost exclusively for over a year so I forget how things work in a conventional internal combustion engine car.  Earlier this week I was in Detroit and had a rental car.   I kept getting confused because when I took my foot off the accelerator I expected the car to slow down.   But it did this thing called “coasting” I’d forgotten all about.   I wasn’t getting the deceleration I had expected—deceleration that told me the battery was being charged through regenerative braking.

But back to the trip…  On the whole it’s more complicated to plan a long trip in an electric car, but it isn’t necessarily longer.   We have three stops, two short, just enough time for a bathroom break, and one longer about the some time as grabbing a fast lunch.  

So I’ll take the electric cars any over a gas-powered vehicle.  The squabbling children in the backseat I might be willing to trade for by the end of the day if anyone is interested.

The Big Boy Update:  On the road today we had to stop several times at stop lights on secondary roads. My son wanted to get there so he could get out of the car and move around.   Grumpily he said, “it’s a red light.   No on likes red lights.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went to the bathroom with me at lunch today.   She found some brailler on the Koala Kare baby changing table and then opened it up to see if there was more braille inside.   I told her there were some instructions and they were each written in multiple languages.   I told her I saw Spanish, English, German and then she interrupted me say she was good at telling languages.   She felt all over and told me there was definitely English and Spanish and Japanese and she was pretty sure there was “New York Spanish” as well.