That'd be a 68% rise, not a 100% rise.
You're right, I just recall hearing gas prices below $2/gal, but that wasn't the national average ($2.38)
You can install our site as a web app on your iOS device by utilizing the Add to Home Screen feature in Safari. Please see this thread for more details on this.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
That'd be a 68% rise, not a 100% rise.
2013 Leaf here. Why would I plug in my car while I'm out of town.
$200 minimum per month to maintain a used car???? We just sold our 2007 Accord. I think I spent $600 over 6 years and 60k miles ownership. $200 on oil changes (6 or so). $200 on alignments (2 - I rounded up). $200 on AT fluid changeout. Not counting tires. So it was about $8 a month in maintenance. The first 10k miles were covered by warranty - we bought with 25k miles on the clock. But the car never saw a Honda dealer.
If someone is paying $200 a month maintenance on a used car, I'd say it's time to get a different used car!
My 1997 Honda CR-V is still going strong at 193,000+ miles and I estimate I'm only spending $8 a month on maintenance as well, if that!
I was about to say the same thing. I've driven all used cars (usually 10-15 years old) up until my recent car, and I've never had to spend anything CLOSE to $200 a month. Sure on occasion your clutch or transmission may go out, or you might have to replace a head gasket, but that's maybe once in the life of a used car, and can be amortized over the whole time you own a car, not just a single year. I'd say if you owned a very well used car for maybe 3-5 years, you'd probably average $50-75 a month in maintenance (averaged) if you assumed at least one major system failure during the life of the car (I'd hedge and even say 2 failures if you're doing LOTS of driving in that car). Like you said, if they're paying $200 a month in maintenance, they're driving the wrong car.
I also thought about getting rid of our MS but decided to keep it and gave it to my wife. So I leased a new Prius plug in with 25k miles a year lease as I commute 120 miles a day. After doing some calculations and 4 months of lease payments and numerous gas station fill ups, my payment for our MS and the lease payment for our Prius plus gas was only a few hundred dollar difference. Once our Prius no longer qualifies for free maintenance which will be sooner than later with my commute, I'd be better off driving the Tesla for my commute along with the "fun" factor of driving the MS. My logic of getting the Prius was to save miles on the MS as we put over 26k miles in the first year.
But an acquaintance made a good point over a dinner conversation, we bought the MS for a reason and that was for my commute. So enjoy it since you are paying for it and the depreciation from the excess miles will probably offset with my fuel and maintenance cost on the Prius.
On to the Leaf. We always left ours unpluggrd when we are gone for extended time because there is no other way to keep it charged to 50%. Why would abyone leave it plugged in allowing it to charge to 80 or 100% and sit charged for an extended time?
Because 80% is fine on the battery according to the research and it's nice to be able to arrive home and drive the car a decent distance without waiting for it to charge. In fact, I often find myself using Carwings to charge it to 100% timed to when I get home since my kids usually want to go out and see friends/family when arriving home from our cabin and in the winter the entire battery is needed or you can barely get anywhere. I can also warm it up. Try that leaving it unplugged.
Once again, the better question is: Why do I have to leave my car unplugged to ensure the 12 volt battery doesn't die? That's a serious flaw.