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Comment by salimmadjd | Hacker News Reader

In practicality you can lease this car for free. Using $4+/gallon of gas and with daily commute I did the math (with the leaf, but this should even be a tad better) and the savings (gas price - electric charging bills) we would be saving about $200/month. And this is using our old Honda (which gives decent gas mileage ). Which makes this car free compared to a decent petroleum-based car.

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Have you compared the fuel savings for a more recent gasoline-powered auto? You would be surprised to hear that they are becoming more fuel efficient.

How about Hybrids? A Prius can get 50mpg.

Or how about a diesel engine? Then you won't lose that 'fun' factor you mentioned in another post.

A Prius costs more than $199 a month to lease. So would most any other hybrid.

That's a fair point.

But it depends on what your needs for a car are.

Chevy Cruze (turbo) gets 46mpg (non-hybrid).

Car makers are suddenly figuring out how to make high mpg cars now that they have to meet tightening minimum averages.

Note that the cruze turbo diesel gets 46 MPG highway. Diesel prices fluctuate often but in recent history it's been more expensive [1].

The gas cruze gets up to 42 MPG highway -- Finally a modern car matching my 1990 Toyota Tercel, which until recently I could not replace without sacrificing fuel economy.

The plausible excuse for worsening or at-best-similar fuel economy is the added weight for safety equipment. Engines have been getting better but cars are getting safer and therefore heavier.

[1] http://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/diesel-fuel-and-gasoline-co...

Do you have any proof that your Tercel actually gets 42 MPG on the highway?

A 201x car like the cruze has very modern things like side curtain airbags and stronger frame and such that the 1990 Tercel could not survive from a similar impact.

>How about Hybrids? A Prius can get 50mpg. The thought of carrying so much more weight for batteries just to get a extra millage that's only similar to diesels makes no sense to me >Or how about a diesel engine. Yes, diesel is one of my favorite options. However, you still save more with this car.

But as the price of oil drops the equation will change.

Why would the price of oil drop?

How much is the lease on a leaf? Aren't there pretty strict mileage restrictions with a lease though? I'd imagine that would limit your cost savings?

It's almost impossible to drive an EV so much as to go over the lease miles, due to range restrictions and charging times. A LEAF can be had for $200 a month.

12,000 miles per year is < 33 miles per day. That's certainly doable when the range of the car is ~80 miles per day.

For the car to be 'free' you would certainly need to be driving it that many miles per day. Say I drive a pickup that gets 15 MPG. If I drive 1,000 miles per month (I don't, but that's the amount generally allowed for a leased vehicle -- 12,000 miles per year), and if those 1,000 miles can be driven in the Spark, then I'm buying ~67 less gallons of gas per month. At $3/gallon, I'm saving $200 per month in gas, and at $4/gallon I'm saving $268 per month in gas. The money I'm saving on gas for my pickup pays for the Spark. We shouldn't forget the $999 down payment, but over three years that's just under $28/month. And then there's the cost of electricity. There's an annual fuel cost of $400, or $33 per month (based on $.12 per kW-hr and 12,000 miles--however, where I live that's going to be about $10 cheaper per month, but I'll use the $33 for these calculations).

My cost: $199 + $28 + $33 = $260/month

My savings: $268/month (at $4/gallon of gas).

I only drive my pickup around 8,000 miles per year, which is ~45 gallons of gas per month. So my savings are only $180/month at $4/gallon of gas, making the cost of the Spark ~$80/month, or $2880 for the 3 year lease.

At this point I can work over the numbers even further so that car is even cheaper saying that over half of my miles can be deducted for business, saving me over $800/year in federal income tax. That brings me down to around $14/month, or $504 for the 3 year lease.

Excellent points, thanks. It makes me wonder, do leases let you "buy" an extra mileage allowance up front? Assuming it's not too expensive, that might add further savings.

Otherwise the commute I have in mind is 90 miles per day x 5 days per week. So the mileage limits wouldn't work.

Don't forget you'd also be saving on oil changes, and brake pads.

Why don't you have to replace worn our brake pads on an EV?

Supposedly the regenerative braking allows less wear and tear on the pads. I guess they're only used for hard braking?

Regenerative breaking has to do with recharging the battery from the forward momentum of your vehicle.

How can you stop the car without disc brake pads (Assuming you have disc and not drum brakes)?

You've still got bills for the gas burner, unless you're willing to give up long distance capability.

Hmm, wonder what the catch is?

Well for many it would require giving up a level of pretentiousness which would prevent from driving such a down level car.

I think its a great deal. All I am waiting on is a convertible. I would be quite happy if VW would deliver on the e-bugster concept. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/motors/4457777/Volkswag...

I am more than willing to be eco friendly, I just want to keep the fun quotient high.

<100 mile range and needing to be able to plug it in at home are the obvious drawbacks. It certainly sounds like a great deal for anyone that these aren't problems for.

It depends on a very hefty government subsidy (> 36% in CA) that will not be around forever.

The other catch is that you'll be depending on an even more of an energy monopoly. If you have enough of your own solar cells that can charge this car, then the catch goes down. Otherwise if the demand on electricity goes high and PG&E or its equivalent deems it necessary to increase your electric bill then you have no where to go.

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