Our Mini-Split

Last summer we bought a DIY Perfect Aire 12,000 BTU mini-split which Scott installed in June in our bedroom. We used to be able to keep our windows open at night and not use A/C in the summer, but then the traffic and drag racing on McCarran (the ring road near our house) got so loud we had to close our windows and use the main A/C unit to stay cool. This resulted in our using about 750 kWh more electricity in the summer months, plus we could still hear some of the really loud cars through the closed window! We decided to try a mini-split heat pump system for just our bedroom and see if it would keep us cool and provide some soft, white noise.

Success! We are happy to report that we stayed nice and cool during the heat of the summer and couldn’t hear the McCarran Motor Speedway! We also saved 500 kWh of electricity due to the efficiency of this little mini-split and not having to use our main A/C unit at night. And it’s cute!

Mini-splits are heat pumps and here’s how they work:

Installation

Scott found the Perfect Aire very easy to install and just needed a little help from an electrician friend to hook it up to our electrical panel. Here’ s some photos of the installation process:

Installing the bracket that holds the unit in place.
Fishing the line sets through the walls. The condenser is around the corner on the side of the house. The bottom line set was pulled through the crawl space under the house.
Connecting the line sets.
The finished look with the line set cover installed.
The condenser unit on the side of the house.
Video of the mini-split in action. You may have to turn up the sound to hear it, it’s so quiet! It does provide the soft, white noise we were wanting.
Heat pump alley–mini-split condenser in the foreground and the Trane heat pump in the background behind the wheelbarrow. We’re happy we can place all our condensers out of site on the side of the house.

We use the Trane to air condition the house during the day (77 degrees) and the mini-split to cool our bedroom at night. To accomplish this, we turn the Trane’s thermostat up to 82 degrees at night and crack our bedroom door so we can keep the cool in our bedroom. Then we set the mini-split to 77 degrees. The Trane never comes on at night anymore, which is what saves the 500 kWh of electricity. There’s no need to cool the whole house when we are only in one room. We are finding that using zone cooling and heating is saving both electricity and gas.

Cost

Because it was a Do-It-Yourself installation with help from an electrician friend of Scott’s, it was not that expensive. We were happy to get a 30% federal tax credit for installing this energy efficient unit!

Xeriscaping Our Yard-The Journey from 2013-2023

When I moved in with Scott in 2013, we decided we wanted to make our home as environmentally friendly as possible, which included reducing our water usage. Reno is in the high desert and has hot summers with highs often in the 90 to 100-degree range, making water a precious resource. Scott had lived in the house for 14 years before I arrived and had already done some xeriscaping in the front yard, but still had a small lawn. We quickly decided our first project was going to be taking out the south-facing front lawn. Keeping it green was an exercise in futility and wasted a lot of water. This was the first step on our journey to reduce our water use and make our yard easier to maintain. What follows is a summary of our decade-long adventure in xeriscaping!

Front Yard

Here’s our front yard in June 2013:

You can see it was already getting dry and was a bit unkempt and in need of some love.

This is our front yard in June of 2023:

The plum trees have grown over the last 10 years and now shade the plants beneath them, so we are changing plants to more shade-loving species. We took out the invasive Russian Sage.
From this angle, you can see that we removed the maple tree to the left of the locust and the pine tree next to the house, behind the locust. They were either too close to other trees, the house, shading our solar panels, or threatening our sewer line. Then we planted flowers and shrubs where they had been. We took the Russian Sage out of this area and planted a shrub, echinacea and poppies. We removed the Scotch Broom that was under the bay window. It had become overgrown and collapsed during 2022’s heavy winter snows.

We took out the lawn and replaced it with decomposed granite (DG). We also added pots for flowers on each side of the front steps.

Here are some August photos of the front yard:

Aren’t the Black-Eyed Susans and Correopsis glorious? The tall grasses outdid themselves with all the winter and spring moisture.
We added a meditating frog and shasta daisies this year, looking forward to watching them fill in! We will add more flowers to this area where the Scotch Broom used to be in the upcoming summer season.

Back Yard

This is our back yard in June of 2013:

We had a small concrete patio and lots of lawn. There were aspen trees by the back fence and a large elm on the metal fence to the left of Scott. These trees were all removed over the years. The aspens were trying to grow a grove in our neighbor’s and our yard, and the elm was pushing the metal fence over.
Our concrete patio with our grill, outdoor tables and container garden (tomatoes, flowers, and basil). Clearly it was a real squeeze!
Looking to the west, there are raised wooden beds (behind Scott) and more containers, plus a dwarf willow that got out of hand. The locust tree to Scott’s right was still a baby.

This is our back yard in June of 2023:

In 2015 we took out part of the lawn and put in pavers and in 2022 we expanded the pavers, removed the lawn and put DG in the east side. We added patio furniture, a fountain, more containers of flowers, bird baths and other yard art. Now we have a large area for entertaining and it is much easier to maintain.
Here is the view back to the west showing the DG with custom concrete stepping stones made for us by a friend. We have planted shrubs, decorative grass, and flowers in the corners. There’s an ash tree in the center flanked by metal Kokopellis, and the tomato plants are to the right in the orange containers. Scott is relieved to no longer have to mow and fertilize the lawn!
Along the west fence we added a DG area and planted this beautiful Japanese Maple. I’d always wanted one and it loves this spot under the neighbor’s maple tree. All the old wooden raised beds and the dwarf willow were removed, now we have more containers in this area with herbs and succulents.
This is our beautiful coral honeysuckle along the north fence flanked by a succulent and decorative rock. We planted marigolds in the box planters that we replaced with begonias in late August. Our grill is now just to the left of the succulent. It’s better having it away from the house.
This shows the DG area and the east fence, the ash tree in the center and tomato boxes to the left.

The best way to really see the yard is through videos. You can click this link to go to our Google Photos album that has videos of our yard during the different seasons: Videos of Our Yard.

Water Savings

So, how did we do with our water savings? Here’s the table showing our use from our water bills:

After xeriscaping our yard, we now save 36,000 gallons of water per year! That is 35% less than what we used in 2013 trying to water our lawns! In the heat of the summer, we use about 50% less on average than we did before. Plus, we spend less time maintaining the yard now that we don’t have to fertilize and mow the lawns.

You can also see how much more we use in the six months where we are watering outdoors versus the winter months when the system is shut off and we are only using household water. Just out of curiosity, I added it up and for our household, we use about 47,000 gallons of water per year. For the landscaping, we use 20,000 gallons. So our household use is about 70% of the total and the landscaping now only takes 20%. It used to take 57,000 gallons and make up 55% of our total water use!

We love our new yard which is way more functional and beautiful than what we started with, plus it uses a lot less water, while taking less of our time to maintain (and less chemicals). We have learned that our yard is an evolving landscape, ever changing, so stay tuned as the journey continues!

Road Tripping in the Ariya

We’ve had the Ariya for about 7 months now. What a great car! We are enjoying getting to know her and wanted to share what we have learned. We’ve been on 7 road trips so far and find that the Ariya is comfortable, dependable, versatile and solid. She handles well in the snow and has higher clearance and a stiffer suspension for off-roading than the Ioniq. The downside of this is that on the highway, the ride is rougher. The Ariya has a larger battery by about 20%, so it as a longer range, which is handy if you have longer gaps between charging stations. The cargo space is a little smaller than the Ioniq, but not much.

Here’s what it looks like when we load up most of our house and go to a rental place:

Hilarious, isn’t it! As you can see it all fits easily, but blocks the rearview mirror.
Here’s the fix for that problem–the rearview mirror can be flipped into camera mode and it will use the rear camera to give you a picture of what is behind you! Pretty cool, huh? We love this feature!

Charging

The Ariya comes with the EVgo network. Scott tried for a few months to test it out at the station in Reno, but it was never operational. On the road, we have found that EVgo doesn’t have as many fast charging stations as Electrify America, and seems to have more problems with down units. We did find a 350 kW charger in Citrus Heights, CA that we used in November and it worked just as well as Electrify America. Most of the time we use the Electrify America network that we get free with the Ioniq (works for both cars). We’ve had good luck with charging overall, only having to wait a couple of times. But we don’t typically travel at busy times, so that helps. We had one recent incident where for some reason the charger and the app were not communicating and we had to use a credit card. It stopped after a few minutes and we had to restart it again, but then it worked fine. Most of the time, we are charged up and ready to go within 30 minutes. We take that time to stretch our legs, use the bathroom and check our messages; sometimes we check out other people’s EV’s!

When it comes to charging, the only thing we find irritating about the Ariya is that it locks the charger onto the car and sometimes doesn’t want to let go. You have to press lock and unlock on the FOB sometimes more than once to release the cable. It also doesn’t charge as quickly as the Ioniq, but this is compensated for by its larger battery.

Overall, we have not had any problems with charging the Ariya (or the Ioniq) especially using the Electrify America network. We are lucky to have a lot of working stations on the routes we typically drive through northern California. But, the vast majority of the time, we are driving only in the Reno area and are charging at home off our solar panels.

Range

People are always asking us about the range of our cars. That’s an interesting question. It depends on a number of factors: how low you are comfortable going before recharging the battery; your driving style (more aggressive and fast driving uses more power); load (how many passengers, cargo, pulling a trailer); road conditions (flat, downhill, uphill, in-town vs. highway); outside temperature (colder temps decrease battery performance); use of climate control (heat uses more than A/C). EV’s are a different than gas cars in that they use more power on the highway and less in town, due to regenerative braking. This can be a challenge in figuring out how far your EV can go on a road trip, because it’s going to need more power than it uses at home. In general our cars can go from 175-200 miles, leaving us about 15-20% in the battery (our comfort zone). But, here’s the truth, we can only go about 150 miles before we have to get out! So we always say, our range is 150, which is less than our car’s! We plan our road trips around our needs, not the cars.

NOTE: The range quoted by manufacturers includes a mix of city and highway driving, so it will always be higher than you can actually go on a road trip. The EPA estimated combined range on our Ariya is 267 miles. But that would be draining the battery to 0%, which no sane person would ever do! Remember the 267 includes some city driving, so our 200 mile estimate in the table below is more accurate, leaving about 20% in the battery when you reach your destination. This is important if you have any question about finding a charger.

We have found it helpful to keep a road trip charging log so we can figure out how many miles we can actually go per % charge we have in the battery. Here’s the Ariya’s log so far for its first year:

At the top of the log, you will see that we have built a table based on the Ariya’s average miles per % in the battery (2.5%/mile), so we know how much of a charge we need to go a certain distance. This is a very helpful thing to know and can be difficult to figure out unless you have a log like this to tell you your average miles per %. For some reason, EV’s show you the mile per kWh which doesn’t really help you on the road. We have noticed that when we are going uphill in cold weather, we use about 25% more energy, so we need more of a charge to pull mountain passes, especially when it’s cold (see Citrus Hts-Reno and Vacaville-Truckee).

You can also see the difference between what it costs to charge the car with electricity vs. what the comparable ICE (Nissan Murano) would have cost in gas. In the three trips where we tracked this difference, there was over $200 savings! (NOTE: We actually didn’t pay for this charging, since we still have free charging for our cars. The only exception was when we had to pay by credit card in Truckee in January.)

Using Highway Driving Assist Systems

The highway driving assist system in the Ariya (ProPILOT 2.0) does a great job on regular highways of lane-keeping, lane changing, smart cruise control (adjusts speed to car in front of you), and allowing some moments of handfree driving (great for stretching your hands and wrists to prevent fatigue). It won’t let you keep your hands off for too long before it alerts you. The Ariya also watches to make sure your eyes are on the road and will alert you when your attention wanders. The Ioniq doesn’t have this feature, but does have all the other features in its HDA 2 system. What we prefer in the Ioniq is that it allows us better control on curvy mountain roads, like I-80. The Ariya tends to slow down, sometimes drastically, going into a curve and we have not been successful in finding a setting that will turn off this feature. The Ioniq does allow us to change this setting so it doesn’t do automatic braking going into a curve, allowing us to control the speed more fluidly. Because of this issue, we have given up on using ProPILOT in the Ariya while driving on mountain roads. Unfortunately, most of our long road trips include this kind of driving.

Future Road Trips

After 7 months with the Ariya and 18 months with the Ioniq, we decided we prefer the Ioniq for longer road trips, particularly those involving mountain passes. The Ioniq has the smoother ride and the better highway driving assist system, plus it charges faster. The Ariya we use for trips around our local area, like going to Graeagle, Lake Tahoe, Carson and Topaz. If we had a trip where we were planning more off-roading, we would definitely take the Ariya. We would also use it for a trip where we had more gaps between charging stations and needed the longer range. Scott prefers the seating and cabin in his Ariya for everyday use, but on a longer road trip he’s decided he would take the Ioniq. Both cars are a great drive overall and we recommend them to anyone interested in owning a quality EV SUV.

The Ariya Completes the Mother of All Road Trips!

An EV adventure couple just completed their Pole-to-Pole road trip in a modified Nissan Ariya! Yes, that is from the North to the South Pole–a trip of over 30,000 kilometers! Read about it here:

https://www.thenissannext.com/en/PoletoPole.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/01/15/electric-car-north-to-south-pole-drive/

Or watch the video:

Cultivating Joy

This is the second of my blogs on The Book of Joy by The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. The first was essentially a book review–https://rhondaashurst.com/2023/06/03/the-book-of-joy/. This second blog is about my experiences of cultivating joy using the practices in the book over the last six months.

As often happens in life, I’ve been given an interesting opportunity to work with moving from suffering back into joy over the last week while I was contemplating this blog post. I finally got Covid! Of course, it picked an incredibly bad week to visit me. I was facilitating the last Quakerism 101 class on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning was my Embodying the Light class, Thursday was a performance at UNR I wanted to see, and Saturday I was to clerk a memorial for a dear friend and attender at the Meeting House. I had also inadvertently exposed a lot of people to the virus, including the Meeting during Sunday Worship and my 88-year-old mother.

I remember staring at the positive result and immediately crying out, “NO!!! This can’t be happening! Not this week!” Then I was mortified that I may have given it to a lot of other people. Quickly my head began running away with me down a rapidly descending spiral of catastrophic thinking. When Scott got home and I shared it with him, he met it with his usual “darn the luck” calm and reminded me that this too shall pass. I so appreciate his steadiness in moments like this. It helped me to get a grip and start figuring out logistics. A Quaker Friend encouraged me to read the practice on Acceptance in the book.

I sat down and did the meditation, coming into the present moment and following my breath. Then I brought into my mind my difficulty in accepting my current Covid situation. As instructed, I reminded myself this is the nature of reality, and this is what is happening right now. I breathed into my heart and felt all the disappointment and fear. I cried a little, gave myself a hug, and told myself it would be ok. Then I asked myself what I needed to do to meet the situation in a positive and helpful way. A list began to form in my mind, so I got a piece of paper and wrote what came to me. By the time I finished the practice, I had an action list of decisions to be made and people to call for help. I felt empowered rather than overwhelmed and helpless.

As I worked my way down the list, I was met over and over by helpful and caring responses of friends and family. So many people stepped up to take on the tasks I could not and expressed their concern and good wishes for my speedy recovery. By the time I was done, I had tears again, this time of gratitude and joy. I felt so very loved and comforted. I thought, how lucky I am to have so many caring and wonderful people sharing my life! This feeling stayed with me all week as people brought food, ran needed errands, called, texted and phoned to check on me. Everything I was worried about was taken care of or rescheduled. The memorial was wonderful by all accounts and others had the opportunity to shine their ample Light and skills on the day. Of course, I was sad again that I didn’t get to go, but I’ve found joy in experiencing it through the eyes of those who were there.

This week of not feeling well and being isolated brought to mind so many of the joys of my normal, healthy life: energy, freedom from pain, hugging my honey and being near him, the company of others, clear sinuses, the ability to taste and smell, a clear head, good digestion, strength, freedom to come and go as I please, sharing food, silent Worship, physical activity, dancing, and the list goes on! It was a powerful exercise in appreciating what you normally have when it’s gone. There is so much I take for granted.

As I move back into health, I hope I will remember the valuable lessons I’ve learned from my Covid experience. This has definitely been my most challenging test since reading the book, but I know more will come. In general, I’m finding that I spend more time in joy and appreciation of the present moment, and less time stressing needlessly over long to-do lists or things that are out of my control. Looking back on these last 6 months, I see that I’ve been easier on myself and taken things as they come. I see more clearly what is really important and what is not. I’m more ok with being a messy, imperfect human and I can laugh more easily at my foibles. When I have struggles with suffering, I try to remember to go to the practices and find one that is relevant to the situation and work it. For my struggle with the suffering of others, I’ve found the Tonglen practice helpful—breathing into my heart their pain and suffering and offering out joy, love, Light, peace, courage and strength. I’ve discovered my heart is big enough to hold a lot of suffering with love and compassion.

What a treasure this book has been to me! I’ve resolved to keep it near as I travel down the roads of my life. It’s a valuable map and I’m ever grateful it found its way to me. It turned what I saw as a Covid tragedy into a Covid gift.

Goodbye to Our Nissan LEAF

We traded in our sweet 2016 Nissan LEAF for Scott’s new Nissan Ariya in June after over four years of service. BeeBee, as we called her, was such a cute car and the perfect introduction to driving EV’s. It’s always bittersweet and nostalgic to look back on the life of an old car that’s moved on.

When we bought her used in 2019, we had just installed solar panels and realized how much excess electricity we were producing. We decided it was time to take the plunge and buy an EV. We’d just bought a Toyota Highlander Hybrid for Scott to replace his old 4 Runner, so we didn’t want to spend a lot of money. As luck would have it, 2016-17 LEAF’s coming off leases were incredibly cheap at the time. We saved $6,500 buying her over what it would have cost to buy a 2016 Nissan Juke in 2019 (the comparable gas car to the LEAF). Nissan had released the next generation battery with over 150 miles range and no one wanted the old technology anymore. She only had 23,000 miles on her and was in great condition with all 10 bars of her battery life remaining. In the beginning, she could go over 100 miles on a charge.

We fell in love with her zippy speed and cozy interior. We especially loved the heated seats and steering wheel in the winter. She was mostly my car, though we often shared her to save on gas in the Highlander. She was a very reliable car and an easy keeper. We saved a lot of money on repairs and maintenance over my old Subaru Forester, not to mention all the gas savings (see below).

This year her battery lost another bar, down to 7 out of 10 and her range was closer to 80 miles (60 realistically). Scott was needing a car that could go out of the valley if necessary, so it was time to move BeeBee along to a new home. Nissan gave us a good trade-in price for her and one of the employees there ended up buying her. We hope she’ll introduce a new family to the joys of driving EV’s.

Thank you BeeBee for 4 years of fun zipping around town in you, and for helping us get over the EV hump! We’ll miss you!

For the first half of 2023, we drove 1944 miles in the LEAF and saved $318 in gas over what the Juke would have used.

Over the course of her 4+ years with us, BeeBee saved us over $10,000! That’s pretty awesome when you think about it. $6,400 of that savings was from not paying for gas and in the savings of repairs and maintenance over what it would have cost for the comparable gas car. We also saved a lot of money on buying the LEAF ($6,500 over the Juke in 2019), but we gave some of it back on the trade-in ($2,500 less than the Juke in 2023). Still our total savings purchasing the LEAF was $4,000 over the Juke. We also saved about 18,000 tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere by driving the LEAF instead of the Juke.

If you’re thinking about trying an EV, going with an older model that still has life in it is a smart move. As technology moves on, they sell at discounts and then they save you a bunch of money too, not to mention the carbon you don’t put in the atmosphere.

Scott’s Ariya Arrived!

A dream comes true–two kickass EV’s to go with our solar panels!

It was June 8th in the afternoon when the call came in from Nissan, “Your platinum white Ariya just arrived, want to come drive it?” Absolutely! It was our first glimpse in person of the blue Nappa leather seats with blue suede accents on the dash and doors. Wow! What a gorgeous color! We were a bit disappointed that they replaced the bronze hubcaps with grey, but we can order those later.

We hopped in and drover her up part of the Mount Rose highway. Way more power then the FWD version! The AWD e4ORCE makes a big difference and we look forward to seeing how she handles in snow. The Ariya is higher clearance by nearly 2 inches over the Ioniq. Scott loves sitting higher up and immediately set up his seat and steering wheel position just as he wanted. It’s great to have adjustments in all directions. He looked completely at home instantly. When I asked him how it felt he said, “Like the Highlander only just my size.”

We pulled into a trailhead parking area and played with buttons and features, checked out the awesome turn radius. It’s much easier to learn the Ariya after mastering the Ioniq. They have many of the same options and thoughtful, innovative design. But the Ariya is much more Scott and I found it thrilling to watch him get excited about his new car!

We went back to the dealership and said we wanted it. As always seems the case, it was not good timing as our nephew was visiting from NYC. We asked if we could wait a few days to do the paperwork. The manager at United Nissan Reno said no problem, as long as we put down a $500 deposit. When we returned home we realized that we had committed to the car at 6:30 p.m., the exact time one year ago when we last said “good night” to Scott’s father. He passed that night. Wide-eyed, we wondered if he’d pulled some magic strings for Scott to get this Ariya months before we thought it would arrive. We toasted him and said a “thank you” to his spirit.

We returned to United Nissan a few days later and completed the transaction. Everything about the process was easy and relaxed. They now have a price set by Nissan and a small margin of profit included for them. There is no negotiating, no gouging, no pressure. We traded in our 2016 Nissan LEAF and they gave us a decent price for it. It was a great little starter EV and I’m sure it will still be for its next owner.

I had originally intended for Scott to have the Inoiq for his 60th Birthday. But it wasn’t a good fit for him and he gave it to me, taking the LEAF instead. I think I always felt guilty about trading his beautiful Highlander for my Ioniq. How fitting that his Ariya, which truly does fit him better than the Highlander, should come in time for his 61st!

The Numbers

The MSRP on the Platinum Ariya is $63,715. The tradein for the LEAF was $6,500. Typically there are about 10% of additional fees and taxes (in NV) added on to the purchase.

The most comparable gas car to the Ariya is the Murano, which has an MSRP of $51,640. I wanted to do a comparison for this blog of what it would cost to own the ICE vs. the EV and I will use these numbers in my annual blogs to see how long the savings of driving the EV will take to make up the price difference. EVs are 50-65% cheaper to maintain over their lives than ICEs.

2023 Platinum Nissan Ariya

MSRP $63,715

Plus 10% fees and taxes $6,372

Total Cost: $70,087

2023 Platinum Nissan Murano

MSRP $51,640

Plus 10% fees and taxes $5,164

Total Cost: $56,804

Difference Between EV and ICE $13,283

NOTE: Sadly, the new Inflation Reduction Act removed the tax credit for the Nissan Ariya as of August 17, 2022 because final assembly is still in Japan. Nissan plans to move final assembly to the USA to qualify for the credit in 2026.

Video Tours of the Inside

Check out the beautiful blue leather interior!

Some cool features we really liked.

Cargo Area

Not as big as the Ioniq’s, but more than adequate for our needs, especially with seats down.

What Scott Loves About the Ariya

It’s solid and it has great acceleration. I don’t have to charge it all the time like the LEAF. It’s comfortable and easy to drive, not too overwhelming.

Is There Anything You Don’t Like?

I can’t think of anything, other than I wish it had a little less shiny black on the exterior.

The Book of Joy

In March I went on a retreat to Graeagle. My friend, Peggy sent along The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. What an amazing teaching this book was for me during my sacred time! It was exactly what I needed. Before my retreat, I had been feeling increasingly hopeless about the future of humanity and all of our relations that share this planet with us. This is a familiar issue for me and one I’ve blogged about before.

Quickly I was absorbed into the worlds of these two great spiritual leaders who have faced grave struggles for their own lives and the lives and wellbeing of their people. They have overcome suffering beyond anything I can imagine. Yet they are joyful, funny, playful, loving and share a very close friendship with one another. I love the photos of the two of them that are scattered throughout the book. Their expressions exude the joy and spiritual radiance they have cultivated inside themselves. The Dalai Lama makes the point that no one would be inspired by their spiritual practices if they were both sourpusses! The book came out of a week together in 2015 when Desmond Tutu visited the Dalai Lama for his 80th Birthday. Together with Douglas Abrams (writer and editor) they endeavored to create The Book of Joy as a gift to humanity.

I was interested to learn that the question most readers wanted them to answer was: How could we possibly live with joy in a world filled with so much suffering? My dilemma exactly! They both find that joy can exist alongside suffering and sorrow. They point out that suffering is part of life and often brings opportunities to grow more mature emotionally and to develop compassion and practice forgiveness. The Dalai Lama offered a practice from an ancient Indian teaching: “If there’s no way to overcome tragedy, then there is no use in worrying about it. If something can be done about the situation, do it. If nothing can be done, what use is there for being dejected?” It reminds me of the Serenity Prayer.

They both share a common secret to the cultivation of a joyful life: Seek joy and happiness inside, help others, be kind and compassionate. In other words, it’s an inside out job, not the other way around. We are quick to seek our sources of happiness outside ourselves (jobs, stuff, money, romance, etc.), but the fount of lasting joy is within.

Desmond Tutu points out that joy is bigger than and includes happiness. It is not dependent on external circumstances. He encourages us to be “a reservoir of joy, an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity that can ripple out to all those around you.”

They agree the best way to do this is to reach beyond our focus on ourselves and help others, but not to the point of harming ourselves. Our compassion must include ourselves as well as others and all our relations. We are all in this together. When we are suffering, so are many others. Tutu spoke about “ubuntu”—an African concept that means we all need each other and are all connected to one another. We all want a happy life and to love and be loved.

They share a common view that people are basically good and that, as a species, we are getting better with time. We are encouraged (like the redwood trees once encouraged me on a retreat) to remember we are young and still have a lot to learn, that we are “masterpieces in the making.” Tutu reminds us it is important to see things with “God eyes” and the Dalai Lama encourages us to look at a situation from a variety of perspectives before reacting/responding. This fits with the Quaker concept of “seasoning”.

The book has two main sections on the obstacles to joy and the eight pillars of joy. At the end, there is a very helpful section of practices to develop inner, lasting joy.

The Obstacles to Joy

The obstacles include fear, stress, anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness, grief, despair, loneliness, envy, suffering, adversity, illness, and fear of death. I use this section as a reference when I am experiencing one of these states and need some help to move through it and back into peace, joy and hope. The first step is to accept the reality of suffering. However, it is also important to see that much of our suffering is created by the attitudes and thoughts we have about a situation. This is the place where we can learn to observe what is happening in our mind and choose a different path.

This part of the book is full of wisdom and insightful suggestions for how to move through the obstacles. Tutu makes the point that often we need to feel our feelings and let them flow through us, but be mindful not to get stuck in them or let them lead our responses. The Dalai Lama is more cerebral and goes straight to working with his mind as the key to lasting peace and joy. In my experience, both of them are right—it’s helpful to acknowledge and allow our feelings, but then we need to step back and use our minds, heart and intuition to determine the highest and best response.

The Eight Pillars of Joy

The eight pillars of joy are divided into the four qualities of the mind: perspective, humility, humor and acceptance, and the four qualities of the heart: forgiveness, gratitude, compassion and generosity. Through cultivating these qualities, we can live increasingly in a state of joy and share that with others.

Perspective: Try to see situations from all viewpoints and through the “eyes of God”. Your viewpoint is only one amongst many, don’t get too attached to it! Move from “I” to “we”.

Humility: We are all equal and interdependent, yet we all have our gifts to give. Give them with confidence and be humble, willing to learn and admit/correct mistakes. Encourage others to give their gifts. Know when to step back and let others shine.

Humor: The book is filled with examples of the two of them teasing and laughing with one another. Douglas, who compiled and edited the book, has come to see that humor is a hallmark of advanced spiritual development and these two have honed it to a fine art! They remind us that laughing at our shared humanity, vulnerability, foibles, and frailties helps us deal with the uncertainties and harshness of life.

Acceptance: It is important to accept reality as it is. Tutu recommends accepting what is and asking how do we make something positive of this situation? (the philosophy underpinning Truth and Reconciliation after Apartheid) The Dalai Lama encourages us to work toward a goal, vision, intention without attachment to the outcome, a primary teaching of the Buddha.

Forgiveness: Forgiveness releases our anger and hurt and allows us to move on. It doesn’t mean condoning bad behavior-sometimes we need to make a stand, set a boundary, do what is necessary to stop harm. Don’t lose sight of a person’s humanity, while responding with clarity and firmness. Decide if you want to renew or release the relationship.

Gratitude: Be grateful for the abundance of your life, see wonder in your day, savor and enjoy. You can even be grateful for people, conditions, and situations which challenge you or cause pain, as they are precious spiritual teachers.

Compassion: Move from I to we, from control to caring. When we open our hearts to others, we relax and have joy. We are wired for altruism; it is how our species has thrived. It is also important to have compassion for ourselves and to practice good self-care. Acts of compassion have a ripple effect extending to our friends, their friends and beyond.

Generosity: When we give, we receive. Giving of ourselves and fostering a sense of purpose leads to greater well-being for ourselves and others. Tutu reminds us that we are just stewards of wealth and possessions. It is a joy to give to others, a joy that comes back to us, and brings us full circle together.

In Conclusion

This book has been the gift to me that it was intended to be. I encourage you to read it and work with the practices at the end of the book. Together, we can create more joy, love, hope, and peace in a world that needs these gifts.

Here are some fun, short videos:

Interview by Douglas of The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu on their friendship:

CBS Sunday Morning interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfys2mEtUqY&t=4s

Interview of Douglas Abrams who compiled the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNecvT5miA&t=121s

Taking the Ioniq into the Boonies

We like the boonies and often seek out remote getaways. On this trip we headed to a favorite spot in the Trinity Alps. We wondered what it would be like and how would charging work? We checked out one of our favorite off-the-beaten-path routes and found that it was outside our 175-mile safe range (nearly 200 miles and mostly pine trees). We decided that would give us the range willies for sure!

So, we charted out a safer route along I-80 and I-5, which have ample Electrify Americas. Along the way we stopped at Auburn Toyota and checked out a BZ4X for Scott (see this post: https://rhondaashurst.com/2023/05/09/the-search-for-our-next-ev/). We traveled 378 miles to Trinity and stopped at Auburn and Anderson to charge. With the test drive, which took at least 30 minutes and two charging stops of 30 minutes each, the trip took just over 8 hours. The nice thing about all those stops is we felt better physically when we arrived, and we also missed the afternoon rainstorm! We did stretch our range limit a bit between Auburn and Anderson (181 vs 175 miles), plus we stopped at a 95% charge at Auburn (it takes forever to get that last 5%). By the time we got to Anderson, we had only 11% left in the battery. We decided we’d charge at Dunnigan if we take this route in the future!

Photo of the Ioniq at an Electrify America Charging Station

We had permission to charge the car at our cabin, so when we arrived, we pulled out the 110-volt charger and plugged her in. It said it would take 53 hours to go from 28%-100%! Luckily, we had the time as we were staying several days.

While we were there, we took a trip up the pass on a steep and curvy road to snowshoe on the Pacific Crest Trail. What a thrill to drive up a road like that in the Ioniq! It was the first time I’d driven her up and down one of California’s crazy switchback passes and it was a scream! Smooth and effortless sailing all the way up and then coming down, I used Level 3 e-braking. I only had to brake on hairpin turns, which was amazing! The other cool thing is it took 12% of the battery to get up there and we gained 1% coming back!

Here’s a couple of photos of the road and the beautiful waterfall we stopped at:

On the way home we took a different route through Chico. Wow, was that pretty! We took I-5 to highway 99, stopping for lunch at a pretty rest stop south of Redding. We drove through farmland and orchards and arrived in Chico with 51% left in the battery. We charged for 30 minutes and strolled the nearby Chico campus—charming! We left with 97% and headed towards the foothill towns of Grass Valley and Nevada City. The drive from there through the Sierra’s is lovely. We arrived in Reno with 21% left. This will definitely be our preferred route up to Trinity in the future. It took us 7 hours with two 30 minute stops for lunch and charging. We traveled a total of 311 miles on the way home.

Here’s the road trip log:

We noticed we used more energy going up to Trinity than coming back, since there was more uphill and 67 more miles. In the future, we will stop in Chico on the way up and back to charge. If we had driven the Hyundai Tucson (gas comparison car), it would have cost us $100 in gas. Because our charging on Electrify America is free, we saved $100 taking the Ioniq! If we had to pay for our charging, it would have cost $59, so a 40% savings over the Tucson. At 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon for 23 gallons of gas, we saved 460 pounds of CO2 from entering our atmosphere by driving the EV.

We were relieved to see that you can take the Ioniq into the boonies and do just fine with finding charging, as long as you plan out your route ahead of time. We look forward to our next trip to Trinity!

The Search for Our Next EV

Lately, it has become clear that we need a second longer-range EV. The LEAF works well in town, but is down to about 90 miles of range, which in reality is about 68 miles. (My rule of thumb is to take about 25% off an EV’s range at 100% and that’s your real-world mileage, which accounts for climate control, terrain, temperature, and leaving about 15% in the battery.) We are realizing that in the near future we may both need to drive to the Bay Area to see family, and that won’t work with the LEAF.

So, we’ve been checking out new EV’s! Always one of my favorite activities, not so much Scott’s. We initially thought we’d go with a Tesla Model Y so we could have access to the Tesla Supercharger network. A friend of ours brought over his Model Y and took Scott for a test drive. When he came back, I asked him how it went. He said, “I could live with it.” Not exactly the response I was hoping for.

Next, we visited Nissan and found a Premium Nissan Ariya in the showroom. Wow! What a beautiful car! Scott slid into the driver’s seat and started playing with buttons (embedded in the wood veneer trim with haptic feedback when you press them) and the next thing I saw was a big grin. Ok, now we’re talking! Meanwhile, I’m styling over in the passenger seat, feeling very comfortable and thinking, this is as nice as my car. (I don’t usually have thoughts like that as I am totally in love with my Ioniq 5 and I don’t cheat on her.) Then we took the Ariya out for a test drive, and we were sold! What a comfortable and quiet ride, like the Ioniq. We were in a FWD model, so it didn’t have the power of the AWD, which is still coming off the production line as I write. We hope that one will be available soon for us to test drive, but looking at the YouTube test drives, it sounds like they did an awesome job with the e-4orce AWD model.

Other things we love: roomy and spacious cabin, very comfy and adjustable seats, the blue Nappa leather is beautiful, rear seats are comfortable and can be heated, there’s lots of leg and head room, the HVAC system in the back is better than the Ioniq’s, the panoramic sunroof can be opened above the front seats, the automatic drawer comes out from below the dash and doubles as a storage compartment and a table for your iPad or laptop (the Ariya is billed as a driving lounge, and it is), the console between the front seats can be moved forward and back with the touch of a button, the car has haptic buttons built into wood veneer that disappear when the car is off,  the screen is curved and sits low and long across the dash (not in your face like the Tesla), the heads up display is easy to see, it supports wireless Apple CarPlay, it has driver assists (ProPilot 2.0) and cameras that we are used to in the Ioniq, the ability to use the camera in the rear view mirror if you have the live view blocked by stuff (often the case on our road trips), and the whole overall look and design of the car. Scott particularly liked feeling more snuggled into the driver’s seat in the Ariya. The Ioniq is more open and spacious, which is my preference but not his. Although, I didn’t feel like I was at all constricted in the Ariya. He was also glad to see regular door handles and a less flashy look than the Ioniq.

The Nissan has a little more range than the Ioniq—267 vs. 256, but charges at about ½ the speed (10-80% in 40 minutes vs. 20 minutes). Taking 25% off the Nissan’s 267 advertised range (100% to 0%–who does that anyway?), it has a real-world range for us of about 200, which would leave 15% in the battery. It will be fun to compare these two to each other on road trips! We’ll have to spend more time at chargers with the Ariya, but that just means a longer walk for us and that’s ok. Nissan’s goal is to lengthen battery life, so that will be another interesting experiment over time.

Being human, we then began to second guess how easily this had come. Maybe we are missing something, we thought. We found a Car and Driver article that listed all the EV’s available in 2023. Scott looked through it and decided he’d also like to see a Mustang Mach-E and a Toyota BZ4X (he’s driven Toyotas for over 30 years).

We went over to the Ford dealer one day and found an ugly yellow Mach-E available for a test drive. We also sat in the high-end model sitting next to it. We instantly disliked the feel of this car. It was like sitting in a race car—low down in the seat which wraps around you more tightly than the Ariya (too much of a good thing for Scott), large center console that makes the leg room area feel boxed in, high and small windows, and challenging to get in and out of compared to the other EV’s we’d driven. We felt claustrophobic in this car. The trim was disappointing, and the screen was in your face like the Tesla, but not nearly as well designed. The drive was ok, and honestly, we can’t recall much because we were so turned off by that point. I imagine this car is a scream if you are on a racetrack or speeding around curvy roads. Oh, and it has a woofer in the back if you like to pump your base while you’re racing. So not our thing! And it was the most expensive car we looked at, plus on back order for about two years according to our salesman.

It took us awhile to find the Toyota BZ4X, which we finally found in Auburn on our way to the Trinity Alps. I had originally wanted this car but changed my mind once I saw it compared to the Ioniq on YouTube. So, I was curious to see it in person. What a disappointment. I liked it even less than I thought I would, but then I’ve been driving the Ioniq for 9 months and there’s really no comparison. But I reminded myself, this is not your car…

Meanwhile, Scott was taking in all the familiar Toyota buttons and finish that he is used to. (We were in a Limited.) He decided he liked the driving screen that sits high up above the steering wheel but didn’t like the way it had been designed. It is Toyota’s answer to heads up driving. The computer screen sits low and forward but had not been set up and was not functioning. This seemed odd to us, like it wasn’t really integrated with the car, but with your smartphone? The salesperson showed us how to adjust things like the driver assist features using buttons on the steering wheel and multiple menus. This should be in the screen. It felt smaller and tighter than the Ariya and had a solid center console, more like the Mach-E. It was not as claustrophobic to us, but definitely not as comfortable as the Ariya. The panoramic roof is split in the center and we couldn’t see why, as it doesn’t open, like the Ariya does. It did have a cover for the pano roof, which is a must in our hot climate (one of the things Scott didn’t like in the Tesla). The BZ4X has a lot of shiny black plastic surfaces inside and out. It throws off glare and I imagine would show dirt and fingerprints. Neither of us liked this. Scott likened the outside of the white car as “looking like a soccer ball.” Good analogy!

Then we took it out on the road. First off, not the kind of acceleration we are used to. Secondly, lots of road noise! Nothing like our Highlander, which was much quieter. This car reminded us of our Subaru Forester which was really noisy on the road. The Limited AWD also has only 222 miles of range, so taking the 25% off, about 167 miles realistically. It is also a slow charger, going from low range to 80% in about an hour. Well, scratch this one off the list. Toyota does hybrids well and I’ve heard good things about their plug-in hybrids. Clearly, this is the niche they are focused on and not the EV, at least not yet.

What We Learned

We are like a cross between the Princess and the Pea, and Goldilocks. We like our cars comfy, luxurious, and spacious and we want that just right feel. We seek a comfortable and quiet ride, stable handling, especially on snow and ice (hence why we are looking at only AWD’s). Speed is fun, but not the main attraction. We want lots of cargo space since we seem to take half our house with us on vacation. We like our driver assists and prefer buttons to screens, but we can work with a screen and prefer it for more advanced settings. We are tickled by cool and thoughtful design features. Our range is about 150 miles before we need to get out of a car and stretch our legs, but we like to have a little more available if necessary. We get range anxiety below 15%, plus it isn’t great on the battery, so we factor that in (included in the 25% we take off a car’s advertised range).  We like big windows and panoramic roofs that can be closed in the hot summer months. We both think the Ariya’s split window with the ability to open over the front seats is very cool. Scott likes his car to be less flashy and more what he’s used to. He has come to terms with the reality that all modern cars have screens and are more helpful than he prefers, but he’s getting used to this after driving the Ioniq.

And The Winner Is…

Scott picked the Ariya. Frankly, he never really looked back once he sat in it for the first time. This car is his “just right.” So, we will keep an eye out for a white Platinum AWD e-4orce and see when it shows up.

The Runners Up

#2. Tesla Model Y. He liked the drive ok, but it “ran away with me.” He couldn’t gauge how fast he was going, and this bothered him. It lacks the luxury and ingenuity he likes in the interior. He didn’t like not being able to close off the pano roof. There’s too much screen and not enough buttons. He doesn’t want to drive a computer, or to have it drive him.

#3 Toyota BZ4X.  A decent EV but lacks the pizzaz of the others and falls short in the range and charging department. He didn’t like the road noise or the exterior look.

#4 Mustang Mach-E. Claustrophobic interior was an instant turnoff. For Scott there is such a thing as too much snuggly, it turns out! This car is probably great fun if you’re into drag racing or performance driving, or you like the feel of what it must be like in a race car, or if you really must have a Mustang.

Year 4–It’s All Coming Together

Be the change that you want to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi

Our 30 solar panels (minus the trees shadowing them), the 2022 Ioniq 5, and the 2016 Nissan LEAF

This is truly the year it has all come together after four years of working to make our green dreams a reality. We’ve reduced our carbon footprint 41% since 2018 and are now close to our 50% goal. We are finally driving only electric vehicles, which are so fun to drive! They are fast, comfortable, good in the snow and have lots of cargo space. We are thankful we don’t have to pay for gas, given the current prices. The EV’s are like big cell phones that we simply plug in to the charger in our garage, which is part of our solar panel inverter. They make the biggest difference in reducing our carbon footprint. We have produced enough electricity with our solar panels to power our home and two EV’s, while reducing our use of natural gas by 49%. We live comfortably, keeping our indoor temperature around 70 degrees in the winter (in the rooms we use) and 77 degrees in the summer. This is aided by zone heating in winter and we will add zone A/C to our bedroom in the summer of 2023. Our heat pump water heater and hybrid heating and A/C (HVAC) systems work on programmable thermostats, similar to our old systems. But they use a lot less natural gas and are more efficient because they move heat instead of creating it–what a brilliant idea! It has been fascinating and fun to experience these new, green technologies, which work more efficiently and emit far less carbon than what we were doing before. The extra bonus is that these changes have already paid for themselves and then some! We anticipate our savings to be about $5,000 per year, which will save us $100,000 over the next 20 years that we plan to live here! AMAZING!

We took some leaps forward this year in our quest to reduce our carbon footprint and live in a greener home. We traded our Toyota Highlander Hybrid for a Hyundai Ioniq 5 and became an all EV household! We also love knowing that when we drive, we are emitting zero emissions into the atmosphere. We’ve done some longer road trips in the Ioniq and have found it works the same for us as a gas fueled vehicle, because we like to stop and walk every 150 miles anyway. By the time we’re done stretching our legs, our baby is juiced up and ready to roll! If you want to know more about driving EV’s, see this theme in my blog: https://rhondaashurst.com/category/driving-electric-cars/. The other goal we achieved was adding a hybrid HVAC system. This system moves warm air from outside into our home in winter and out in summer. When it needs backup (temps below 40 degrees) it uses our high efficiency natural gas furnace in the winter. This system has further reduced our use of natural gas. To learn more about it, read this post: https://rhondaashurst.com/2023/03/03/our-new-hybrid-split-heat-pump-system/.

We were shocked to see that we are already beyond the breakeven point after only four years! I had neglected to add the increase in our home value due to these green improvements, even though I’d talked about it in the first year’s blog post. Studies are now showing that green homes sell for more and faster than other homes, because buyers want to live more sustainably and they know they are purchasing a valuable stream of savings (about $5,000 per year in our case). I added a modest 6% to the value of our home and I feel confident we could get that if we sold. But we are planning to stay for another 20+ years, so I thought it would be fun to look at how much we might save over that time and was shocked to find out it would be $100,000! We will likely save even more given the way energy and gasoline prices are going up. With this kind of savings, it would be worth taking out a home improvement loan and then paying it back out of the savings, especially with the new tax breaks and incentives.

How We Did It

I always say it’s like eating potato chips, once you get started it’s hard to stop! We began by adding 22 solar panels in early 2019 to take advantage of our big south-facing roof. In 2019, we also bought a hybrid Toyota Highlander and a Nissan LEAF. We learned quickly that the cars saved the most money and carbon.

In 2020 we added an EdenPURE high efficiency zone heater and another smaller electric heater in our bedroom. Between these heaters and our Lopi natural gas stove, we reduced our gas use by around 20%!

In 2021, we shifted our main focus to reducing our carbon footprint. We added 8 more solar panels (for a total of 30), cut down some trees that were shading the panels, and added a heat pump water heater. Our panels produce about 18 megawatts of electricity per year! The heat pump water heater made a huge difference. As of this writing, the heat pump saved another 40% of gas use over what we used in 2020!

In 2022, we added a heat pump HVAC system and traded the Highlander for a Hyundai Ioniq 5, going all EV at last! Again, it was the EV that made the biggest difference in saving both carbon and money. This time we splurged on a new EV. It has all the latest features and is a blast to drive! Our strategy has been to buy one lower-end, old technology EV (the 2016 Nissan LEAF) and one higher-end, new technology EV (the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5). We use the LEAF for our in-town driving and the Ioniq for road trips. This combo works great and between the two, they cost only $13,700 more than their comparable ICE’s. I estimate they will save us $3,500/year to drive over those ICE’s, so will pay for themselves in four years. We don’t yet have enough data to know how well our heat pump HVAC is doing; we hope to have a good idea by summer.

In 2023, we plan to add a mini-split heat pump to our bedroom for zone cooling (and perhaps some heating). We’d like to keep our room cooler for sleeping in the summer, but leave the rest of the house in the 80’s. We’re hoping with this change, we will reduce our use of electricity and hopefully be able to generate all our required electricity off our panels. Plus, it’ll give us a chance to try out a mini-split! We’re curious about how it operates vs. our ducted heat pump HVAC.

In our case, this has been a long-term project where we look at the synergy between all the systems. They work together to save more money and carbon than they would by themselves. We are also lucky to live in NV with tons of sun and a big south-facing roof. Our house has extra insulation, double pane windows, and an attic fan which helps hold the temperature inside. Over time we have also switched to LED lighting; it especially helped to change out our old outdoor Christmas lights to LED’s.

For more details, see the blog posts from each year under this theme: https://rhondaashurst.com/category/going-solar/.

Thinking About Trying It Yourself?

We’d recommend you start with solar panels and increasing the efficiency of your home (insulation, windows, sealing cracks, attic fan, etc). The next thing to add would be an EV or two, as they will save you the most money and carbon. After that, the heat pump water heater is a great gas saver and super efficient. If you have electricity left over, then think about heat pump HVAC.

If you don’t have solar panels, electricity is more expensive than natural gas, but not as expensive as gasoline. So, an EV can be worth it, but the other systems might not be. If your electrical grid is mostly powered by fossil fuels (which most are), you are still burning carbon to run the systems. In many states, you can purchase renewable energy from your power company or you can buy “green tags”, see this site for more information: https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/articles/easy-way-use-renewables-buy-clean-electricity

Summary of 2022

This table has more detail on savings of both carbon and money, plus more cost detail. It also shows the history of the changes we’ve made since 2018 and how it builds over time.

Bottom Line: We’ve saved 52 tons of carbon from entering our atmosphere, while saving money (past breakeven after 4 years), increasing the value of our home and enjoying the pleasure of driving really fun EV’s!

NOTE: The heat pump systems were purchased at wholesale and installed by Scott, his brother and friends. This significantly reduced our costs. In the table, we are only looking at the additional costs of replacing our old units with heat pumps vs. older technology.

THE DATA FOR MY FELLOW NERDS:

The Quest to Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

Last year we began a new quest to reduce out carbon footprint. We are excited to see that we have reduced our carbon footprint by 41% since 2018! This year we used a new, more accurate carbon calculator on the Nature Conservancy’s site. Here’s the link if you want to try it yourself: https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/. This calculator uses US data, while last year’s used UK data. It is best if you use a calculator that is based on your country’s carbon data.

According to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have a limited time to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions before we reach a point of no return. They are asking us to cut our emissions 50% by 2030. When all of us do what we can, we create a tidal wave of change! What we have learned during this journey is that we can drastically reduce our carbon footprint without sacrificing a comfortable, modern lifestyle. There are great technologies out there to help like solar panels, electric vehicles, and heat pump systems which allow us to cut our emissions significantly. It is actually not that difficult to replace old systems with these technologies and it makes such a difference. It’s also easy to install these more efficient systems in newer homes. In Nevada we are lucky to have this amazing sun and a net metering power company that allows us to bank and use our excess solar energy. Did you know that the biggest part of our carbon footprint comes from the energy we use in our homes and vehicles?

Electricity Production and Accumulated Credits

Our Online SolarEdge Panel. Click to see what we are producing with our rooftop solar array!

Our gratitude to Travis and the guys at Great Basin Solar (https://www.greatbasinsolar.com/) for the awesome job they did designing and installing our system.

We produced 17.9 megawatts, 4.7 megawatts more than last year! We were thrilled to see what a difference it made to install 8 new panels in 2021 and take out the trees that had been shading some of the panels. We are hopeful that we can now produce enough electricity to power our EV’s and our home with the addition of the heat pump systems.

Our banked power with NV Energy went from 2.0 to 2.2 megawatts, so we have a little extra going into 2023. Both electricity and gas prices went up significantly in 2022, so we are now using our banked credits at a higher rate. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out next year…

Because of the increase in utility bills, we added 20% to our previous annual charges to account for inflation. With the reduction in our use of natural gas, we saved a $950.47 on our utility bills this year!

We saved 299 therms over our old average.
Now we are using 49% less gas than we did before.
We also saved 3600 pounds of carbon!

From SolarEdge Monitoring System
From SolarEdge Monitoring System

These are the graphs from our SolarEdge inverter showing the production of electricity off our roof. You can see that our lowest production months are November-February, which is when we are using the electric zone heaters and running Christmas lights. It’s during these months that we tap into our banked power with NV Energy. In the higher production months, we send more power into the grid, which is used by other households and increases our banked power.

Electricity Delivered from and Received by NV Energy shown on the bar chart
Hand calculation is of our stored bank of 2.2 megawatts
(Bank of $234.13
divided by price per kilowatt of .10637)

THE EV’s

This table shows the miles we drove in our EV’s (about 5.5 months in the Ioniq), the electricity we used and the miles per kWh. It’s interesting that we get about the same mileage on both our EV’s. If we had to pay for this electricity, it would have only cost $287 to power them. The next two tables show what it would have cost to drive the comparable gas cars–about $2100! The gas prices went up from an average of $4/gallon in 2021 to over $5/gallon in 2022. This really increased our savings in 2022, plus driving a second EV.

We were shocked when we asked our Nissan Tech how much it would have cost to do the 45,000 mile service on a Juke and he said an additional over $800! Ouch! We are definitely at the stage with our LEAF where there are big savings in the repairs and maintenance. The LEAF has become Scott’s ride (it’s amazing what he can fit in that car!). At over 45,000 miles and 7 years old, it still has a range of 85 miles when charged to 100%. This is only a loss of 25 miles or about 23% of what it could do originally. We are down to 7 out of 10 bars on our battery. The LEAF still has plenty of range for around town trips and has had no major mechanical or electrical issues.

The Ioniq is my ride and I LOVE her! Most awesome car I’ve ever driven! (You can read more in the Driving EV’s theme.) She is our road car, so we anticipate we will put more miles on her than our LEAF. So far road tripping has been comfortable and easy. We’ve been able to find chargers whenever we need them. We get two free years from Hyundai at Electrify America, so for now our charging on the road is free! The other thing we love about Electrify America is their power comes from renewable sources. It will be interesting to see how much we save driving the Ioniq for a whole year. We got her in July 2022, so this is only a little over 5 months of driving.

We said farewell to our Highlander when we traded her for the Ioniq in July. It was an awesome car when we needed a V-6 to tow Pearl. In July we also sold Pearl, our cute little teardrop trailer. If you’re in the market for a large SUV hybrid, the Highlander is a great choice and saved us a lot of money over our old 4-Runner. The above table shows the $800 we saved driving the Highlander for 1/2 a year.

Scott fueling up the Highlander one last time.
Now we just plug in the charger in our garage.

EV’s powered by solar are one of the best ways to reduce both your transportation cost and carbon footprint. We recommend get solar and get EV’s–it’s worth it! If you don’t feel comfortable going all EV, plug-in hybrids are a next best choice, followed by regular hybrids. All these vehicles will save you money, while helping the environment. EV’s and plug-in hybrids assembled mostly in the USA are eligible for a $7,500 tax rebate when purchased new. Used EV’s can qualify for up to $4,000 in tax rebates as well. We like having one newer model and one older, used model. These cars cost $13,700 over their comparable gas cars. I estimate they will save us $3,500/year in gas and R&M. So we’d break even on the extra expense of buying the EV’s in 4 years.

If you made it this far, I’m impressed! Stay tuned for updates on driving EV’s, life with heat pumps, and the next adventure of installing and using a mini-split. See if we can actually meet all of our electricity needs off our roof. Yesterday I learned that Tesla is opening up its supercharging network to those of us who don’t own Teslas. We’re looking forward to trying that out and will let you know how it goes!