The Parrot folks were great about covering this issue under warranty and were very polite and helpful on the phone. The tech said for some reason the iOS location services might be causing this issue. So if you absolutely can’t wait to buy one, I’d suggest turning off location services before you fly.

Read more of my review at Amazon.com (affiliate link)

Just when you thought more features couldn’t be crammed into a camera, Sony managed to come up with a few things that make this handycam worthy of serious consideration.

The 30x zoom has some real utility and stands out of the pack as compared to other cameras at this price point. I did a head-to-head comparison with my Nikon D7000 with a 400mm lens attached and the Sony was able to zoom in a bit further. Images softer at 30x but it’s still quite impressive for a small camcorder like this.

Read my full review at Amazon.com (affiliate link).

The only challenge is how to attach a Hype produced ad to an ad server that can track impressions and clicks. We use Google’s Double Click for Publishers (DFP) platform at the Independent Media Network. It’s great for showing flash ads or static images (both of which are flat files) but anything else is slightly more challenging.

UPDATE: Tumult’s tech support contacted me last week with an easy to follow set of instructions. My method (at the bottom of the post) worked, but this seems like it’s a better way to implement it:

Step1:
All of the files/libraries need to be in the same folder. DoubleClick doesn't allow sub folders. So both relocate all of the files, along with updating the main HTML file to not look for any files (JS, CSS, Images, etc) in a sub folder.

Step7:
DoubleClick's Studio requires an instance of their "enabler" being used somewhere to be uploaded. So as long as there's some sort of "counter" or "exit" setup in any of the files, everything should be accepted. I just added an "exit" when you click on one of the elements, example:
var javascripts = [{name:"onCTAClick",source:"function(hypeDocument, element, event) {\n\tEnabler.exit('HTML5_CTA_Clickthrough');\t\n}",identifier:"12"}];


Here's my old workaround:

After a good deal of poking around we found a workaround. This is probably not kosher with the Javascript elites, but it does the trick for us. Here's what we did:

<div style="position:relative;">
<iframe src = "http://URL_TO_YOUR_AD.HTML" width = "300" height = "250" frameborder = "0"></iframe>
<a href= "%%CLICK_URL_UNESC%%http://DESTINATION_LINK" style="position:absolute; top:0; left:0; display:inline-block; width:300px; height:250px; z-index:5;" target="_blank"></a>
</div>
</div>

Essentially what we did here was make an iFrame clickable by overlaying some transparent CSS over it. Or at least I think that's what we're doing here. The %%CLICK_URL_UNESC%% macro that's appended directly ahead of the URL is what DFP uses to track the click.

We're not yet comfortable enough with this solution to roll it out for a production advertisement, but our house ad has been delivering (and clicking) flawlessly on every modern browser as well as mobile devices.

I'd love to hear from you as to whether or not this is a good practice with DFP or in general.

There are three different versions of this device, and this one is the least expensive of the line. It lacks a few features the more expensive units have, including some of the fancier DVE effects that the others bring. But for my purposes (covering news events mostly) this device fits the bill. It can do basic chroma keying and titling but won’t be able to run multiple tracks of video simultaneously.

Continue reading my review at Amazon.com (affiliate link)

As Connecticut residents continue to lose confidence in their electric utility monopoly, the company’s messaging isn’t helping restore that trust.  Here’s what CL&P needs to do right now:

Apologize and admit fault
CL&P’s COO Jeff Butler was asked point blank this morning by a reporter if he’d be issuing an apology on behalf of the company. His answer was to stick to his company’s line of acknowledging frustration but not admitting fault. He even took it a step further and patted himself on the back for doing a good job. This is an old school technique for a time when information was not as readily available or transmittable as it is today.

It didn’t take long for the media to discover that CL&P short paid or outright delayed payment to out-of-state crews that helped after Tropical Storm Irene. Maintenance shortfalls, understaffed line crews, and other pre-storm preparedness deficiencies also started coming to light.

Consumers have the tools to be savvier and as such our “BS detectors” have no tolerance for superlatives that even Baghdad Bob wouldn’t make. Butler would do well to simply acknowledge the company has screwed up and will be working to make things right for their customers. They can start by saying the company will absorb the repair costs and not be asking rate payers to cover them. As I wrote yesterday, they were very quick to reassure shareholders after Irene that repair costs would not eat into profits.

Stand and Answer Questions from the Media, and Later the Public
Jeff Butler’s body language says quite a bit. While he’s understandably under a lot of pressure, he’s not helping his cause by racing for the door as he did at this morning’s press conference. Butler should give enough time so that every member of the press at the briefings has an opportunity to ask him questions.

When the lights do come back on, CL&P has an obligation to appear before customers to explain what happened and what they will do to improve. That should have happened after Irene and didn’t. The company decided to instead meet with towns through regional planning agencies. They would not provide me with the dates of those meetings when I requested them.

Stop Using Social Media as a Propaganda Tool
Nothing is more insulting to families sitting in cold, dark houses than to see Tweets and YouTube videos of corporate spin. CL&P proudly touted two videos yesterday of storm damage – like somehow that will make people feel better about their lack of response.

I spoke of this before, and I think it’s worth repeating: social media does not belong solely in the hands of PR officials. Customer service should be there to answer customer questions and try to work out their individual issues.

Stop Relying on Municipalities for Customer Service Communication
In this age of direct communication, CL&P continues to cling to the notion that somehow municipalities and local property tax payers should be the ones responsible for communicating with customers. It backs up my belief that the company is not customer focused, but rather sees themselves as a customer of regulators and shareholders.

Yesterday Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra gave exactly the kind of update that CL&P should be doing:

Why rely on elected officials to do this? Why not have your own people communicate with customers? The answer is simple: Customers are not the company’s first priority.

Conclusion: It needs to be about customers!
Again all of this comes back to putting customers first. Large corporations in competitive markets are starting to realize that consumers are getting far less complacent. Just look at Bank of America’s decision to reverse some of their ATM charges this week. CL&P has not learned that lesson mainly because up until this year they didn’t have to.

My only hope is that people angry now stay angry. I felt like a lone voice as I fired off my rants in August, especially after lights came back on and life got back to normal. The company is counting on this happening again, and it simply can’t be allowed to happen. Our voices need to remain loud to be heard.

A high voltage utility poll that serves my business and others that employ several hundred in the Essex Industrial Park. Look at the overgrowth.

They did, however, make sure to soothe investors as revealed in a September 8, 2011 article that ran in the Wall Street Journal:

A top executive of Northeast Utilities assured investor analysts Thursday that the company will not turn to the bottom line to pay $100 million in costs related to restoring power after the remnants of Hurricane Irene hit New England, but has not determined exactly how it will eventually pay the tab.

Chief Financial Officer David McHale said the Aug. 28 storm was the costliest ever for the Hartford-based utility, with about 800,000 customers losing power at the peak of the storm.

“Now the focus will be on cost recovery for sure,” he said. “We haven’t gotten down to exactly how it is we’re going to proceed with this.”

Separate storm recovery applications or a rate case could be filed with regulators in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, he said. Right now, Northeast Utilities will finance the costs through its credit line and seek somehow to recover the costs in the future, he said.

“You will not see us sort of charge off these amounts,” McHale said.

The second next pole in the string that serves high voltage service to the Essex Industrial Park. Nobody's cleared away vegetation in over a decade.

Then the winter storm hit. And once again hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents lost power for what will likely be more than a week. Crews were nowhere to be found for days as residents shivered in unheated homes and people died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  It was learned this week that many of those the company hired to complete the post-Irene repairs weren’t paid, with some checks not being cut until yesterday – over 60 days after the fact. Scorned contractors went elsewhere with their trucks when the snowstorm hit.

How can such a big company be so incompetent? It’s because as a regulated monopoly they don’t have to focus on their customers. Their monopoly is essentially guaranteed a profit, and as the only game in town they really only need to keep their regulators and shareholders happy. Regulators too closely tied to the industry looked the other way as line crews were cut significantly, and shareholders welcomed the profit margins that came from a growing customer base. It also led to CL&P running to analysts assuring them that ratepayers would pick up the tab for repairs – the result of the company’s decades-long negligence in maintaining its infrastructure.

Connecticut Light and Power has failed the people of Connecticut.  We should have seen the warning signs when they stopped caring about us.

The sound rumbles in about 25 seconds into the launch. Yes, for the first 20 or so seconds you hear absolutely nothing while witnessing one of mankind’s greatet achievements rocketing free of our home planet on a pillar of fire as bright as the sun. Then you hear it: a sustained thunder that rolls in, followed by chest thumping crackles that beat any fireworks display you’ve ever experienced.

Read more about my NASA experiences at CTTechJunkie.com.

My reason for purchasing the new Apple Thunderbolt display was for the image quality which is definitely worth every one of the 5 stars I’m rating it.

Like all Apple products the Thunderbolt display is exceptionally well built and designed, offering the same display components as the beautiful 27″ iMac.

Read my complete review at Amazon.com

You can see my original post on the Kagi / VisualHub saga here: here.

I’m running out to a meeting but wanted to get a quick update in.

Kagi CEO Kee Nethery reached out to me via telephone a few minutes ago. Kagi was the payment processor for Visualhub when it was being sold as a product. Kagi processes payments and distributes serial registration codes that would unlock the software for unlimited use.

Nethery said sales of Visualhub were in the ‘thousands’ before author Tyler Loch decided to shut the product down in 2008. When OS X Lion came out Visualhub stopped working and many remaining users of Visualhub contacted Kagi for help. Kagi often answers simple questions that users ask of the payment processor even though the individual software developer is ultimately responsible for maintaining their product.

“What we initially did was forwarded people over to Tyler’s update page that has three applescripts [posted],” Nethery said, “Personally I don’t find that to be a problem. Most of the people we deal with did have a problem and it’s way past their comfort level.”

In the case of Visualhub, Nethery said they had a “support nightmare” as some users had difficulty installing the update that required digging into the Visualhub application file.

Nethery said the company took the unprecedented step of issuing the $4.99 updater to automate the process. It takes the three scripts that Loch provided on his website and automatically backs up and modifies the Visualhub application, leaving a new patched application called “Visualhub Lion” that works with the new Apple operating system. It also includes an additional update Loch made available to the underlying video processing engine that powers the product.

Kagi has not updated a product before, as Nethery says these kinds of functionality patches are “trivial” for someone who is maintaining an active product. Nethery expressed some frustration that Loch walked away from a product that was selling well and was quite popular in its day (and still is).

“We’ve never had someone walk away from a business before,” he said.

In a statement, Loch says that he did not authorize Kagi to issue the patch.

We used Kagi as our official reseller for all Techspansion sales. We had a good working relationship for the years Techspansion was active.

Although VisualHub had not been offered for sale in years I thought it would be a nice gesture to fix some issues that caused it to fail on Mac OS X Lion.
I quietly released some replacement components for free on techspansion.com a month ago for people who still used VisualHub and AudialHub.

Last night, a former customer e-mailed me very confused. He had received an e-mail from Kagi about a Lion updater for VisualHub. For $4.99.

Then my father-in-law calls, asking if I’m going back in business, and just forgotten to mention it to him…

More and more friends, family and former customers began to contact my wife and I last night, wondering what’s going on.

We began to realize that our entire customer base (or close to it) had been contacted with an advertisement for the $5 “vHub Updater”, something I’ve never been involved with, which touts our software’s name and company name — front and center.

Though FFmpeg and the inner workings of my programs are open-source (FilmRedux, ReduxZero, etc), VisualHub as it exists in the world, is not. I gave no permission and had no prior knowledge of Kagi hosting, redistributing, and indirectly selling the components I wrote in their product.

And I definitely did not (and would never) use the contact info of my company’s customers to solicit business like this.

So, here’s the gist of it:

A former trusted business partner appropriates my copyrighted code…

…Packages it up and makes it available through an updater…

…Offers it up for sale…

…And mass-mails my customers about it.

Loch said he’s in touch with Kagi now to try and resolve the situation.

I’m a huge fan of VisualHub. The video conversion application, a “swiss army knife” of video codec goodness, was one of the first pieces of software I bought when I switched to the Mac in 2006. It was sadly discontinued a few years ago by its author Tyler Loch, but it still worked through two subsequent OS X upgrades. It stopped working with the release of OS X Lion a few weeks ago.

Last night I received this exciting email for what I thought was the first official VisualHub upgrade in years:

A quick look at the fine print made it clear this was not an official update, but an opportunity for Kagi, the payment processing system that Visualhub used when it was an active product, to cash in on their former client’s success. What’s more, a quick visit to the VisualHub website revealed that the update was actually available for free. Loch put in some time to fix his original piece of software and make it available to prior customers so it can keep working.

This morning Loch updated his site with the following warning message:

I’ve reached out to both Loch and Kagi to figure out what’s going on here. On the surface it appears like a really lousy thing on Kagi’s part to take the work of a software author, email his customers, and try to profit on his labor. Not cool.

My advice: skip the $4.99 Kagi payment and go directly to the Visualhub website to download the updates. I’ll post more at CTTechJunkie.com once I hear back from the parties involved.

UPDATE 12:00 p.m. EDT:  VisualHub author Tyler Loch emailed me this morning to say he has a statement prepared but is waiting to hear from Kagi first.

As expected pro video editors are freaking out over the new Final Cut Pro X released this past Tuesday.

While I don’t blame them given their livelihoods depend on the software tool, I do think people need to calm down a bit. After all, it’s not like the current version will stop working now that a new one is out. And this new one is going to revolutionize an industry that has grown too comfortable dealing with inefficient workflows that ultimately only increase billable hours to the client.

This new version of Final Cut is incredibly fast, and it’s not just the rendering capabilities. Log and transfer? Gone. Transcoding H.264 digital SLR files to Pro Res? No more. Sync up external audio to video? One click. The ability to add and adjust clips without destroying timings elsewhere in the edit? Priceless.

I have already been using iMovie for the better part of three years now to churn out quick content (a majority of what I do). I’ve wasted countless hours working through numerous Final Cut Pro glitches with LocalOnlineNews.TV freelancers. I spend hours most weeks remotely assisting reporters who accidentally clicked the wrong button that blew up their timeline, or some other innocent misconfiguration that caused them to have to spend hours fighting with archaic software instead of producing quality content.

For the business I’m building, time is money. And Final Cut Pro X is going to save me a lot of both. Beyond the dramatically reduced workflow complexity it also costs $850 less per seat than before.

It’s a winner and for those who prefer to waste time with an inefficient workflow, look out. There’s going to be a lot of competitors out there who can get the same job done in far less time and for less money.

The Connecticut Business Expo’s Social Media Strategies Seminar
June 9, 2011 at 12:30 p.m. – Connecticut Convention Center
I’ll be appearing with Amy Graver, Mark Kaplowe, and Wayne English talking about emerging opportunities in social media. You can find out more about the panel and the CT Expo registration here. Admission is free!

West Hartford’s Fertile Ground Series
June 25, 2011 at 9:30 a.m. – Universalist Church of West Hartford, 433 Fern Street
I’ll be appearing with Patch.com’s Ronnie Newton and Susan Schoenberger on a panel discussion entitled “Using the New Media to Promote Your Social Action Work.” The panel is free and will look at new media outreach strategies.

Click below to listen!

This Week in Media #230

On this episode: A major cable provider launches, then pulls cable channels from the iPad. Has Amazon started a new digital war with the Music Industry? And has George Lucas sat on an Ewok?

Listen by clicking below:

TWIM 228

Astronaut Ron Garan had some advice for the 150 would-be space explorers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launch Tweetup in November: Don’t look up when arriving back to Earth.

Astronaut Ron Garan

Garan, 49, will have plenty of time to get his space legs back. He blasted into space last night from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kasakstan for a six month mission aboard the International Space Station.

The experience will be significantly different from his first voyage to space on the comparatively spacious Space Shuttle Discovery in 2008. Garan will be crammed into a Russian Soyuz capsule, sharing the vehicle’s 318 cubic feet of living space with two Russian Cosmonauts for the next three days. The Shuttle has seven times the living space.

Garan began his aviation career as an F-16 fighter pilot, trained to combat some of the former Soviet Air Force pilots he now serves with. He later became a test pilot logging thousands of hours in dozens of aircraft. But he never lost site of his ultimate goal.

“I wanted to be an astronaut since July 20, 1969,” Garan told the audience.

He graduated high school in the time between Skylab and the Shuttle program and hopes kids will stay inspired as the United States transitions away from the Shuttle to the next space vehicle.

He joined NASA in 2000. His first mission wasn’t into space, but in the Atlantic ocean aboard the Acquarius – an underwater research lab. He spent eighteen days underwater near the Florida keys testing long duration spaceflight technology. He finally reached space in 2008 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery where he logged more than twenty spacewalking hours.

When asked what he’ll miss the most of his spaceflight experience, Garan talked of looking down at the Earth, seeing the moon rise, and watching the transition from night to day from orbit. He also was looking forward to seeing things he didn’t have time to see on his busy Shuttle mission, including looking out the panoramic cupola that was recently installed on the station.

Garan will tweet his experiences throughout this six month mission. Follow him at @astro_ron.

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On this episode:An obligatory review of Rebecca Black’s Friday. Is Amazon trying to beat Apple to the cloud? And we’ll answer the question, “Do celebrities even need labels and studios anymore?

Listen by clicking below:

TWIM 227

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The D7000 shoots 1080p h.264 encoded video at 24 frames per second. It can step down to 720p and lower frame rates as well. It is light years beyond the D300s / D90 movie mode, which shot only 720p using a motion JPEG codec.

My biggest complaint with the D300s was the rolling shutter. While extreme movements will still result in noticeable rolling shutter issues (something no DSLR is immune from so far), the “jelly effect” from going handheld is largely gone. Here’s a video I shot completely handheld with a 50mm 1.8 lens. Select the 1080p resolution and go full screen:

Here’s another spontaneous handheld shot from NASA’s last launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. We had an opportunity to watch the astronauts be driven out to the launchpad shortly before liftoff. This would have looked like mush on the D300s given all of the motion:

Low light has also vastly improved in this camera both for stills and video. Check out this time lapse I shot alaunch complex 39A on the eve of Discovery’s final flight:

And you can’t beat a locked down shot. I combined footage from a bunch of cameras below, but the close up shots of liftoff were shot with the D7000:

Nikon fans can rejoice that we’ve finally caught up with our Canon rivals on video. People can nitpick over the video quality from one camera to the next, but the D7000 truly is a cinema-quality video device on par with the 5D Mark II and other Canon SLRs.

So somehow you beat the odds and got picked for one of only 150 spots for the next #nasatweetup. Congratulations!  It’s a tremendous honor, especially given we are just two launches away from the end of the program.  And yes, by the end of the two days you’ll be ready to quit your job and work in the space industry.  It’s that transformative.

Here are my thoughts and tips for how you can make the most of your experience along with suggestions of how and what to cover while you’re there. If you have questions look me up on Twitter or leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

You’re a Guest
This should go without saying, but know that you are a guest of NASA at the Kennedy Space Center. Drive carefully when you’re on the KSC grounds (no tweeting and driving), and follow instructions from the NASA staffers assigned to the tweetup.  Also know that you will be sharing the NASA press site with working journalists who have a job to do.  Be respectful and give them space to do their work.

Stephanie Schierholz is the NASA staffer who will likely be in charge of activities while you’re there. She’s wonderful and works extremely hard to make this experience possible.  It’s not easy coordinating 150 people in any situation, not the least of which at a working outdoor press venue!  So please do not make her life difficult.

Alert the Media!
Has your local newspaper ever covered the space program?  Probably not because there’s no local angle. But now, thanks to you, there is.  Send an email to news organizations covering your community to tell them about your upcoming trip.  Ask if they’ll let you blog your experience on their website.  It’s important for the future of manned space flight that your experience is shared as far and wide as possible.  Local outlets are very influential, be sure to reach out.

What You’ll See
When you check out the Google Map of the space center, you’ll notice the launch pad is three miles away from the press site.  While it may seem far away, you are very, very close to the shuttle at liftoff.   It’s bright.  It’s loud.  And it’s amazing.  Check out my video from STS-133 to get a sense as to what you’ll see on launch day:

Be Flexible with Travel Arrangements, Rent a House with Strangers!
This is rocket science and things don’t always go as planned.  Plan to stay a few extra days and book a refundable airplane ticket if possible.  STS-133 had so many delays that I changed my flight four or five times!

One thing I regret was not sharing housing with other NASATweetup participants. So much of the experience is what you share with your fellow tweeters and I missed out on quite a bit not being part of the fun.  If you have an opportunity to share a house rental do it.  It’ll be less expensive and give you additional travel flexibility if there are delays.

You Don’t Need High End Gear to Make an Impact
Some of the most popular photos and videos from prior tweetups came from flip cameras and cell phones.  Why?  Because it’s authentic.  People are following you for what it’s really like.   Keep that in mind and tell your story throughout the week.

Share Only The Best of the Best
You’ll probably take 1200 photos throughout your two day visit, but your contacts don’t need to see every single shot.  Pick the best of the best and share those.  Create a photo essay describing what you saw and experienced at the time each photo was taken.  If you’re on Facebook check out my gallery from the STS-133 Tweetup.

For video, do some quick edits if possible.  Twelve minutes of shaky b-roll footage just isn’t compelling. Cut it down, combine clips together, make it interesting.  Look for the little things that you find interesting that have not been reported in the mainstream press before.

Tell an Untold Story
What impressed and inspired me during my NASATweetup experience was the intense dedication and pride that goes into our manned space program.  There are so many untold stories that you can help get out to the world.  Here are a few ideas:

• Write about something that you the space expert didn’t know prior to Tweetup.
• There’s thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of working hours that go into prepping the shuttle for launch.  Tell the story of one of those workers, many of them are on Twitter and follow tweetup participants.
• Maybe there’s a local connection between the space program and your community.  A person, company, etc.  Talk about how their work impacts the program and how it might change now that the shuttles are retiring.
• So much complex engineering goes into the Shuttle, pick a few obscure engineering challenges that had to be solved to get the Shuttle to orbit.

Call Your Congressperson
The Shuttle program is ending with no clear replacement in sight.  Who would have thought we’d have to rely on the Russians to get Americans into space?  With the future of manned space flight effectively in limbo at the moment, it’s important for your representatives to know you feel this is an issue worth addressing.  Put together a packet for your Congressperson and Senator.  Find out who on their staff is responsible for space issues and share your tweetup experience with them.  Hint:  most Congressional policy staff work out of their Washington DC offices.

Market Your Content Before and After
Make sure your stuff gets seen.  Email your photos and videos to the press and associates, cross-post on Facebook, and share interesting things other Tweetup participants share.  Also be sure to submit content to some of the citizen journalism sites like CNN’s iReport.  MSNBC and Fox News also have citizen journalist submission opportunities.  Wifi is pretty good at the Tweetup tent so you could also do a live video chat with a local media organization.  Here’s one I did with Dane Golden:

Don’t stop when it ends either.  When you get back, reach out to local service clubs like Rotary and Lions and ask to make a presentation on your Tweetup experience.   Local organizations are always looking for speakers and you’ll have a great story to tell.

Take in the Experience
Most importantly be sure to really take in what you’re about to experience. So much of effectively communicating what you’re about to experience involves actually putting the camera and cell phone down and observing. Don’t get too caught up recording every moment and miss experiencing the experience!

Got Questions?
I’m happy to answer your questions. Leave a comment or send me a tweet!

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Today marks three weeks since I took delivery of my Chevy Volt and I still have about half of the original tank of gas that came with the car.  Some have asked me what happens to the quality of fuel after sitting in the car for that long.  I didn’t know the answer until I saw a press release from GM today.  

The 9.3 gallon tank in the Chevy Volt is constructed from steel, not plastic.  It’s also pressure sealed to keep the gas from evaporating.  Here’s more on the fuel system from the GM press release:

For the last several decades, new vehicles have been equipped with charcoal canisters to trap evaporating gasoline and then feed it back to the engine.  Since the Volt’s engine may not fire up for extended periods, hydrocarbons potentially could build up in the canister, so the sealed tank contains the vapor. The extra pressure meant that a lightweight steel tank had to replace the lightweight plastic tanks used in most modern vehicles.  

Volt engineers and supplier Spectra Premium Inc. developed the tank from 1.4 millimeter thick hot-dip tin-zinc coated steel to resist corrosion from both inside and outside. Despite the strength of the tank, it has a mechanical pressure relief valve that begins opening at 3.5 psi and a vacuum relief that opens at -2.3 psi, levels that are rarely exceeded.

At some point the engine will need to run, so a maintenance mode was added.  If a driver goes six weeks without using the gas engine, the Volt’s computer will turn it on for a short while to keep the engine in a healthy condition.  If the car goes without a gas stop for an entire year, it’ll run the engine until the old fuel is consumed or additional fresh fuel is added to the tank.

Yet another example of the kind of engineering that had to go into the design of this vehicle.  

Today was a great test to see just how far the car can go on a full charge.  Following my three mile drive to the office I had a lunchtime meeting up in Wethersfield this afternoon.  So with about 95% charge left in the battery I headed through the hills of Connecticut’s Route 9 towards my destination on the Silas Deane Highway.

I’m excited to say that the car performed well, reaching Wethersfield with another 4 miles remaining in the battery.  I used .73 gallons of gas on the 30 mile trip home, which comes out to about 91 miles per gallon for the round trip.  

Yesterday I had the longest driving day yet for the new car, traveling a total of about 170 miles.  I accumulated about 25 miles of local driving before heading out to Greenwich for the evening.  I was able to get a two hour 120v charge in before the long range trip began, which added only about 5 or 10 miles of battery range.  The gas engine kicked on as expected early in the journey out to Greenwich, and would occasionally switch off when enough power was accumulated from the regenerative braking system.   Had I been at a full charge I could easily get to New Haven on only electric from my home in Essex.