This is a 3-part blog about my wife Tanya and I switching from my 2002 Honda Civic LX manual transmission car to owning 2 electric cars. This blog is written in 3 parts:
Part 1: Tanya decides to buy her Electric Car in March 2024
Part 2: The death of my 2002 Honda Civic in late April 2026
Part 3: Tanya and I choose to buy an Electric Car for me in May 2024
Buying my 2002 Honda Civic LX stick shift car in February 2002
For decades, it was my dream to own an electric car. As I blogged about previously, I needed to buy my own car in the spring of 2002 when I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon and Everglades National Park, Florida. Before then, I never owned a car. For the previous 5 years, I relied upon my girlfriend Shelia’s 1997 Ford Ranger truck for transportation from the parks to town from the parks to get groceries and for recreation. However, we broke up in the summer of 2001. She generously let me use her truck for many months after we stopped dating. By 2002, it was obvious I needed my own car.
The 9/11 terrorist attack happened the previously year. According to the FBI 9/11 Investigation, 15 of the 19 terrorists suspected carrying out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia. Dark networks of money in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East financed Saudi national Osama Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeda to commit these horrible acts by these terrorists. Where did Saudi Arabia make most of its money? Drilling oil on their lands and selling it on the global market. Who was one of their biggest customers? The United States. After 9/11, I wanted to buy and use the least amount of gasoline possible so I would not fund terrorism that killed many Americans that day.
I was intrigued by the concept of electric vehicles or EVs in 2002. However, I knew of no EVs that were available to purchase at that time. I still was curious about owning an EV then. I did not like all the air pollution created by gasoline powered vehicles and the American dependance on foreign oil. When I mentioned this to my roommate Mike, he dismissed and was condescending about my thoughts. He immediately took out a piece of paper to draw a car plugged into an outlet then attached to a power line getting electricity from a polluting coal powered plant. He scoffed at the idea of EVs reducing pollution if they received their power from dirty energy.
I refused to accept his patronizing tone and rejection of EVs reducing environmental pollution. Even as far back as 2002, I envisioned EVs as the primary automobiles, trucks, and buses of the future. I would never let someone’s absolute dismissal of EVs dissuade me of a world someday dominated with EVs and driving my own EV. I did not like Mike anyway. I was happy to no longer room with him when I stopped working in Flamingo in Everglades National Park in May 2002. I thought he was rather opinionated, arrogant, and intolerant of ideas different than his own thoughts. At the very least, someday I needed to purchase an EV just to prove Mike wrong.
On February 22, 2002, with the help of my parents, I bought my brand-new green Honda Civic that I still owned up to 2026, 24 years later! It was a stick shift manual transmission car that was fun to drive. It had a shiny emerald, green exterior, my favorite color! It had excellent gas mileage, with a sticker on the side window stating it was a low emissions vehicle. Sheila’s silver Ford Ranger extended cab pick up truck always seemed like it was too big of a vehicle for me to drive. I wanted a compact car. My new green Honda Civic fit my personality perfectly.
By the spring of 2002, I worked as a naturalist guide at the Flamingo Outpost in Everglades National Park for four years straight. I was felt burned out of my job of narrating the boat tours and stuck living in that remote area. I longed to return to work seasonally at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon where I worked in the summers from 1992 to 1997. In the summers of 1996 and 1997, I worked as an entrance station ranger for the National Park Service at Crater Lake. I trained my friend Amelia Bruno to work at the entrance station in 1997. She later became the supervisor of the entrance stations and fee collection program at Crater Lake. She was enthusiastic about hiring me to return working there for the summer.
My brand-new Honda Civic gave me the freedom I needed to break free of Flamingo, drive across the continental United States, and spend my summers working at Crater Lake National Park where I longed to be. I drove across the U.S. several times in the 1990s with Sheila to reach our seasonal jobs at Crater Lake, Everglades, and spend a couple of winters with my parents in St. Louis, Missouri. However, this would be my first solo drive across country. My parents were excited to see my car when I visited them in May 2002.
My dad insisted riding with me from St. Louis to Crater Lake, Oregon in June 2002 to spend time with me. To save on gas, I set my cruise control around 60 mph. It alarmed him how slow I drove. He yelled, “You are driving too slow! Other cars and trucks are going to run you off the road!”
I will never forget him driving my car for the first time on Interstate I-70 in western Missouri. He drove my car upwards of 70 mph, which made me nervous that my over 42 average miles per gallon, would diminish with him at the wheel. On the other hand, he loved driving my car. He joyfully remarked, “This is such a sweet car to drive!”
All my previous summers at Crater Lake from 1992 to 1997, I relied upon Sheila’s compact Plymouth Horizon and her 1997 Ford Ranger Truck to ride together with her to obtain groceries in town and drive to the scenic overlooks and hiking trails in the park. In the summer of 2002, it felt so liberating to be able to explore the park on my own and to visit the nearby cities on my weekends without having to depend on Sheila’s cars. I hoped having a spiffy new car that it would help land me a girlfriend, but that would not happen until years later. I felt as free as a bird to have my own car for the first time in my life in 2002.
Discovering my passion for climate change advocacy
As the years progressed, I grew increasingly uncomfortable buying gasoline for my car. Besides the U.S. dependance on oil leading to Middle Eastern terrorism such as 9/11, I was deeply troubled by the disastrous 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a major oil extraction country. Even worse, it angered me how the oil industry spent millions of dollars in advertising, lobbying, and public relations campaigns to deceive many Americans that climate change was a hoax.
In 1998, I started giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park. Visitors then asked me about this global warming thing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?
Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.
The information I learned really scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in Everglades National Park by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road less than three feet above sea level.
It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and beautiful Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rise caused by climate change.
I became so worried about climate change that I quit my winter job in Everglades National Park in 2008. I moved back to St. Louis in the winters to give speeches and organized about climate change. In November 2011, I co-founded the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up (now called Climate Meetup-St. Louis) group to discuss, learn, and take climate action.
Meeting my wife Tanya and sharing a car while I organized for climate action
At one of the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meet Ups in early 2012, a beautiful slender woman with long blonde hair sat at the bar drinking a birch beer. Her name was Tanya. We slowly became friends. We started dating in February 2013 and we got married in November 2015. She is always 100% supportive of my climate change organizing.
In December 2015, just one month after we got married, I expressed my frustration to Tanya. I felt like I was not doing enough to organize and write on climate change. To boost my morale, my wife surprised me by booking an appointment with the nearby Tesla store to test drive the 100% electric Tesla Model S. We had a blast test driving this car. Tanya’s action lifted my spirits to see this could be the future for automobiles: 100% electric with no carbon tailpipe emissions!
In 2015, very few EVs were seen on the roads, and they seemed to be too expensive to own. Because of my frugal lifestyle as a summer seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake and a winter climate organizer in St. Louis, we could not afford to own a Tesla or any EV at that time.
In February 2017, Tanya found a job in Portland, Oregon, so we moved here. I worked one more summer as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake, but I decided to become a full-time climate organizer in October 2017. Ever since we test drove the Tesla in December 2015, Tanya and I dreamed of buying an EV. However, my 2002 Honda Civic was a reliable car then and years afterwards. Tanya primarily used it as a short commute to her job. I nearly always used TriMet buses and MAX light rail commuter trains to get around Portland to do my climate organizing.
We often talked about purchasing an EV, but we managed to jointly use my car for over 9 years while living together in Portland OR. My Honda Civic worked for all our driving needs. In the summer and fall of 2022 and 2024, plus the spring of 2024 and 2025, I worked campaign jobs, primarily for the community organization East County Rising (ECR). My work was primarily centered around me knocking on doors in the Gresham and eastern Portland metro area to urge voters to support progressive local and state level candidates running for office.
To commute to our jobs, Tanya and I came up with the compromise that I drove her to work in the mornings. I then had the car for the rest of the day to work for ECR. Tanya would take the public TriMet bus home while I worked. Our driving arrangement worked well overall, with small exceptions. It was mildly inconvenient to drop off Tanya at work when I wanted to sleep in longer in the mornings. Tanya had to deal with heat, rain, late buses, and walking around treacherous homeless encampments at times when she commuted home.
In the back of our minds, we were concerned about our joint sole reliability on an old car if it had a major breakdown, accident, or if the engine died. At the same time, we made it work for 9 years jointly using only one car. For the environment and climate, we felt like we were doing the best thing for the planet properly maintaining an older fuel-efficient compact car.
I strove to drive my car as minimal as possible while living in Portland. I loved using the TriMet public buses and MAX commuter trains often in my climate organizing to minimize the use of my car. I relished using public transportation to use less fossil fuels, less wear and tear on my 2002 Honda Civic, lessen my fears of my car getting into an accident driving it on busy Portland streets, not having to fight for parking and even parallel park in certain parts of Portland, not worrying about my car getting stolen or vandalized if I drove it and parked it in certain parts of the city, etc. In addition, I felt like I got good exercise walking and running to catch the buses and MAX trains. It was a joy for me to read books while riding public transportation instead of being nervous fighting traffic and dealing with the stress of driving a car.
Most of all, I liked using TriMet to get around Portland because I never wanted Tanya to feel trapped at home without my car available for her. Even with all my considerations for Tanya and my pleasure in taking public transit in the Portland area, Tanya and I knew my 2002 Honda Civic would not last forever. It became more expensive to maintain as parts wore out. Every other time I took my car to the local Honda dealership for an oil change, the mechanics found parts needed to be replaced. Expensive maintenance items were creeping up that could not be avoided to keep the car running to avoid a stressful engine breakdown.
On Sunday, June 26, 2022, I had a scare with my Honda Civic that made Tanya and I wonder if we should think about purchasing a different car. At that time, I worked as a campaign organizer for Raz Mason for her campaign to run for Oregon Senate District 26. She had an event in Canby, Oregon that day she wanted me to attend. As I drove down I-205 in southwest Portland just 10 miles from home, the engine light came on, and the car started losing power. It would not let me drive it over 35 mph. Fortunately, I was able to drive the car home. I told Tanya she had to take the bus to work the next day while I immediately took the car to the service department of my local Honda Dealership to see if they could diagnose the problem.
The Honda mechanic determined it was a bad sensor that had to be replaced. They had to order the part to get it fixed the next day. It cost me $430 to complete the repair. However, the car ran smoothly when we drove it the 4th of July weekend to see friends in Maple Falls, Washington to see friends who lived a couple of miles from the Canadian border. The car performed well the rest of that campaign season when I knocked on doors for Raz Mason in the summer and then worked for ECR in the fall of 2022.
That incident led Tanya to start researching suitable used hybrid cars and EVs that could possibly replace my Honda Civic. The car still seemed to be dependable and reliable, so we did not want to give up on it yet.
In October 2025, the timing belt and the passenger window switch needed to be replaced, costing over $2500. Tanya had kept an eye out online for possible replacement cars for my Honda Civic. At the same time, she knew how much I loved and was attached to that car. She figured that if I was committed to keep that car running for both of us she would abide by my decision, but she started to wonder if it was time to consider replacing my car.
Traveling to Florida in November 2025 and choosing to rent an electric car
November 1, 2025, was our 10th wedding anniversary. Tanya and I wanted to do something special to celebrate. She wanted us to go to Tampa, Florida for several days to visit her best friend, Bertha. Tanya had not seen Bertha in over 30 years since they attended high school in St. Louis. I was excited because I lived and worked for 16 years in Everglades National Park, Florida. I was eager to show Florida to Tanya since she had never been there before.
It was a long day of flying from Portland, Oregon to Tampa, Florida. We had to leave our apartment around 5:30 am to catch our 7:30 am flight. After a 3-hour layover in Phoenix, Arizona, we arrived at the Tampa airport around 7:30 pm. We found the Tampa airport to be very convoluted to reach the location where my rental car reservation was booked. It was after 8 pm when Tanya and I stood in a line for several minutes to obtain our rental car.
By the time, we walked up to the rental car desk, we were bone tired from flying all day. The rental car agent gave us lots of choices for cars. However, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get in a rental car, drive to Bertha’s house, and fall into a bed. I felt overwhelmed and indecisive with the rental car options. Then the rental agent offered, ‘I tell you what: I have a Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV that I have available for you to rent. This would be great for me if you could rent it. I will include in the agreement that you won’t have to bring it back on a full charge.’
My ears perked up: Rent an EV! Not use gasoline on this vacation! Get a brief experience of driving an EV! I enthusiastically told him, ‘Yes! I will do it! Please sign me up to rent the EV!’
After we signed the paperwork, it took Tanya and I a few minutes to look for the car in the cavernous parking garage at the Tampa Airport. When we found the car, it looked like a lovely and ideal car for us to rent. It was a grayish blue color. However, when the sun shined on the car during our trip, we noticed that the car looked like it had a touch of a greenish hue.
It was a mid-sized car roomier than my Honda Civic. Tanya and I noticed after we got into the car that it had a battery charge of over 270 miles. As we started driving the car through the maze of the parking garage and then outside on the Tampa streets, we were amazed that the car was much quieter to drive than my Honda Civic. It drove with the silence of being inside a library, unlike the more vocal engine of my Civic.
We had a terrific time driving that EV to see and stay with Tanya’s friend in Wesley Chapel, Florida. While staying with Bertha and her husband for 4 full days and 5 nights, we visited Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park so Tanya could see manatees for the first time. We drove to the Siesta Ky Beach to swim and lie on the sand. We then went to Myakka River State Park so Tanya could look at alligators and various wading birds. On the third day of our trip, Tanya and I drove to Fort De Soto Park to enjoy another beach, see more birds, and walk around the historic fort. On the final full day of the trip, Tanya ventured up to Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge so we could get more views of manatees before we left Florida the next day.
Thursday morning, November 6th, our trip to Florida was over. Tanya and I headed to the Budget Rental Car Returns at Tampa International Airport to drop off our vehicle and then catch our flight. We were excited to fly to St. Louis, Missouri to see Tanya’s parents and brother, plus meet up with my mom. The next day, Friday, November 7th, Tanya, my mom, and I planned to drive to Kansas City, Missouri to attend my niece Bailey’s wedding. We looked forward to spending time with family. However, we were sad to stop driving our Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV.
Tanya and I could not wait to tell family and friends about our Florida vacation and renting an EV. Nearly every day since then, Tanya and I talked about eventually owning an EV.
The dark cloud of evil oil industry and petrostates after we returned from our trip
The fabulous memories of this trip did not last long. Late November 2025, I read the crushing news that the United Nations COP30 Climate Summit held in Brazil was a failure.
For background, COP stands for Conference of the Parties, basically international countries that agreed to participate in and be bound by the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Today there are 198 Parties or countries participating in the Convention.
The UNFCCC is a multilateral treaty adopted in 1992 – shortly after the first assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990 – to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system.”
The 30 in COP30 refers to the 30 of these international conferences held over the years. Berlin Germany held the first COP in 1995. COP30 was held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025.
According to Reuters, the host of the conference, “Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had launched the summit calling for countries to agree on a “roadmap” for advancing a COP28 pledge to shift away from fossil fuels.
The result was similar to Egypt’s COP27 and Azerbaijan’s COP29, where countries agreed to spend more money to address climate dangers while ignoring their primary cause.
Nearly three-fourths of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 2020 have come from coal, oil and gas. Demand for these fuels is likely to rise through 2050, the International Energy Agency said in a report midway through the COP30 summit that reversed expectations of a rapid shift to clean energy.”
For the first time, the U.S. did not send a delegation after President Donald Trump said the country will leave the landmark Paris treaty that committed countries to act on climate change in 2015. He has branded climate change “a con”. In May 2024, Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign. In return, he promised ‘to do what they wanted.’
Many climate advocates felt like this was another COP wrecked by fossil fuel interests, autocratic petro-states such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, and our American and global leaders’ cowardice.
After I saw this news, I told Tanya that I was done driving a gasoline-powered car. I really wanted us to get an EV. This was a shift in thinking for me because I love my 2022 green Honda Civic. It was almost 24 years old now and still running well. For years, I wanted to see how long Tanya and I could drive it before it died. If possible, I wanted to even drive for another 6 years so that I could say that I owned the same car for over 30 years or close to half of my life.
Climate change triggering flooding in December 2025
Locally, climate change is showing more of an impact on our weather. In December 2025, record rainfalls from ‘atmospheric river’ weather conditions brought flooding to the Portland, Oregon area. Then in 2026, the opposite happened, Oregon experienced very little rain or snow for the rest of the winter. We were projected to have a record low snowpack.
By the end of March 2026, Crater Lake National Park registered its lowest snow water equivalent levels ever recorded for the month of March, according to the National Weather Service. This alarmed me to see reported in the news because I noticed the snow pack diminishing while I worked as a seasonal park ranger for 25 years from 1992 to 2017. NBC Montana posted a graphic image on Facebook of the dismal snowpack level in the western U.S. states on March 26, 2026. It was gut wrenching for me to spot that Oregon only had about 15% of its normal winter snowpack. Even worse, nearly all those states had snowpacks that were severely below normal (<50%) or well below normal (50-69%).
Locally the red warning lights were flashing, and the alarm bells rang loudly that we must act quickly and effectively to reduce climate change. What’s causing climate change? For many decades, climate scientists stated it was because of humanity, collectively and individually, burning fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and natural gas, which emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Throwing all that dirty fossil fuel pollution into our air supply warmed up and destabilized our global and local climate. Most climate scientists think if we act quickly, together and personally, we can reduce the damage we are doing to our planet and to ourselves.
For over 17 years, I spoke out for the urgent need for effective climate action. I gave climate change ranger talks at Crater Lake National Park, lobbied Congressional offices in Washington D.C. over 10 times, organized for an Oregon legislative climate resolution, created comedy videos that led to an appearance on TV Comedy Central’s Tosh.o, was a plaintiff in a Missouri Sierra Club lawsuit against my local electric utility for their over reliance on dirty coal energy, led two speaking tours across my home state of Missouri and one in Oregon, and I gave over 200 climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, Washington D.C. and Ottawa Canada. Even more, locally I use public transportation on almost a daily basis to reduce my car’s tailpipe emissions.
Driving a gasoline powered car when it was not feasible to use public transportation really bothered me. My wife Tanya and I were eager to buy an electric vehicle when the timing was right for us. Our recent visit to Florida, November 1-6, 2025, showed us that driving an EV was fun and it was easy to recharge it. That trip inspired us that we wanted our next car to be an EV!
Tanya decided it was time to shop around for her own EV in March 2026
It took over a month to write, but I completed and posted my blog, For Climate Action, renting an EV for a 2025 Florida Vacation, on March 6, 2026. Around that time, I had regular conversations with my friends Katie Collins and Nick Walden Poublon to work for his campaign to run for Oregon House District 52. Like my work over the previous four years, I would be knocking on doors and attending campaign events. Even more, I would be driving long distances to areas such as Hood River, over miles 50 miles, and The Dalles, over 75 miles, from home.
At this point, Tanya decided it was time to buy her own EV so she would not be dependent on my car. Katie, Nick, and I figured I would start working for them around the beginning of April 2026. I had various activities happening in April, such as I was finishing up and graduating from the ECR Senior Fellowship Program on March 21st. I was scheduled to have Mohr’s surgery on my nose on March 23rd to remove a small area of basil cell skin cancer on my nose. Before I started working for Katie and Nick in April, I wanted to complete as many blogs as possible to help prepare me write an eventual memoir of my life that I hope will be published.
After the ECR Fellowship graduation celebration, Tanya asked me if we could go to Platt Auto Group in Milwaukie OR to look at a used dark brown Nissan Aria. Platt specialized in selling used EVs. It sounded like an excellent idea, even possibly overdue, for us to drive there to see the EV she spotted online, as well as check out other possible EVs on their inventory lot.
When we arrived on that Saturday afternoon, I was awestruck to see various models of around 30 EVs in this tight parking lot. A few other customers milled around to look at the EVs. Then Tanya spotted the used grey Nissan Aria Venture Plus with a charging range over 300 miles. The car was unlocked so we were able to sit inside to get a feel for the vehicle. We soon encountered the salesman working on the lot that day. He graciously responded to our request to take it for a test drive. Almost immediately as I drove it, it felt like it was too big of a car for Tanya and me. It was around the size of a small SUV (sport utility vehicle) and it appeared to be so much bigger than my Honda Civic that we were used to driving. Tanya liked the range of the vehicle and the price, but she readily agreed with me that it seemed to be too much car for us.
The Nissan Aria looked like a great EV, but not an ideal fit for Tanya and me. In addition to seeing this EV online, Tanya noticed a Hyundai Ioniq 6 at the Tonkin Gladstone Hyundai dealership just a mile down the road with a range well over 300 miles. On Sunday afternoon, March 22nd, Tanya and I decided to go to the Tonkin Hyundai dealership to see that EV. When we arrived, we noticed a big selection of new and used vehicles there. However, it did not take us long to find the Ioniq 6 on the large parking lot, much more spacious than Pratt EV Auto Sales lot.
Immediately, when we saw the Ioniq 6 EV, it felt more like a suitable car for us. It had inviting bright white appearance of a mid-size sedan with a stylish well rounded oval appearance. We soon chatted with a small mousy looking salesman named Mason who enthusiastically agreed to our request to take it for a test drive. Mason had a deep knowledge when showing us all the features of this EV. Tanya and I immediately felt this EV was a good fit for us.
As we admired the Ioniq 6, Mason pointed out the ceramic coding that the previous owner put on the exterior to make the white color shine even more intensively. After the test drive, Tanya and I went to Mason’s desk to chat with him further about this Ioniq 6. He kept asking us, ‘Is there anything I can do for you today for you to buy this vehicle?’
He seemed eager to make the sale, but Tanya and I were not ready to take the plunge yet. We wanted to think more about it, sleep on it, and do more research before deciding to negotiate to purchase the vehicle. We choose to make an appointment with Mason on Tuesday, March 24th at 5 pm to have another discussion about the car. After we left, Tanya and I both felt like this EV might sell quickly, so we needed to determine soon if we would buy it.
Tanya and I decided to buy (and bargain down the price) for an EV on March 24, 2026
After we got home, I kept thinking about Mason asking us several times, ‘Is there anything I can do for you today for you to buy this vehicle?’
It felt like Mason was hinting about negotiating the vehicle price with us. I googled to see if we could negotiate the price of this Certified Pre Owned vehicle and the answer was yes. I then researched the trade in value of the car, plus the itemized costs on the sales printout they gave us at the dealership. I told Tanya that we could bargain down and even eliminate several of the expense items listed on the sales print out. We were both excited about the possibility of negotiating down the price further to make the car more affordable for us.
Late Monday morning, March 23rd, I had Mohr’s surgery on my nose to remove a small spot of basil cell cancer. The procedure took a couple hours and felt like a very bad bee sting on my nose, as the doctors warned me beforehand. After they completed the procedure, they gave me a choice of a simple badge but leaving me with a deep pocket scar on my nose. Or, they could insert stitches leaving me with a much bigger bandage. They would then take out the stitches a week later, but it would leave a much less noticeable scar on my nose. I chose the stitches, which left me with a protruding large white bandage on my nose for all to see.
Tanya and I made an appointment with Mason to see the Ioniq 6 on Tuesday, March 24th. She noticed that the listed online price of the Ioniq 6 dropped since we saw the car on Sunday. We were relieved that the car had not sold. At the same time, we were committed to go to the 5 pm appointment at the dealership to further discuss the EV. We concluded that if we were keeping this appointment, we were serious about buying this car.
This felt frighteningly serious that we were purchasing a car. Yet, the timing felt right for both of us that we needed a second car since I would be working soon canvassing for Nick Walden Poublon. I would need use of my car with driving a lot of miles to east Gresham, Hood River, The Dalles, etc. to knock on doors for Nick. Plus, the Iran War started one month earlier with no end in sight. It looked to greatly increase gasoline prices. We agreed it was time to buy an EV with gas prices possibly skyrocketing. Even more, we would be competing with more potential buyers switching to EVs to avoid the gas price hikes. On top of that, Tanya and I wanted to purchase an EV for years. We were nervous but felt the time to buy had come.
When we arrived at Tonkin Hyundai Dealership, Mason happily greeted us. However, he was helping another couple purchase a car. Thus, we got switched to the sales manager, a large overweight scruffy looking, slightly disheveled middle-aged man who was not nearly as warm and personal as Mason.
He was direct with us, “So are you looking to buy the car?”
Me: “Yes, we are interested, but we have some questions about the price to go over with you.”
The sales manager: “Ok.”
Me: “First, we noticed the price dropped $250 since we saw it on Saturday.”
Sales manager: “Gee. I did not know that. Sometimes I am the last person to know these things.”
I could not tell if he was acting like he didn’t know that or generally caught off guard that the price of the car dropped.
He replied, “Ok. We will deduct that off the price.”
I then stated, “We are not paying for the ceramic coding because Mason told us that the previous owner placed that on the vehicle.”
The sales manager sighed and retorted, “Yeah. Mason should not have that. I will have to have a talk with him afterwards.”
I next affirmed, “We do not want the extended warranty.”
As I shared with Tanya the previous day, I nearly got burned with the extended warranty when I bought my Honda Civic brand new 24 years ago. At the Honda Largo Dealership in Key Largo, Florida in 2002, that salesperson and I were getting close to determine the final amount I would buy for the car with my monthly payments. Suddenly, the monthly payments jumped a lot, nearly out of my price range. The costs were not adding up. Then it dawned on me that the marketing person negotiating the financing terms with me snuck in the extended warranty.
When I realized this, I lost my temper, “You tried to sneak in the extended warranty on me when I specifically told you that I didn’t want it!”
The Honda sales agent knew she was caught red handed by me. She knew she was in the wrong and I caught her deception. She said with embarrassment, “Ok! If you don’t want the extended warranty, I will take it off!”
I was not going to let that experience happen again.
This time, the Hyundai sales manager went through all the reasons why Tanya and I needed the extended warranty with all the possible maintenance repairs. Tanya and I were not buying his reasoning. This Ioniq 6 was already a Certified Pre Owned vehicle, meaning it was overall in excellent condition. Now it looked like he wanted to scare us with all the future servicing costs. He was determined to make this to be part of the sale, but Tanya and I would not back down.
Finally, he relented, “Are both of you Costco members?”
“Yes,” we responded.
“I will give you the extended warranty at the Costco rate.”
He then walked to the back office to readjust the sales price for us.
In a hush tone, I whispered to Tanya that I was glad we dealt with the sales manager and not Mason. My impression was that Mason was meek and accommodating to us. However, if we had negotiated with him, Mason would have went to the back office for approval to agree to our demands. The sales manager would probably insisted Mason play hardball instead of agreeing to our negotiating demands. I thought it was better to deal with the sales manager directly rather than him putting pressure on Mason to be stubborn in bargaining the price with us.
When he returned, I was not finished bargaining the price. I felt like I was still just getting started. Me: “What’s this CA tax?”
The sales manager: “That’s the corporate earnings tax that the state of Oregon charges businesses for the cost of doing business our state that we pass along to you.”
Me: “That seems like your problem, not ours in buying this car.”
“Well, that’s something we can do very little about.”
Me: “I still don’t see why we should be paying this.”
Sales manager: “Fine. If I take that off, will you sign on the bottom line to buy the car?”
Me: “These licensing and registration fees seem high. Is that really the costs?”
The sales manager trying to be flexible: “Let me go to the back to see the exact costs for the licensing and registration.”
He returned with several hundred dollars taken off that expense.
I felt like I was playing with house money and I still was not done negotiating. Tanya sat mostly in silence, but she was pleased and proud of me with my hard negotiating tactics. The price had come down nearly $4,000 since we walked into the showroom that afternoon.
I still felt like a dog on a bone haggling over the price and I was not done yet. Finally, Tanya placed her hand on my arm and gently told me, “I think we have done about as good as we are going to do with the price. I don’t think you need to do anymore.”
I could see Tanya was happy how the price came down and how I helped her. She felt it was time to reign me in with my adrenaline rush of bargaining that day. I saw she wanted to complete the deal, and she was impressed how I helped her. Looking at Tanya eager to complete the sale, it felt like it was time for me to let her sign and finish with the paperwork.
I did not know I had that skill in me to be a dogged negotiator. As Tanya started signing the paperwork, I asked the sales manager for the final sales printout. He looked a bit beaten with all my tactics to haggle down the price. I had to ask several times, but he finally gave me a copy of the final sales printout that showed we had lowered the sales price almost $4000.
While Tanya signed the large stack of paperwork, I had nothing to do. I told Tanya that I would go for a short walk. She was engrossed with completing the paperwork, so she had no issue with me getting some fresh air. It was almost 6:45 pm. The sky was overcast and getting a tad darker. I walked two blocks to see a sign I wanted to take a photo of the previous day. I saw at the nearby Chevron gas station that that that price of unleaded gasoline was $4.95 a gallon, nearly $5.00 a gallon in Oregon to buy gasoline. I marveled at Tanya’s timing to buy an EV at the time of spiking gas prices due to Donald Trump’s unnecessary war with Iran.
It felt like a thrilling new chapter for Tanya and me with her buying an EV that evening with each of us taking a car home. Tanya with her new Ioniq 6, and me with my 24-year-old Honda Civic. The next day, Tanya and I were on a video call with her parents to announce the big news she bought an EV. My mother-in-law Nancy Couture asked me with exasperation, “Brian, is this another green colored car?”
“No!” I proclaimed, “It’s Couture white!”
Both cars of Tanya’s parents are older white Toyotas. Tanya looked so good driving her new 2024 used Hyundai Ioniq 6. The car looked like it was made for her. She had a new vibe like she got a new pair of wings to have her own car and to no longer be dependent on my car. For years, she wanted an EV and her dream came true! I was so excited for her!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog:
The Death of my 2002 Honda Civic in late April 2026
