Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
Turns out people are interested in my electric car. I don’t blame them, as it’s pretty cool. I thought I’d throw out some additions to my cover story.
First, Nissan threw in Sirius/XM, which was cool. But what’s really cool about it is when I stop in the shadow of one of Reno’s taller buildings, it blocks the satellite reception. So get this, since the car makes no noise, and there’s no background hum from the car engine, it’s like the car has died. Weird. With no engine noise, the stereo sounds awesome. It’s like driving headphones to work.
People ask me how many miles I get to a charge. I don’t know. It’s about a hundred, but since the brakes charge the batteries, certain conditions add miles to the charge.
If I use the regular, old plug-it-in-the-wall plug, the 120 volts, it takes about 12 or 13 hours to go from 0 percent to 100 percent. Again, just an estimation, since I’ve only let it get down to 12 percent or so. But I installed a 240 volt power station, and that cuts the time in half, which is about what you’d expect.
The car is very powerful, the kind of power that gets you off at the light more than the kind that tows boats. It’s got two settings, powersaving (ECO) and regular drive. The fact that the speed is on a governor convinces me that if I weren’t on a lease I could hack that governor and increase the speed and the top end. Also, the Bluetooth works on the cell phone calls, but not on the cell phone MP3 player. I have a feeling that’s another hack I could do if I wanted to risk my warranty, which I don’t.
Still, I am interested in the concept of car security and hacking, since all I have to do is walk up to it, and the “smart key” allows me to open the door and start the car.
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It’s 95-word short fiction time. Send your entries to renofiction@newsreview.com. Deadline is 9 a.m. on Oct. 23. That’s exactly 95 words including headline. For inspiration, check out last year’s contest, www.newsreview.com/reno/stranger-than-truth/content?oid=8291872 .