Spring break, Spring cleaning, seat covers for my Nissan Leaf and getting our charging station built at our house, for our 100% electric car...

Spring break is nice, but it also means spring cleaning around our house, which I like too, because it needs to be done. Just a time of year to go through Branden and Noah's closets and see what fits, what needs replacing. Deep thorough room cleaning time too! Here in this picture, we had taken everything out of Branden's room except his desk and bed, but even that was moved, mattress flipped up, vacuumed under his bed. See the indentation of furniture on the carpet in this pic? That pic was taken before we vacuumed that area. We moved Branden's desk to where his bed used to be and vice versa, put his bed where his desk used to be also. We went through Branden's desk, anything 6th grade that wasn't a "keep sake" or a study helper for junior high got tossed. We spent the entire day, dusting his ceiling fan, wiping down his baseboards, vacuuming, going through clothes, books, toys, vacuuming his blinds. I mean Branden's room got deeply deeply cleaned, spic and span, like brand new almost. It was exhausting on one hand yes, but it is also so satisfying, once Branden's room was done and then we knew, we were all set for junior high. Clean room, now just needing new text books, which he should be getting tomorrow (April 7th) when he goes to junior high for 1 hour (10:30am to 11:30am, doesn't even need to wear his uniform just pick up his books and find out which class, teacher and where it's located and stuff).  Then it was Noah's bedroom the following day... 

Once again, we moved everything out of Noah's room except his bed and desk set. And after much debate we decided Noah's configuration of his furniture just works best the way it is, meaning it shouldn't be moved. So, though we moved everything and vacuumed Noah's carpet and under his bed and wiped all his baseboards. His furniture stayed the same layout. But again, it was spic and span. Dusted his ceiling fan, walls (pictured here), vacuumed his blinds, cleaned and wiped down his windows. And we went through Noah's desk and my gosh was inside his desk a mess! Pencils that should be in his pencil holder were all inside his desk. @.@ So lots of rearranging, again it was an all day job! But when all was said and done, we were so happy Noah's room got the great big deep clean! So yeah totally worth it!

Noah's underwear that were a size too small, some even 2 sizes too small (hey!!!! How did they pass the last cleaning???). All of them, went into the trash bin. The outgrown clothes go to friends children, we know locally or Noboru's coworkers son. But not undies, lol. But yep, we went drawer by drawer, hanger by hanger, what size is it...does it still fit? Took freaking ages to actually do everything, but again just really relieved when both of the boys rooms were super cleaned...spring cleaned and ready for a new school year (school year starts in April here)

Regular weekly cleaning. Me, vacuuming the living room mirror. Yes, I vacuumed the ceiling fans in the living room, both of them, the blinds...also cleaned the mirror and windows with glass cleaner.

Dusted the phone...

Lamp shade gets a good once a week vacuum

Lamp base...

Fake plant...I did hold the pot and vacuumed it too..

Just everything....

When the boys are on break, they help! I raised them to always lend a hand and help out and they do so. In the 2 week break, I didn't have to vacuum the downstairs or stairs not even once. They trade daily. Whoever vacuums the floors downstairs one day, the other brother will vacuum the stairs and then the next day they switch between downstairs floors or stairs. It only takes them each about 10 minutes. I appreciate that they lend a hand like that. They also each unload the dishwasher every single day, year round. Wipe off the table after dinner. Just little things like that, that really help me out a lot. Noah has always made sure the shoes in the genkan look perfect and straight and tidy and he does that year round too. Again, I do most of the housework and that's fine, and it's not really all that hard. But yeah they do help out at home.   25-30 minutes of helping out around the house while they're on break is good for them. And because they do so, I'll go and treat them to ice-cream, or go and buy them that cool eraser all their classmates have or you know what I mean. : )

Me vacuuming the window in my upstairs sink area and laundry room. I also cleaned the sink, wiped down the floors, vacuumed the top of the dryer, then wiped it down, wiped and scrubbed down the washer. 

Vacuumed our Canadian Solar device that is part of our solar panel system. Wiped the walls, basically just made sure the sink area/laundry area was again, really spic and span.

It's really Spring like weather lately, some days are very nice and sunny and some days it's overcast, cloudy, gray and rainy. It just depends. On the sunny days, I can now start to hang things outside to dry. This day, the couch blankets we usually wrap up with and get cozy with while watching TV at night, were nicely washed and hanging outside to dry and after these dried, I washed every one's pillow case and hung them outside. Some days I can get the boys comforter/duvet with cover and hang them outside to get fat in the sun and then whack them with my futon stick. anyway, enough spring cleaning talk...

We knew my car interior was pretty light colored and with 2 kids, that was sort of a very scary thought. 

Lucky for us, before we even picked up the car from Makuhari. We had found and ordered some seat covers for her. They were pretty expensive as far as seat covers go, but the reviews on these were really high/good. Everyone said they took forever to get on their car, but once they do, they're so happy they're on. They sell them for your individual model, so we bought seat covers specifically for the Leaf. Like it says here, quilt type seat covers. It did take a very long time to get the seat covers on, but once Noboru was done putting them on, they look like the actual seat and the color is black. So now we really don't have to worry so much. 

March 25th, at 2pm, the people who were coming to build our cars' charging station came. They were done around 6:30pm, so it did take a very long time to get it done, but their particular company had the best reviews from others who had hired them and they did a very professional job, so it did take long, but worth it, for the job they did. 

Panasonic charging station. You see a picture of a little car on here with a 200V mark on it. 

This comes with each Leaf. This is hers and it charges her up here at home. This part plugs in to the front part of my car. Looks sorta like a gas nozzle, but it's not. 

This is the other side of the gas nozzle looking thing. It will plug into the Panasonic charging station. 

This was taken another day, because it was pitch black when those 2 nice guys left, but this is what it looks like. It's small and unassuming, it doesn't scream at you, if you know what I mean. We had a choice of color, we chose that off white color because it sorta matches pretty good with our house color. They had black, silver and I think white. We went with this color though, because again it matched out house color best and we don't want it noticeable really. And we put it towards the bottom again, to be sort of, out of view. 

The night the charging station guys left, we were all pretty tired and we wanted to go take my new car out for a cruise (that was the plan, a drive and the Ohsho), and since we were all hungry and had originally planned to go and eat at the Ohsho. However we were planning to go to dinner around 4 or 5pm tops. By now around 6:30pm-ish we were now thinking take out, so we drove to Pizza Hut in Narita City instead. Neither of us expected it to take as long as it did, but you know what, sometimes stuff happens and we both rolled with it...just accepted it and plus we were happy the charging station was on and done and everything was A-okay. We totally thanked the guys for the job they did on our charging station, we bowed and they drove away and then we went on our way to Pizza Hut. It was a good drive from our town, we picked up the pizzas, it's still 50% off at our closest Pizza Hut and so we ordered 2 large pepperoni and mushroom pan pizzas and 1 large baked order of fries. We picked up some Pepsi Twist on the way home, enjoyed the drive, plus we went home and enjoyed our supper. We all took turns taking showers, got our jammies on. Charged the car and enjoyed TV for the rest of the night. 

A pic of the baked fries. Anyway, more posts of our Spring break to come. : ) Have a wonderful night everyone. Noah starts school tomorrow but it's just opening ceremony, so he gets out at 11am and Branden has book pick up and it's just 1 hour. 

My new car, yay! : )

Well, we did it! I found my "new" car and I just love it, you guys! Monday, March 10th, we (Noboru and I) ended up going to the car dealership first thing after sending Branden and Noah to school, we drove all the way to Makuhari. We had originally planned to go on March 11th, but something came up for Noboru and also for me too... I ended up going to the movies with 2 of my closest friends on Tuesday, March 11th to see, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. So anyway, this particular car dealership has the largest selection of the Nissan Leafs, the 100% electric car, in the Chiba area. They had them all lined up in a row here and they also had another row on the other side and a handful also in the showroom too. Wine color, black, silver, blue, white and silver. I knew, I didn't want white (white cars are just really really common here), didn't want silver either, too basic (again I think the 2 color cars... I see most here are white or silver, not that they're necessarily bad colors, mind you, it's just I'd like something a little different, is all), wasn't interested in blue either. I was interested in wine and also the black. However, my last car was wine colored... Pepper was the same color. So, since I had driven a wine colored car for the past 6 years.. I really wasn't wanting to drive yet another same exact color car... for another 6 plus years, if you know what I mean. Plus...I just really wanted black! I really did. In fact, I told Noboru, either I'm gonna get a black Nissan Leaf or a black Toyota Prius. I really am not interested in any other color. This particular dealership had 2 black Leafs. But 1 of them was a special model/special options available on it, meaning it had the full skirt around the car. And I love the back of this car...it is so distinct, lol. You know how some cars, just have a certain look. Do you know what I mean?  Like the old 80's Saab, I always really liked that model car, the butt/rear of that particular car was always so cute. : ) or the VW newer bug just has a really cute look too. Even the Prius has a certain back/rear look, that's again... so cute too, I think. : ) This car, also has a certain butt/rear/back too and also by the really long back lights, I always know it's a Leaf. : ) 

This is her you guys... my "new" car. She was a dealer test drive car, so she has never lived at a house or had a family before...not ever. : ) She has only 1875 miles on her, if it helps...for you who are more familiar with km, she only has 3000km on her. That's nothing! She smells like a brand new car, she is so amazing guys. Look how shiny she is, even. Aww. Oh, and she's only 2 years old, but was only driven on test drives. : ) 

Yep, absolutely zero emissions! Can't possibly be anymore eco than that! lol! : )

See this wine colored car, see the bottom of the car door? How the car ends a bit after the door, a little wine colored metal after that... but not too much. There is no side skirt, front or back skirt on this car, like mine has. This is a regular model. A typical Leaf. 

She was moved because I just took her for a test drive. She has so much power! And we just filled out the, we are buying her paperwork. They asked me, if I had any favorite numbers to pick for my license plate numbers? Yes, I did! So, they have to do lots of things on the car dealers end. Meanwhile us, we have to make her charging station at our house and we already have a company coming to make it and we ordered the color on that already too. Plus in Japan you have to show proof  that you have a place to park the car.... yes we do have a parking space. : ) But again we needed to show proof of that, so we had to go to the police station for a parking space certificate. Yada yada yada. So, it will take a while to finally get the car, but yep, Noboru bought her for me. She has no name as of right now because...she just doesn't. :  ) But see, she does look a little different than the wine car on the above pic, and that slight difference is the front, side and back skirt. In America, the skirt for the Nissan Leaf is not available!  And, out of 300 used Nissan Leafs sold in Japan, on the week of March 10th when we bought ours, only 2 in all of Japan...whole country wide.... had the skirt that were for sale, ours was one of them, so it is a little unusual to find a Leaf with that detail on it. I'm just glad, I found one and in black nonetheless. : )  And the condition of the car just couldn't be better. I also like the extra tinting for the back windows for the kids.

Also, this little extra detail which I think makes this car even way cooler than she already was, being 100% eco and all.  Is the emblem at the front of the car. It glows at night. My car doesn't have this on it yet, but Noboru has promised to call up our nearest Nissan dealership immediately and pronto, just as soon as we bring her home with us.... and he's going to order me the glowing Nissan emblem and I am really excited about it. I can't wait! This glowy emblem isn't available in American either. The only reason we know this is as new Leaf owners, we have been reading the Nissan Leaf owners forum in America for info, and..who knew... many of them were trying really hard to find a way to order the skirts for their Leafs and the glowy emblems that are only available for us, in Japan. Go figure.

It doesn't show up so good on a silver car... but it's gonna look so tight... on my black car! Anyway, so this whole car switcheroo is nearly done. Oh and this is so cute, the grandma next door, asked Noboru a few days ago...where is your wife's car? Meaning our Subaru R2/Pepper. We had already bought the black Leaf, but as usual...Noboru is so tight lipped. He just said...We sold my wife's car and we bought her a new one. You could tell she was hoping for some...extra info...but nope...he wasn't sharing. Hahaha. I asked him..you didn't want to tell her, huh? He said, "no...she'll find out eventually." : )   

My little red car is sold and gone and 1 step closer to getting our new car

My teeny tiny red car has been sold and is gone and is now living in Tokyo. My car was picked up yesterday, the person who bought her, sent some folks with a flat bed to pick her up and bring her to them. They went through a lot of trouble to get her, so I know they'll take real good care of her. I know logically speaking, it's the right decision, but it was still hard to see her go yesterday. She was my first car in Japan. Not my husband's car. Or the family car (that's what the MPV was). This was my car... I drove her. We bought her when Noah was about to start yochien, because given the time our elementary school started and the time yochien started, I couldn't be waiting at the bus stop for Noah to take the yochien bus and take Branden to school at the same exact time, so we knew..... time wise, there was a definite time conflict, so I had no real choice, but to drive Noah to yochien daily back and forth... from our tiny town to the small city nearest us ....where the yochien is/was. Round trip in the mornings and round trip in the afternoons. She did it brilliantly too, I might add. Never had any car problems the whole time we had her. She's so small, I could fit her in almost any parking spot. Her name was Pepper. You, know, the same color red as a Dr. Pepper. : ) 

She has/had an ECO function and as far as a gas car, she used so little compared to normal regular cars. 

It was cold and rainy all day yesterday. The new owner had emailed a few days earlier and this time matched us both. Noboru would be off work at 2pm Sunday/yesterday would be home at 2:30pm and the time decided, was they'd be here at 3pm. So, I made sure, I said my good byes to her in the morning. 

At 3pm, the sound of a big vehicle coming... was clear in the quiet hush of our neighborhood. Yep, it was them. I didn't go outside, I just watched from upstairs. I saw the flatbed that would be taking Pepper to live in Tokyo. I stood there watching the flatbed a bit. Noah was upstairs peeking with me. Branden was peeking out the side kitchen window too. : )  I thought about how she picked up my baby's with me from yochien and elementary school, these past 5 years or so. 

And then a man got into my little Subaru R2 and drove her onto the flatbed. Right here...this moment is when it became sorta real. She's leaving and she's not coming back. Again, I know we sold her for a reason, because we want an all electric car or hybrid, plus we want a newer car. But it was still sorta hard, you know what I mean. Okay...don't laugh. : ) 

And then they locked and closed the back of the flat bed, paid the money to Noboru and she was about to be driven away. Noah is meanwhile saying through the window..."we love you Pepper, we love you!!!" Branden could be heard downstairs..."mom they have Pepper on the flatbed"..."I know, kids, I know!" "It's okay. She's going to be with a new family now. And yes, we do love you Pepper!!!" And then in an instant she was gone. You know...for some people.....we really get used to our cars. We sometimes name them. We have so many memories being in those cars. I know it's silly...but yeah we become attached. Now we're fine and all. But yeah it honestly was.... a little sad to see her go yesterday. Anyway she was an inaka/countryside car and now she'll be a big city car! : )  Anyway...in other car related news....

Noboru already applied for our quick charging card for the highways, here in Japan. And we received it already too. Sorry this pic came out sideways.

Here it is. We have been researching like mad ever since November 2013 to get either a hybrid or a 100% all electric car.  Noboru doesn't want us to get a hybrid. I personally don't mind either way, either way is totally cool with me. But, Noboru logs everything in our house. Not to make him sound like a guy from The Big Bang Theory or anything (we love this show btw!)...... but, from his records, I drive an average of 900km a month. On average 10,800km a year. Gas prices these days on average are... for our area... 150 yen per liter. Average price.What is the chance gas prices will lower in the future? Umm not likely, it will only increase. If I had a hybrid, for example Noboru checked this out already for the Prius that Brian drives from Family Guy...so if I drove a hybrid, for the mileage that I actually drive...it would cost us, if I drove a Prius...80,000 yen/$800US for gas a year, for the miles that I do drive. Plus....hybrids still have an engine... so I still need to change my...oil...air filter..spark plugs...transmission oil, etc etc. See, yes he really did thoroughly check and research... the cost for us and we have that total yearly cost to own a hybrid and it isn't so cheap actually. However if we owned a 100% electric car..I wouldn't ever need an oil change or an air filter replaced...and no spark plugs either. Perhaps we would have to change our differential gear oil. Again...Noboru has really made a price sheet for both cars... on his laptop...a cost of driving a hybrid (for us) also a cost of what it would be like owning and driving a 100% EV car, factoring on the miles that I... on average personally drive and have driven for the past 5 years @.@....yep he seriously keeps records for stuff like that.... and the numbers just make more sense for us to personally get a 100% electric vehicle.  I have friends though with hybrids and I do think they're great too. But, I do trust Noboru and I know how much he researches and so I trust his decision completely. Oh and the yearly cost for us owning a 100% electric vehicle, by Noboru's estimate 15,000 yen /$150 US a year, so super cheap!

Now when to buy....between our trip to Guam coming up. My non-stop yakuin/fuku kaicho meetings. Plus Noboru's schedule too. The next day we are both available is March 11th. Now...3/11 is a sad day to buy a car, we both know, but it's just the only and closest day that works, so March 11th, as soon as the boys get sent to school, we have to go and check out the Nissan Leafs. We have been looking online, we have been considering between 20, there are a few favorites we both like... but we want to see them in person and test drive them. If it all works out and we find the one...we will buy it. The car dealership is expecting us already March 11th, Noboru has been emailing with them back and forth quite a bit.  So anyway, one step closer to making the car switcheroo. : ) PS...as for right now..it looks like we only own 1 car, well technically we do, lol.... but we were wondering what our neighbors must be thinking, hahaha. I mean, you guys reading this... know what's happening and what's up. But we are extremely tight lipped about it to our neighbors and friends in real life. Our neighbors must be thinking...what??? @.@ In October they had a white MPV and the red car, now they have neither of those cars and now have only a tiny silver/gray mini minivan. lol! The grandma next doors husband finally asked mid December...where's your MPV? Noboru said "oh we sold it." : ) But he didn't elaborate or say anything else. We know they are indeed wondering...or curious. Hahaha. : ) Anyway...that's enough from me, for now. : ) Weather here today is chilly and gray, very cloudy, it was raining earlier, but now it's not. Anyway, I better get myself packed...my carry-on packed. I got everyone packed already yesterday, except for myself. : ) 

Also, I want to add, we are still 90% sure about the Nissan Leaf. And yes we are still considering the Prius about 10% still. Money wise/gas price wise... it makes more sense to pick the Leaf, especially for our lifestyle and driving pattern. However and this is the part that is giving us the biggest debate. The Toyota Prius has been around since 1997, for 17 years! 17 years of drivers saying they LOVE that car. 17 years of them tweaking and making tiny minute changes and stuff on that car. So 17 years says a lot to Noboru too. Where as the Nissan Leaf is basically a newbie...a baby. Has only been around since December 2010, so basically 2011. Nobody wants to make the wrong choice for their family. So it is such a hard choice. Anyway...hopefully we can figure this whole thing out soon. : )

Changing both of the family cars for 2014, phase 1

This is what the Nissan leaf looks like, that we took a test drive in, in December.

For years, our cars/vehicles have been, 1 white Mazda MPV (regular minivan) and 1 little red Subaru R2. Both bought and paid for in cash at the time we bought them. We didn’t buy them new granted, but they were just a couple years old, when bought and really low mileage at the time, when we bought them. The MPV, perfect for taking long drives like to Osaka and Hakone and Nagano type trips and for trips to the airport for carrying mass amounts of luggage. The little red car has been perfect for my everyday car, we bought the little red car right before Noah started yochien because we knew that I’d be driving back and forth, from yochien everyday with Noah, from our town to the small city nearest us, so for us, the little red car has already served it’s purpose already, meaning Noah is in elementary school in our town and so I drive way way less. So anyway....

Ever since the March 11th earthquake. And one day I’ll type out and write an update about that. But for now, what I will say is, after the horrific earthquake, besides there being a food shortage, milk, whathaveyou.  Gas for our vehicles was superly hard to find, and when you could track a station that was selling gas and not all sold out or temporarily closed, the lines were hours long! @.@ Yes, that is something we have not forgotten. I think the earthquake in a way, was a factor in our choosing to get our solar panels for our house, I have mentioned that already that it was a factor. And the gas shortage for vehicles has also, never been far from our minds either.

For the past year, we have been thinking about getting a new water boiler, for our home and we will be getting a more eco friendly one this year. Also, we have been deciding to change our cars for the past year as well. For starters, we have been deciding to get either a hybrid or a 100% all electric car. That has been the biggest decision. The choice for our particular family was between the Toyota Fielder (hybrid sort of like a station wagon meaning roomier but a modern looking one) or the Nissan Leaf (100% electric) The thing with a hybrid though.... is that it still needs gas. Granted much much less gas, but yes... gas all in the same. However, with the all electric car...if god forbid, another huge earthquake ever goes down.  And there is talk about that Nankai trough going to be even bigger then the Tohoku quake, not sure if any of you keep up with fault lines etc, but yes there is talk about that one being a definite possibility. So if a huge earthquake does ever happen, gas shortage wouldn’t be a problem for us, and our car could get power from our house, we have already checked. So, though we are not 100% certain and it’s not carved in stone as of yet, we are 98% sure it will indeed be an all electric car. We have already taken a test drive, the power when you step on the.... well technically it’s not a gas pedal anymore...so I guess you could say the "go peddle", lol. It is hella powerful. It has a lot of get up and go. And so the 100% electric would be my mama cruising car. Doing all my grocery store shopping to and from the, cheap meat store, the bakery, JA to get farm fresh eggs and veggies, Costco run, etc. There are also charge up stations near here, like at the mall nearest us for example, so, I could shop or go to a movie with friends and charge my car at the same time.

White license plate (standard car), yellow license plate (light weight car/kei car). In America getting your yearly registration or "license plate renewal" even if you drove a rather nice car, it was still only a couple hundred dollars to get your yearly registration for your car. Here in Japan, it’s by weight and size of engine, same as America but the cost difference is huge between how much it would cost in America for the MPV for example as to what it costs to register it here, same type of vehicle. Yellow license plate cars are cheaper to drive, my red car is around 7,000 yen for my yearly car tax. Where as our bigger MPV, had a V-6 engine and so it cost our family $1800 US every 2 years because of car inspection, weight tax and car tax. Yep, isn’t that an insane amount of money to own a white license plate car??? @.@ My family in the US couldn’t believe it, when we said $1800 to renew our car stuff. Our MPV needed renewing in April 2014, so another $1800 US would be approaching in a few months. And so that sort of gave us the push we needed to get the ball rolling. Noboru and I both sat at the table in November, should we keep the MPV or sell it? If April gets here and we pay the $1800 insane price, then we should just keep it for another 2 years.  So we knew it either had to happen before April, or stick with the MPV for another 2 years. So now or never so to speak. In December, we sold it. So the MPV is gone. Again, when I said December was slightly busy, yeah I wasn’t kidding, selling the family minivan was also on the list of stuff going on. : )

Also, we would love to have 2 yellow license plate cars. Why? Because of the cost to have them! We would never want 2 white license plate cars, let’s put it that way. Can you imagine two $1800 bills every 2 years? Yikes! @.@ : ) However...1 yellow plate and 1 white plate is totally doable. And more than likely what we will have.

The Nissan Leaf and Toyota Fielder would be a white license plate car. So since that will be a white plate car, we wanted our 2nd car to be a yellow plate car, so we decided to get a mini minivan, 4WD and a turbo, same thing as what we used to drive before we had the Mazda MPV. So as of right now, the plan is to have a mini minivan (super tiny) but 4WD which means we could still cruise it to Hakone in winter and the turbo means we wouldn't’ feel like we were cruising a vehicle with a lawn mower engine. So it would have some get up and go. We have since bought the mini mini van also, but have yet to pick it up. It is near Osaka and Noboru will be leaving this week with his 3 days off in a row (since he gave up that 1 day for his coworker during New Years) and that gives Noboru time to go and get the car and bring it back to Chiba. It will be much tinier than our MPV, however it will cost annually only about $70 US a year for car taxes and the other inspection on top of that... the total would be only about $300 every 2 years, including weight tax, inspection fee and liability insurance for 2 years so pretty cheap, same costs as our red car) And we still get to drive everywhere in it because it’s a 4WD and a turbo too. And we have already paid cash for it, since we hate the idea of making payments on stuff, when we can pay cash for it instead. It may not be brand new, but we own it and no payments. : )

So, it will appear that we have 2 yellow plate cars for the time being, my red car and the "new to us" mini minivan. But...our next move is to bide our time and in May or June we will buy the electric car. We are only waiting because....we don't want to jump too fast and we know there is another 100% electric car coming out soon and we want to see how the new 100% electric car that Honda is making compares to the Leaf...the Honda Fit EV. They’re out already... but not available for regular customers/general consumer yet.

Nothing too earth shattering here, but we’re happy....and we’re super happy we won’t have an absurd $1800 renewal in April. If we’re going to spend $1800, it would be nicer to spend it on nice family vacation...or toward a water boiler, you know what I mean, something that really benefits our family in the long run.  So the next step is selling the red car in May and buying ourselves a barely 1 year old Nissan Leaf. Or a brand new Toyota Fielder or Honda Fit EV. So upgrades all around... just smarter spending when it comes to our car renewals and stuff. And for what it’s worth, because the next car will be electric the white plates will be much less than the MPV was, since it was a gas vehicle. And it does vary from car to car the price, but yes white plates are more expensive than yellow plates. But factor in, we won't be paying gas for our new white license plate car, so for us it will be cheaper owning that.

Anyway just wanted to keep you all updated. but the cars are being switched and changed this year, in 2014. : )