How a new car is getting us to address the old barn.
Tod has been interested in all-electric vehicles for a while. When the US war with Iran compromised petroleum supplies, he started to consider buying one more seriously. An EV for local trips makes sense when gasoline is 5x more per km than electricity.
And in a flash, it happened. We now own an electric kei-car, the Honda N One e. She’s drives well and is super cute with her white wheels and a “cheerful green” exterior. She needs a name; we are currently testing out a few but haven’t settled. Combining the N and e in “N One e”, maybe Neela or Neeps. Using N-one (none/nun), leads to Sister Mary-something. She looks sporty, so a tribute to a famous athlete could fit. Simone? We’ll see. Clever suggestions welcome.
Anyway, I digress. This is about the Diderot Effect. One of my favorite cautionary tales, Regrets on Parting with my Old Dressing Gown, tells the story of how a gift of new dressing gown ends up an entire room redecorated. The new dressing gown made the old chair look shabby; the new chair didn’t coordinate with the old rug, and so on leading to a cascade of expensive upgrades that caused Denis Diderot to regret that new dressing gown.
And I feel like that’s where we are now. The new EV car leads us down a path…
- We need a 200 V outlet to charge the car efficiently
- Shouldn’t we use a solar system to get “free energy” from the sun?
- Let’s make the system big enough to reduce household grid consumption!
- A carport roof is too small to generate 10Kw
- The barn is the logical place to put solar and batteries for a 10Kw system
- But the barn isn’t solid or safe, so we must tear it down
- A new building can also be Tod’s office, a guest room, and a garage
- There’s a cliff requiring safety remediation before a new build
- While we are at it, the driveway could be fixed up
So it seems that 2026 is going to be an expensive year here at 555. At least I will get some good stories out of it.
