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Last week I took my teenagers to an amazing talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson, famed astrophysicist and climate science (and all science) proponent. Neil deGrasse Tyson explained that there were three kinds of truths: He was very clear that personal and political truths are real and that everyone is entitled to them, but he did have a big point about them. He wrapped up the talk with a bit of hope, by looking at the number of twitter followers of top pundits from the conservative and progressive perspectives, and surprisingly to me, the progressives dwarf the conservatives in this respect. Neil deGrasse Tyson ended the talk with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. that is as important now, if not more important than when he first said it: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

We recently purchased a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan and we drove over 25 days and 887 miles before our first fill up at the pump. so we learned a few things about our new car: I discovered that like our Ford C-Max Hybrid, the Pacifica does not have a gas cap, but a self closing valve. During our trip to NY we did try to  charge at one of the rest areas that advertised fast EV chargers, but it was rated for Tesla and higher than Level 2 DC charging. We’re really interested in taking a look at how much electricity we’re using versus how far we’re driving, and we’ve installed a ChargePoint home charger that tracks kW

The acceleration is fun, so far I’ve experienced 95kW all electric torque launching us forward from a stop without the internal combustion engine ever engaging. I especially love the heated steering wheel and heated seats, which help me keep the main climate control system off except when I need the defogger. We’ve tried charging at home (plugged into standard 110V outlet), fast charging (level 2 -240V) at my work and at a public charging station. The one problem we have had started at 180 miles, when the “Service Hybrid Electric Vehicle System” warning light came on.

We’d been saying for years that we were waiting for a plug-in minivan to replace our aging minivan, and somehow we’d missed it. Two weeks later we are now proud owners of a Plug-in Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan that has an all EV range of 33 miles and gets a combined 32 MPG on gas only. On her way in, she ran into our colleagues from the Mass Energy Consumer Alliance  who had EV and Plug-in Hybrid owners showing off their cars as part of their Drive Green with Mass Energy during the conference lunch break. First Test: Charging Ahead I was convinced that the Plug-in Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan could be the replacement for our 7 passenger (which we use daily for carpool) Toyota Sienna, but could we afford it?