Dilemma: Buy EV now or wait for Model 3?

[adiggs]

@adiggs...Good points. I know a lot of the members on here are true believers in the "EV at all costs." For most days of the week, a sub-100-mile range is not a big deal, but on one day of the week, it's the difference between making it home or not. I guess I'm a bit more of a pragmatist. In three years, I think the public charging infrastructure will be much more mature, as well as 200 miles being the norm for EV range. The convergence of those factors will break down and obstacles or objections to buying a pure EV for myself, and I imagine a lot of other buyers as well. I definitely see EVs as the future, and want to be a part of it, but I want to do it once the technology and infrastructure has advanced a little. The Model S is an amazing car. I've driven one, but it's just not within the realm of financial feasibility right now.
...

The weekly longer trip might be precisely the reason to get a Volt for the next few years. Your price range won't quite extend to the only BEV on the market that fills the need. I also consider myself a pragmatist and though I'd love it if there were 200 mile BEV available all up and down the price spectrum so we had actual choices to make (as opposed to which options we'll put on our Model S ), then that'd be grand. That's not the world we face today.

For the circumstance you're describing, you'll get a lot of your miles on electricity in a Volt. For the days when that won't hack it, you drive on gas and it's a seamless experience for you. You can get a similar dynamic from a BMW i3 or i8, though if you can afford an i8.


My core philosophy is two-fold. Every electric mile is a good mile (public / civic responsibility), and every electric mile is more fun than the gas alternative (personal fun ). Pretty powerful combination, being good for the world around you, and having more fun doing it. But that's my philosophy / approach to this. The real question for you to answer for yourself has to do with your own motivation for driving electric.

As an example about personal motivation, there are many that can make the switch to electric as a financial decision, with everything else as a nice side effect. That doesn't work for me - we drive on the order of 6-8k miles a year, and the car we've been doing that in for years costs us maybe $1500/year for everything - fuel, insurance, maintenance, tires. Against that financial backdrop, I would just about need for a BEV to be free to make the switch be sensible purely in financial terms (cuz the savings on fuel expense for the year doesn't pay for new set of tires for the Roadster ).


Another idea for how to think about the problem. With the frequent (I consider 1/week to be frequent) need for a longer driving distance than you can find in an affordable EV, if your family is a 2+ car family (as many are), instead of thinking about a hybrid vehicle -- think about a hybrid garage. The idea is you have one pure BEV that is used each day for whatever driving needs fit within it's range, and then you have a gas car that you / the family uses on any days where the driving distance or other needs are too much for the BEV to handle. You might see this manifest as a Leaf/Spark EV plus an SUV / Minivan in a garage. If you're going longer distances and/or taking more people, into the SUV/Minivan you go. As long as there is routinely 1 of the daily bits of driving that the BEV can take care of, then you've begun moving some of your transportation mileage over to a BEV. And living in CA, you also now have access to the HOV lanes!

I don't know if the hybrid garage idea applies to you or not - just another way to think about the problem.