Is it time to get an EV?

I’ve noticed that there are many options for 2-5 year old EV’s for around $10k. These seem like a great idea for my 50 mile total commute.  Has anyone driven any of these? Are they any fun? Are they any better than a Prius? Are they any better than a sub compact car (used Fiesta, Fit, Yaris etc)? Is it time to jump into an EV?

I’d kind of like to discuss this in a more general way, rather than just figuring out if it’s right for me. 

I've only driven the Leaf and I-miev. I mean,  also i've driven Prii, Volts and C-Max Energi and Fusion Energi which are all (or could all be) PHEV with some EV range.  

I want an I-miev but not because it's good.  I've also seen nice 500e's down around 5-6k and i hear those are fun to drive. 

I don't think any of the cheap EVs are better than the PHEVs unless you are gonna be burning through the smaller EV range of those on every single drive. Almost all of the EVs are punchier than the Prii at low speeds but not enough or at all quicker than the Ford phevs or a Volt. And the hybrids can go 100+mph and pretty much unlimited distances. 

500e's most dealers wont touch, like the full electirc kias and hyundais. most dealers not in Cali, Oregon or the north east wont work on them.

Vigo said:

I want an I-miev but not because it's good. 

Are you talking about the Mitsubishi I-MiEV? They look really interesting on paper, being light (under 3000 lbs) for an EV and rear wheel drive. But the reviews make me think it’s only good on paper. Plus I think it has less than 70 miles of range, which is cutting it close for 50 miles every day.  

The I-miev has what a reviewer said was the worst interior that he has ever experienced, the plastics felt worse than 80's GM.

The I-MEiV is horrible. It's also hilarious, and I want to buy one and botch-attach an EVO body kit onto it as a joke.

I'd consider finding a Fiat 500e but as referenced, I'd call around and ask if dealerships are even willing to service it first- I've heard the same rumor that some arent, but it's just that: a rumor.

Another idea is an EQ Smart. Mercedes had some kind of ridesharing program that recently ended as a failure, and allegedly is off-loading all the EQ smarts from it.

I had a 500e for 3 years and 45k miles. Really there’s nothing ev specific to service beyond recalls. 

I blew out the struts twice but they’re nothing special and I would have tossed in Konis if it weren’t under warranty. 

Fiat dealers don’t want to to touch them but Fiat dealers of any flavor are thin on the ground anyway. 

The cars are dirt cheap but super fun to drive. Many of the used ones at auction are going overseas, oddly enough. 

Are you talking about the Mitsubishi I-MiEV?

Yeah. If you've been in a 2012-current Mirage, it's a lot like that, but with less range. Remember when companies were putting enclosed cabs and turn signals on electric golf carts and calling them NEVs? Well, this is better than that, but that's what it will remind you of compared to every other EV we're talking about. 

I didn't dislike driving it, though. It interests me not just as an electric car but also a large (optionally self propelled) battery pack. I spend a lot of time thinking about fixing up my old RV and doing off-grid homestead stuff, so that's how it ties in. If i had one right now i would use it every day for my 5 mile 'commute', but even at $4500 (bottom dollar i've seen) it's a lower priority than some other things. I might buy one in a year or two. But, ironically, if you look at the price of actual damn golf carts an I-miev starts to look like a REALLY good value. 

People always seem to forget the Focus electric too. It's a regular focus hatchback with a 100 mile EV range.

Personally, I'm a PHEV guy. I think they're the best solution for our current times. For most people's situations, you get most of the EV benefits without the range anxiety or being forced to wait for it to charge. I drive a Fusion Energi on my 40 mile round trip commute and have a lifetime fuel economy that currently hovers around 82mpg. When the high voltage battery is drained, its still a midsize sedan that sees 50+mpg. It's also a regular looking fusion that can haul 5 people, not a flashy or weird "look at how environmentally conscious I am!" design like so many hybrids and EVs.

50 miles on a high mileage EV would worry me if you're not able to plug in and recharge at work. Both battery wear and tear and running the heater can cut significantly into their official stated range.

MadScientistMatt said:

50 miles on a high mileage EV would worry me if you're not able to plug in and recharge at work. Both battery wear and tear and running the heater can cut significantly into their official stated range.

Agreed.  But for those of us with a 14 mile round-trip commute, it would be a perfect way to keep some miles off of the more interesting cars.  

I didn't love our Leaf, but it was incredibly efficient around town. We went from putting a couple hundred bucks a month in the WRX's tank to an estimated $12 in the Leaf, plus the occasional use of a quick charger, which cost nearly that per-use, IIRC. But that was almost unheard of if there weren't either travel or freeway errands involved.

Speeds matter a lot for range. 50 miles on the highway will be considerably more taxing than even 45mph suburban roads. On the freeway, that would be most of a full charge on our then-new '13 Leaf, though it would do 100 around town.

Fun... It was fun like a new cell phone. The four-camera, top-view parking feature was neat. Lots of zippy torque around town. The handling wasn't bad, just boring. Not lively. Quick to about 35mph and then tapering hard. A full on-ramp started fun but you'd need most of it to finish getting to freeway speed.

For me it would be a second car, so I would plan to keep a fun car or truck around just in case or if I need to go on a trip further than battery range. Does make sense to have two or three cars to cover daily driver needs?

My next *new car will be an EV. I have an 75ish mile round trip commute 100% interstate and cant charge at work.  I am looking into the 250mi+ range cars. I will always have more than 2 cars so it wont matter that much to me.

Do you have a place you can park where there's car chargers, especially complimentary ones?  The parking garage I use at work has two free chargers.  If you have access to those, then I say get an EV, absolutely.  If you'll be charging it yourself, add up the cost of charging and compare.  It'll still be a lot less than gas, but just so you have a realistic outlook on it.  

Keep in mind also that the early Leafs had air cooled batteries (not sure about the new ones) which led to short lives. You might see some too good to be true prices on those. Nissan replaces a lot of battery packs for the first gen Leaf  

Also the batteries for all EVs sold in the us have an 8 year warranty. Honestly though, in Both my 3 yr old Fiat and 5 yr old bmw i3 I’ve seen no perceptible degradation in battery capacity 

I'm loving my Volt so far. I've been getting about 43 miles range in this warm weather, we'll see in the winter. I just bought it from anther forum member a couple weeks ago. I think it's the best of both worlds - long enough range to be useful in EV mode but the gas motor makes it useful no matter where you're going. I drove it back from Danville, IL on gas only and got about 40mpg. Not as good as a Prius but it has a bunch more power and is more fun to drive. The 300lb-ft of torque is nice. The ride is eerily quiet and smooth. It handles pretty well, though of course judging your speed is tough with no drivetrain noise. Although there is a high pitch whine kind of like an electric drill when you are accelerating quickly.

With a 50 mile round trip commute, you'd only be putting about 10 miles on the gas motor so you'd burn around 1/4 gallon of gas per day assuming a full charge in the morning. Not bad. If you could charge at work you'd comfortably be all electric even with the heat running.

The Volt batteries are liquid cooled and very conservatively managed so they effectively do not degrade like the Leaf batteries. A friend has ~150k miles on his and still gets great EV range.

I guess one of the questions is how to handle the household appliance thing and what your needs are.

We're wishing for something with more cargo room then the Mini for travel, but it's fine for most of the around town/DD stuff.

So do we replace it with an EV that can handle our usual excursions and has a bigger trunk? For us, our two usual trips are 120 miles and 200 miles, which a Model 3 can do with 0-1 stops to charge. Or do we get another Leaf or similar for around town and, say, an E46 wagon for leaving town?

Or do we say bugger it to that juggling and just buy a wagon we really like and miss out on the EV in-town efficiency?

I like the Volt in theory, but found forward visibility on the first gen cars to be unacceptable from an A-pillar standpoint, but that of course doesn't apply to everyone. I wish I was more taken with some of the current plug-in hybrids, as it only takes a little range to do most of our in-town stuff on electricity.

Ransom said:

 Or do we get another Leaf or similar for around town and, say, an E46 wagon for leaving town?

I like that option.  At some point when another car is in the budget and I find an EV or something similar that I don't hate, I'll likely pick one up for driving to work and back.  Even if I never drive it anywhere else, that's 70 miles / week of not burning gas.  Realistically, it would do a few other errands and such, so probably 100 miles / week.  Range doesn't really matter, as I'll just drive the E38 if I need to go anywhere that's not close. 

I think the biggest problem for me is finding an EV that isn't miserable to drive that isn't also stupidly expensive.  When going somewhere and I'm confronted with the choice of driving SWMBO's Prius or my E38, the E38 wins every time.  I think I've driven the Prius twice since I bought it because the Prius is just unpleasant IMO.  Prius vs Jeep is a better contest though.  Jeep is a bit of a chore to drive, louder, etc. than the Prius and burns a heck of a lot of gas.  

In reply to rslifkin :

Yeah, I really didn't enjoy the experience the one time I drove a Prius. Relatedly, how much joy do you get out of the E38? Is it better just to drive that?

None of my "fun" cars are presently suitable for DD or road trip duty (or some for any duty, but I digress...) We sort of tried this with the previous Leaf, but I bit off more than I could chew with an E28 that needed too much work to be a road trip vehicle. If I had a reasonably solid E46 or E9x wagon, it would be hard to make a financial case for acquiring a Leaf; we'd probably end up doing that just because it bugs my wife so much to drive something relatively inefficient every day. Which I'm totally on board with, even if I'd probably not go to the trouble of acquiring an EV if left to my own devices. There's only so much parking, and too may fun cars to get through... Which may be one of the strongest cases to me for having one appliance that can do DD and road trips, whether it's a nice wagon or a recent, longer-range EV.

In reply to Ransom :

Other than being a bit large to park in some places and not the best on gas (but still 30 - 50% less fuel burn than the Jeep), the E38 is absolutely great to drive.  It's comfy (even with the sport suspension), handles pretty well for something so big and just generally feels good.  And closing the doors is like closing a bank vault compared to most cars.  And on the highway, it just eats miles regardless of speed.  But for the nature of my commute, the E38 is pretty overkill (I spend maybe a minute in each direction above 40 mph), so something smaller / more efficient would be fine, especially if it means less miles on the E38 (which would definitely stay for handling other driving).  

The Prius (at least the 2nd gen) is kinda a sad case.  It's almost good in so many ways, but just not quite there.  Takes too long to get full power after putting your foot down, power is inadequate at anything above 40 mph, ride isn't great.  Regen / friction brake interaction is irritating if you aren't braking gently / smoothly (so it's basically impossible to drive the car hard).  Traction control can't be disabled (at least on the base model) and isn't very good (which is sad considering it's an inverter controlled electric drive with 2 non-driven wheels for speed reference, so it should be able to have nearly perfect traction control).  Steering feel is awful too.  Chassis-wise it handles at least respectably, but everything else prevents you from taking advantage of that.  And compared to the E38, it feels really tall when I drive it.  Of course, the Jeep feels even taller, but it's amazing how much higher and more upright the Prius driving position is compared to the BMW.  

Y'all need to go drive a Fiat 500e. It's Abarth-levels of fun.

I'd agree that many of the inexpensive EVs make fantastic appliance cars, assuming your daily routine doesn't involve driving very far.  A used 500e may have a range of about 75 miles.  Ditto for first gen Leaf or eGolf.  Perhaps 100 miles with a Soul EV, assuming you don't get much winter weather.  Later model used EVs feature about double the range but start from about $15K.

Does anyone like the BMW i3? On paper it  seems like the perfect car at under 3000 lbs and possibly BMW handling. Also the range extender sounds interesting, basically making it a PHEV. The online reviews are mixed. What’s the GRM perspective? 

ive considered a leaf for rallycross before but the 8mpg my land cruiser would get towing it would off set the eco friendlyness.