Battery-operated

Batteries are not just about cars. Portable computers have been around for more than two decades now, and they run on batteries. Gee, we even have battery backups for our computers. These things are ubiquitous and allow your computer to save data and shut down in an orderly fashion when there is a power outage. It’s cheap insurance. Most of us now have battery-operated keyboards, although I’m not always sure why a battery is better, since I never move far from my monitor. We also have battery-operated mice. (I also wonder why a battery is better with these, but I’ll agree that an uncorded mouse has more flexibility, more freedom.)

Batteries are also used for flashlights, portable radios and TVs (remember them?), iPads, iPhones, watches (though, aside from luxury ones, watches seem to be on a downhill slide; I rarely wear mine any longer) and on and on and on. (Note to me: It’s like gold mining, right? The people who made the most money in the gold-mining age manufactured dungarees or sold shovels and food to miners. Maybe, instead of focusing on investing in computer stocks, I should focus on battery stocks.)

GM

GM — or as people here in Oklahoma refer to the company, Government Motors — had the first modern electric car, the EV1 (presumably, Electric Vehicle 1), in the 1990s. According to Wikipedia, one of the few surviving models of the General Motors program (General Motors recalled and destroyed EV1s to avoid, it said, having to provide parts ad infinitum) later sold for $465,000 in 2008.

One could only buy the EV1 through Saturn dealers, and, then, only in California and Georgia, states where dealers were trained and the car could be serviced. (Saturn was a GM brand that generated crazy-mad loyalty. Owners from around the United States would drive for hundreds or thousands of miles yearly to attend a picnic at its Tennessee manufacturing plant. People loved their Saturns. The Saturn cult was almost a religion. On the other hand, the chief executives at Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Cadillac hated Saturn, and over a period of years, they were able to slowly strangle the brand and reduce its product to the defective sameness that plagued other GM brands at the time. The sniping by division bosses even got the CEO to move the manufacturing of Saturns to — I think — a Chevy plant, maybe in the industrial part of New Jersey. No one was going to picnic there!)

The Chevy Volt was ahead of its time, no question. And how can anything with that much hype (and years of advertising before the final product appeared) that does not have the word Apple in front of its moniker survive? The Volt is probably lots better than we think, but the fear of problems (like Boeing’s Dreamliner, and new models of almost anything — except maybe Apple products, and even then once) seemed to have taken a toll on sales. Many people don’t “get” that the Volt can drive forever if one keeps filling it with fuel and that the plug-in battery is just to get around electrically for the first X miles.

Toyota

My wife has a 2007 Camry Hybrid, which has been an excellent and reliable car for five years, although it has never realized its gas mileage potential. Originally touted for in-town driving at around 40 mpg, the car has never gotten better than 32 mpg. It now mostly hovers around 28 or 29 mpg. In the first few years, its in-town average was around 24 to 25 mpg. On the highway, the Camry gets 34 mpg, whether one is driving 50, 75 or even more. I once wanted to check passing on a two-lane country road and floored it to get around a farm truck driving 50 mph. When I hit the gas full-on, the car seemed to engage its electric motor, battery pack and engine all at once, and, by the time I got ahead of the farm truck, I was doing 100 mph. Moral: Be careful in hybrids — they have multiple power sources.

New Camry models are lighter and reportedly have better gas mileage. We have had zero trouble with the battery pack or electric motor. (Note to self, re: investing possibilities: what company makes batteries for the Toyota and Prius?)

I test drove a Prius this year and generally liked it, although the feel of the steering seemed more like that of a heavy truck than a car. Priuses get about 50 to 55 mpg. They are hybrids — Sterling-cycle engines with batteries and electric motors, as is my wife’s Camry. (Note to self, re: investing: what company manufactures the electric motors, probably the same for Prius and Camry?)

Nissan

My brother-in-law has a Nissan Leaf. He can go about 75 miles on an electric charge, depending on whether he is using air conditioning or heating or neither and depending on how many passengers the car is carrying. He charges at night and seems to like his car. His wife has another automobile that they use for trips because once the 75-mile target is met, that Leaf won’t flutter any longer.

Ford