New maintenance issue: My turn signal does not deactivate after making a left turn. Been happening for over a week about 90% of the time.
CD player has been working OK, since my last entry reporting a problem with it.
It is hard not to think about how to save more gas and money.
Last night I did some research on electric mopeds, electric bikes (bicycles with motors and pedals), and gas powered mopeds.
- The gas moped is still the most viable option getting the most range and speed. For as low $1200 you get a 150cc highway legal machine that can offer 80mpg. An important plus is that there are many gas scooter mechanics around; while it would be hard to find someone to fix an electric scooter if it broke down. However it still burns fossil fuel.
- Electric mopeds are running fairly expensive: $2000 - 3000 depending on battery technology and power. These are street legal (but not hwy legal) and speeds you up to 30mph, up to 35 miles per charge and 100 miles of energy cost just $1.00)
- Electrified bikes range from $499 (Zapworld.com - basically a motor strapped to a regular bike, that gets you up to 15mph) to $1000 (for a moped looking machine with pedals that gets you 20mph) to $5995 (OptiBike.com, carbon fiber high performance mountain bike, state of the art NiMh battery, up to 35mph when you pedal) The Optibike has a 3 year warranty and made in the USA, but the moped-looking "pedelecs" mostly come from China, use a lot of plastics and reliability can be questionable.
Any of these would help you save loads of dough on gas. And they are pretty efficient. 20mph may not sound like much, but it is plenty for driving around the city. They are easier to find parking for, so that saves you time. Most if not all can be outfitted to hold lots of groceries. I ride a bicycle on my 3.5 mile commute. It only takes 10 minutes for than driving and my bike's speed only ranges from 12 to 19mph. So 20mph is all right. If my commute had hills, one of the above would seem even more attractive.
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