Eyeballing it

Are you one of those gifted types that can freehand a long, level, straight line with one smooth effortless stroke of a paintbrush? Not me. Far from it. In fact, I need all the help I can get to keep things straight around here. So when it came to adorning each of our EVs with California HOV stickers, I had to resort to tricks that I learned through net wisdom and from a couple of friends that are graphic artists.

Here's how the stickers arrive in the mail. One long strip. They also came with the some official paperwork to stuff in the glove box in case you are pulled over and need to prove that those stickers are assigned to your car. Installation instructions are also provided, but they only tell you where the big ones go and where the little ones go, sort of. No tips on how to stick them on straight.

If you're one of those gifted types, this is not an issue since you can probably just peel each of those stickers off the strip and slap them onto the car one after another, perfectly placed and aligned, creating an exact replica of the ideal world you visualized in your mind. However, if you're just a regular Joe like me, that strategy might not work out so well. Instead, you might want to try a method that allows for dry runs and includes visual aids while permanently affixing the stickers to the pristine finish or your new ride.

First off, get a pair of scissors and cut off the backing around each sticker. Perfection is not required, so leave enough margin while cutting around the curve so that you don't accidentally slice into the decal in the event something unexpected happens, i.e. you sneeze, the phone rings, maybe your kid bumps into you, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits.... you never know. But try to keep the cuts straight on the straight edges; you'll need those edges to line things up on the car.

Next, figure out where in general you want to stick those puppies and clean the areas. Some folks wax the areas to make it easier to remove when the HOV privilege expires or is revoked; I didn't. Too lazy. I just used Windex.

Now stick a couple of pieces of painter's tape on the back of the decals, rolled over itself so you can hang it on the car temporarily. I just used two pieces. If you are going around a curve, like on the sides of the rear bumper on a Fiat 500e, you might want to use more tape. Don't use garden variety masking tape, transparent tape, or duct tape. Use painter's tape. Other stuff is too sticky for me, and tends to leave adhesive residue on the car unless you wax the area first. Even then, it's harder to work with.

Okay, so after that, just slap the entire assembly on the car and move it around until you're happy with the way it looks. You can try lining it up with character lines, trim pieces, or some other feature on the body or bumper. Or you can use a laser level to line it up parallel the surface of the Earth... just make sure you're parked on a level surface. The point is that you can try out multiple positions and angles before committing.

After you've temporarily hung it on your car exactly where you want it, stick pieces of painter's tape along the straight edges of the sticker. The tape will serve as a guide when you're ready to permanently affix the sticker.

 

For the rear sticker, I used two pieces of tape as a guide. The right edges of each piece were used to line up the right corners of the sticker. It looks a little crooked here... I didn't use a laser level to line it up. I just eyeballed it (doh!). I also didn't step back 20 feet or so to see what it looked like from a distance before proceeding. However, installing the guides did help reveal the misalignment and I ended up straightening it out a little before committing.

 

For the side stickers, I used three pieces of tape as a guide. Prior to installing the guide, I used a laser level against the top straight edge of the sticker to level it with the surface of our planet. I first tried out having the sticker lined up with the lower crease on the bumper, but I didn't like the way it looked. So I just took it off and tried again, but used the level. Then I walked across the street and studied it for a moment from various angles to make sure I really got it straight, then framed the sticker with the painter's tape.

After all that, it was time to commit... I took the sticker off the car, removed the backing, and carefully lined up the corners and edges of the sticker with the pieces of tape, working the sticker's adhesive onto the car from the top corner, then across the top straight edge and straight side, and then diagonally across the rest of the sticker, trying not to form any bubbles. Finally, I removed the pieces of tape and stepped back to see if I screwed up or got lucky. Fortunately I got lucky, for the most part. Even the rear sticker came out okay; initially I thought it would look lame. But after parking it on the street later on to do the side stickers and staring at it from a couple of car lengths away, it looked pretty straight. Better lucky than good, right?

I think it took me about a half hour total to install all three stickers, including the time to trim the backing and take some pictures. Which to me was time well spent since I've seen way too many sticker installs while on the road and at charging stations that were so randomly misaligned and out of place that I couldn't help gawking at it, like staring a train wreck. I couldn't help looking and thinking, "How the heck did that happen?".

To the right are some photos of HOV stickers on our Volt and Focus Electric, for your consideration, in case you're like me and are prone to wasting way too much time trying to decide where to put the stickers before spending the short 30 minutes to install them. Sometimes seeing what others have done can help you quickly decide what you like. Or don't like.

For the Volt, I tried to line up the stickers with the lower valance all around. It looks okay, but my first choice was to stick them on the valance itself, at least for the side and rear stickers. I opted against it in case I felt the urge to Plasti-dip the valance for a monochrome look. In retrospect, even though I won't be painting the valance after all, I'm glad I didn't install them down there because I've seen a few Volts with their stickers peeling off of the textured black plastic.

On the Focus Electric, I went with how WattsUp, one of the prominent contributors to myfocuselectric.com, adorned his FFE with HOV decals. They're all level with the ground, and the side stickers wrap over the start of a character line that sweeps across the bumper. I thought it looked great on his car, so I followed suit.

Okay, so long story short  (yeah, yeah - too late like usual), here's my recommendation:

• Trim the backing to the shape of the decals and test fit them on the car by sticking them on temporarily with painter's tape. Try different positions. View your candidate placements from different angles and distances before committing. A laser level really helps if you want it level to the ground.
• When you find the perfect position, frame the sticker around its  straight edges with painter's tape. Then affix the sticker permanently using the painter's tape as a guide.

Good luck, I hope this helps!

Sticker Shock

Woohoo! Got my green stickers, baby! It was getting a bit dicey there…. one of the reasons why I got a Volt now instead of later is because those California HOV stickers were running low for qualified plug-in hybrids and extended range electrics. Back in January there were over 7,000 of the available 40,000 stickers left, and by the end of last week that number dwindled down to under 4,000 remaining. I applied for my sticker as soon as I could – the day I got my plates, about a month into the lease – then monitored my bank account on a daily basis looking for a check cashed in the amount of eight bucks. Meanwhile, the depleting sticker supply debacle was getting more and more attention in blogs and articles. To make things worse, more dealers were getting into the act of ordering stickers en masse for cars they had in transit from the factory. It didn’t take long to have second thoughts about not leasing my Volt from one of the big dealers in the Valley that pre-orders stickers, even if it would have meant abandoning the great lease terms I got from a local dealer. At my lowest point I even wished I had not picked up the Volt at all, that I should have just kept driving the Focus Electric 18,000 miles a year, which at 20 cents per mile over 12,000, would have resulted in almost $4000 of excess mileage charge over three years, instead of taking on the Volt for a mere six cents per mile more.

Despite the risk of such significant financial penalty two years from now, I started neglecting the Volt most of the week, like I did with the Mercedes it replaced, in favor of commuting with my white-stickered Focus Electric in the HOV lane. Spending over three hours a day crawling on the 405 in the Volt just wasn’t as appealing as flying in the Focus Electric at proper freeway speeds while the rest of the world around me stood still. At any price. As the weeks of March passed, seeing more and more Volts on the road with no plates and pre-ordered green stickers on their bumpers further convinced me that I probably made a costly mistake.

Eventually the planets aligned. On Wednesday of last week I logged into my checking account like so many countless weeknights prior, and there it was – a tiny icon that was a scanned image of an eight dollar check payable to the DMV. That meant arrival of my Volt’s green stickers were imminent, and that my daily obsession with online banking would transition to manically sifting through a pile of snail mail that my wife so thoughtfully places on my side of the kitchen table before I get home from work (I love that girl!). But the following night as I made a beeline from the front door to the kitchen I couldn’t see the stack of mail…. my wife was standing in front of the table with a firm stance and cold stare. If I were a dog my tail would have instinctively curled under my hind legs, head lowered as I slowly back away. “Uh oh”,  I thought. She held up an envelope and sternly asked, “Why are you getting mail from the DMV? You did NOT buy another car, did you???”.

I was relieved. Because I did nothing of the sort, this time.  She’s a bit sensitive about my craigslist buying binges, and is probably harboring a fear that my obsession has moved back to cars. Over the past couple of years, my weakness has been with guitars… now there are over 20 guitars lining the walls of  my man-cave, bought from aspiring rock stars that moved on to other pursuits, professional musicians that upgraded their gear, and folks that otherwise don’t want to spend the time nor resources to fix broken instruments – probably half of the collection required mild restoration, i.e. snapped necks, failed electronics, sometimes just a simple paint touch-up. After getting two electric vehicles so far this year, one in January and the next in February, I suppose her angst is justified.

Surprised and delighted about the DMV mail, I snatched the envelope from her hand and ripped it open. “Stickers! Look, I got my stickers,” I  clearly explained, waving the shiny green holographic treasures just inches from her face. She rolled her eyes and stepped aside, opening up my path to the kitchen table, where I got on my son’s laptop and started googling for pictures of Volts with HOV stickers to help me visualize how I should install these things. In all these weeks of waiting, I didn’t have the sense to finalize exactly where they would go once I got them. Between eating dinner, cleaning up, and putting the boys to bed, it took all night to decide and then to install the stickers, but by midnight the Volt was armed and ready to take on the HOV lane for the Friday morning commute.

Since then, I’ve been commuting with the Volt exclusively to get a jump on minimizing excess miles on the Focus Electric lease.  With the stickers installed and 50% higher average speed achieved in the HOV lane, the Volt now needs about a quart of gas per day on the 38-mile, 1200-foot climb back home after being fully charged at work… in its pre-sticker guise it took at most a pint, and with the weather warming we were actually starting to make it home without waking up the ICE. A small price to pay for spending one less hour on the freeway, I suppose.

I’m guessing that the depletion of the green sticker supply will slow momentarily because as reported by Inside EVs,  the DMV has suspended the program that allows dealers to obtain those stickers prior to sale. This is good news for those dealers that don’t pre-order the stickers as well as for consumers that shop around for the best deal. Even better news is that there’s a bill to increase the number of green stickers that can be issued, exact quantity is apparently yet to be determined. With any luck, it will be enough to cover introductions of the rumored Focus Energi and imminent next-generation Volt. Because after one solid week of driving my Volt, I’ve realized that it has a few shortcomings that keeps me from wanting to keep it longer than its lease term. More on that later.

Change of Heart

Dang, I must be getting old. It’s only been a few weeks, and I’ve already forgotten how to operate this newfangled electronical contraption.

My Focus Electric has been parked since the weekend before Christmas. Didn’t need to drive to work until after the New Year since the company shuts down the site for the holidays. And since traffic on the 405 was very light for the first couple of weeks in January, the benefit of using the HOV lane was diminished. Thus, I drove an ICE to work every day for the first seven work days of 2014 in an attempt to save a few bucks at lease termination – the Focus odo is already at 16000 miles after only 11 months. Combine that with a gross miscalculation on my part at a Ford dealership last February that resulted in my signing up for a 12000 mile/year lease instead of one with an annual allotment of 18000 miles  – back then I really did think that I’d have the discipline to commute in an ICE instead of an EV for 2 days/week – and the financial incentive to go back to driving an ICE every day for a month or so is compelling. So that’s what I did, sort of.

Weird thing was that during those seven days in an ICE, I did not miss the EV driving experience at all. Traffic was light, so my 2005 Mercedes C230 Sport Sedan was averaging 32 miles per gallon. Only one trip to the gas station over a 10-day period, not enough to annoy me quite yet. Twice in 10 days, that would be annoying. So I didn’t miss the convenience of “refueling” at home and work. I also didn’t long for the quietness of an electric powertrain. As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, I actually enjoy the sound of Mercedes’ 1.8-liter supercharged 4-cylinder. Music to my ears, and I do prefer music over silence. What I did miss are the bells and whistles on the Focus Electric that are standard nowadays on any well-equipped vehicle – SiriusXM, Bluetooth connectivity, pushbutton start, navigation, touchscreen controls, and so on. The decade-old Mercedes, which seemed luxurious when I first bought it as a lease return with 38000 miles in 2009, now seems like a spartan relic from a distant past. But at 117000 miles it’s still a hoot to drive… as surprisingly awesome as the Focus Electric is in the handling department, the C230 Sport Sedan still feels more connected to the road, perhaps in part because it’s so low to the ground. In fact, it’s so low that my wife doesn’t like driving it. She says it feels like her butt is dragging on the pavement, like a go-kart.

So I was planning on commuting with the C230 exclusively until the end of this month, but that plan came to an end on Monday morning after checking out the 405 traffic on sigalert.com… it said it would take almost two hours to get to work. I hopped into the Focus Electric instead of the C230, got in the HOV lane and whizzed by no less than four fender benders, arriving at work in just over an hour.

Seems like I forgot how to drive efficiently, though, particularly in maximizing regenerative braking. In an ICE, I tend to coast more and brake later, rather than brake lightly sooner for more regen so that binders don’t have to get into the act until we’re close to a dead stop. I also tend to brake less before a turn in an ICE, letting the tires scrub off the speed rather than braking before or during the turn; it’s a habit I picked up after reading something years ago on hypermiling… if you’re going to convert energy to heat, might as well use it to change your direction faster. Why waste gas by braking before a turn and taking a few seconds longer to travel the same distance? That all changes with regenerative braking since it captures the energy and sticks it in a battery rather than converting it to heat, dissipating it to the atmosphere. So when I got back into the Focus I had to retrain myself to slow down more, and sooner, when approaching a turn, since energy lost through heat generated at the contact patch of each tire is lost forever. It took a couple of days to get used to braking earlier and lighter to achieve 99% regen on a round-trip commute.

It’s become very hard to justify keeping the C230 around. My original plan to drive it to work twice a week has failed miserably after installing those HOV lane stickers on the Focus, so the over-mileage situation on the lease will only get worse for the next two years. I started taking the C230 to used car lots to see how much cash they’d turn it into, and am currently shopping for an HOV-qualified replacement to share commuting duties with my beloved Focus Electric and to cover the occasional treks that go beyond the FFE’s range. Top of the list? A 2014 Chevy Volt.