Alexander, how do you drive 200 miles in a day mostly in very slow traffic? Just drive time would be far more than a normal work day without any actual meetings.
Don't take it to seriously, I was being dramatic . I don't spend all of my time in bad traffic, but I do spend a lot of time in the car and often get caught 1-10Mph traffic. But thats not everyday.
If most of the places you visit have charging stations than a Chevy Volt might be a good candidate - the entire 36 month lease on a Volt is about half what you intend to put as just a down payment on the Tesla.
After posting about having places to charge, I realized that most of the time I'm not there long enough to get any real serious charging done. A Volt was/is the next best option. But I don't want a Volt for other reason; like most GM products its cheaply built and probably won't hold up over 200K miles. The S's are untested, but I believe Tesla is doing a better job of quality control then GM. That and Tesla has far less parts to worry about then GM has to worry about with their Volt. Also maintaing a hybrid is not something I want to do anymore (especially not a GM hybrid). Call it pure preference, but there's so much more that can break in a hybrid's power train that to me there just out of the question. I've had a hybrid for 10 years, and its been great. Its gotten me great millage, but over the years its been in the shop so many times for repairs/recalls, that I don't know why I still have it. In 2008 someone offered me $17,500 for it, and looking back I probably should of taken his offer. This might be a whole other discussion, but I think Hybrids are the first real disposable cars. Keeping one after 5 years, or after the warranty expires doesn't make a whole lot of sense (to me anyway). You lose most, if not all of your gas savings the second you have to make a costly repair to the EV power train. Honda has taken care of me over the years, even out of warranty, but if it wasn't for that it would of cost me far more to of had my hybrid then it would of if I had owned a normal car. Again, this is a whole other discussion, but im done with hybrids for now.
By choosing a car that currently has a lease program, you would be able to get the benefit of the full $7500 credit without needing to have a $7500 tax liability. I understand you will blow through the lease mileage limit, but you can set up the lease where you just buy the car at the end so it's the same as owning the car and you don't have to worry about mileage.
That's actually a VERY good idea. I'm going to look into that. I asked for a deferment on finalizing my order so I could make sure I had all my ducks in a row before before I commited fully. I'll check into lease options to see if I can get the whole credit and lower my payment. Thank you!!
[Used Leafs are selling on Ebay for $20k. Enginer makes a extra battery that increases range 60 miles for $7500. Or you could buy 2 Leafs and leave one at the end of your commute. /QUOTE]
Even with an extra 60 miles, that wouldn't be enough range for my worst case driving scenario. A worst case scenario that plays out at least once or twice a week. Again, I would buy something else in the EV market if there was something that had 200 to 250 real world range, and was cheaper. But it just doesn't exist yet. The S is just in my range of affordability and it makes sense (on paper anyway).
I'm not trying to be discouraging, just want to make sure the decision is a rational one and not one of those situations where someone wants something so they artificially make the math work in their favor.
There are some variables in my equation that could make this whole thing blow up in my face. Maintenance is a big question mark for me, and that maintenance could add up to this car costing much more then what I'm currently paying now for my two cars. But let's be clear, I want this car. There is good rational behind getting it, but there's also the cool factor that's driving a lot of my motivation. I do have to be careful about the numbers and be in partial. At one point I made the math work so I could get a performance edition, lol. But I was fooling myself and I new it. I think what I've calculated now is real and will work (assuming I didn't make any mistakes in my calculations). My goal is for the car to save me money over - what I think will be - a lifetime of 8 years. And it will do that in 4 years (assuming low maintenance), which is just half the time.
I could get a Volt, but Hybrid's have their own set of problems that have to be taken into consideration. I could also get a Leaf, but even with that extra range it's still not enough. The real answer is that I should wait another 3 or 4 years for the EV market to mature. But if I can get into one of these cars right now, why wait?
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