The Online Photographer

Took delivery on the new spaceship yesterday, with no hitches. It's easily the nicest intergalactic transport I've ever owned, and by far the best bargain. I'm really grateful to have gotten one for such a great price. That could still kick me in the you-know-what—Nissan could go out of business or something—but life's a risk I guess.

My car (I'm not the type to give names to my cars, but if my friends last night are any indication, it looks like this one is called "Panda") was sold new in Lancaster, Ohio, on August 17th, 2023, for $49,965. I bought it for $20,995 yesterday with 3,700 miles on it. It's indistinguishable from new as far as I can see. By the way, Electric Car Corner in Farmington, New York, has one more at that price, a black one with 11,096 miles. Call Noah at (585) 210-0206 if you're interested. Stock No. C9791. Please tell him I sent you. No affiliation other than as a perhaps overly enthused customer.

One very nice feature: the entire front footwell of the car is open; there's no transmission hump or center stack. This means I have a perfect place to stow the camera on the floor without impinging on the very generous passenger seat leg room. 

For the time being I'm stuck with Level 1 charging via a portable 120/240v charging cable (came with the car) until I get my garage charger (real name: EVSE, for electric vehicle supply equipment). Note that garage chargers can also be used outside if that's where you park. They're wind-, rain-, and snowproof. 

I went to my 12-step meeting last night and found out that there's a Level 2 charging station just across the street, behind the public library. It worked by just tapping a debit card. So I hooked up for an hour and 45 minutes. When I got back I had added 17% of charge to the car for $1.85, but the charge was waived so I didn't pay anything. I'm told those chargers are always free. 

Today, starting with 93% charge, I'm off to find the alleged one DC Fast Charger in town just so I know it exists and where it is, then on to the Nissan dealer for a certain weird little part called an inlet gap and some floor mats. And to find out if they are certified to service the electric vehicles. Then as soon as I can gather all the bits together, I can work on getting my Level 2 garage charger installed.  

A few predictions to give us something to talk about:

—In 9 years or sooner, a Chinese EV manufacturer will be the best-selling carmaker in North America.

—In 13 years or sooner, it will be commonplace for pretty ordinary electric cars to have 600 miles of range.

—In 17 years or sooner, car batteries will be 50% smaller, 60% lighter, and twice as powerful as today's, and will cost about a third as much.

—In 23 years or sooner, most gas stations will be gone and the people with range anxiety will be those looking for gasoline. 

B&W guy
I suppose it's natural that my Ariya should be black-and-white, right? I mean, what else would you expect from me? I considered the license plate "ADD D76." Or maybe....

And of course with a B&W car you know my charger just had to be this one. It's supposed to arrive today.

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Rick Popham: "You could call it 'Storm Trooper' if you're you're a Star Wars fan—and feeling a bit feisty."

Mike replies: Believe it or not, New York plate "STRMTRPR" is already taken.

Bob G.: "Speaking of cameras, did you get the optional dual camera Drive Recorders in addition to the standard rear view mirror and I-AVMs (Intelligent Around View Monitor)?

Mike replies: No, those aren't included on my "Engage" trim. I'm also missing the smart charger for the phone, so I rigged up a Lightning cable from the backseat USB port (at the rear of the motorized armrest) to keep the phone plugged in (if you have Carplay on for a long drive it runs down the phone battery. I drove 185 miles yesterday because I wanted to try out the local DC Fast Charger, which is at a Dodge Dealership). The brochure for your year (here's the one for 2023) is the go-to for sorting out which trims have which features—there is a magnificent grid chart on the next-to-last page that tells you all that. But be sure to look at the one for the year you're interested in. 

Roger Bradbury: "I note that the photo of your car at the top of this post had to be in colour, to show that the subject was black and white! :-) But still, the shot is composed like a black-and-white photo and there's little colour in it."

Mike replies: An assignment that Paul Kennedy, an instructor of mine in art school who became my son's grandfather, gave us in Color Class: black-and-white in color. These can be effective because you can look for ever-tinier accents of color that add just that little touch of je ne sais quoi to the picture.  :-)  I even experimented for a time with desaturating color pictures almost but not quite all the way, thinking it might imply color without really hitting you over the head with it. The problem with that turned out to be that it was inconsistent. Some pictures worked really well, many others not so well.

Kye Wood: "Best part of having a new car these days is discovering new things that you had no clue that they had. Just this week I discovered that I've got headlight washers! And that I can set the cruise control speed while the car is stationary and that I can press a button on the steering wheel and the car won't exceed the speed limit, unless I mash the accelerator. Because it reads the speed signs! And that's just this week. Not to mention headlights that draw an exclusion zone around oncoming traffic so as not to blind them. All in my lowest base spec car."

John McMillin: "Six hundred miles of range is way above my bar for range anxiety. That covers the longest day I would ever want to drive, even allowing for heat waves and deep winter weather, which is not the time I'd want to drive at all.

"Instead of a bigger battery, I'd want a lighter battery. Your car's battery weighs either 972 or 1274 lbs. (I looked it up.) For comparison, the engine of a Nissan Sentra weighs about 300 lbs., including exhaust and cooling system. I know that regen braking recaptures much of the extra momentum of EVs, and mass adds safety in head-to-head collisions (but not in single-vehicle wrecks). But you've come a long way from the Miatas you used to rave about.

Mike replies: Yes, this is not my style of car. But remember, I only bought this one because for whatever reason it was affordable to me—I didn't get to optimize for what I wanted. I couldn't afford the '25 Honda Civic Hybrid for instance (putting aside the "Honda Knee Problem"). All things being equal, I would actually have preferred the upcoming new 2026 Leaf I'm sure. But it will be a lot more expensive than what I paid for my Ariya even though it's a lower-level model.

Many makers in the world create small "commuter" EV cars—in Europe they have many that we don't have here. Even the VW ID.2all won't be coming here. And of course all smaller and cheaper Chinese EVs are banned from import here, for mainly specious reasons.

Also, this doesn't apply to your comment here, but I have to say I think it's a tiny bit ironic that anti-EV people out there in the world complain about the weight of EV batteries when so many people are driving 5,000- and 6,000-pound pickup trucks as personal conveyances. Just saying, as they say.