What you gain by going electric is a simpler vehicle. We have leased a Leaf for three years. I haven't done a thing to it for maintenance...of course if I'd bought lets say a new Corolla nothing to do either....well that's not true. Oil changes, SMOG. So there's that. Burning fuel that's expensive. I think we spent 300 a year out of our pocket at chargers away and at home..but we have solar at home so we haven't see the cost. A lot of our charges were free from Adobe. We are musicians and work at night. Adobe in San Jose allows us to park free at night and charge free. Nice of them. My wife drives the 50 miles, parks, works and then comes back to a full charge. Then drives the next 50 miles on Adobe's dime. Try that with a diesel or gas car. It's just carefree, very quiet, solid. Super good ABS. I've had to use it a few times as some gas drivers think they can make a left turn in front of my car. Not a chance. It's very peppy. Now you can't drive 70 (well you can but expect a 50 mile range)on the freeway and expect it to go the distance. You have to plan your trips. I drive 45 mph when ever possible so I take county roads and look for flat roads as well as rises take from your range. You Mayor in Australia made a good choice. The Leaf is the ideal city/soccer(football or rugby in the Brit states) mom car. seats 5. Split rear seats. If you are mayor you just drive around town. Easy to get opportunity charges. However many sales in the US were leases. Nobody I know bought one. So they have depreciated greatly to basically the value of their gas counter parts. This is reflected in new leasing costs. You can still get a basic Leaf cheap but try buying or leasing the new 107 mile Leaf. It is much more costly. Lets see how things go in the next few months. It might be a time to get a bargain when they don't sell. We are a two Leaf family now but our lease on the 2012 is up in April. By then we might get a super deal or be locked out on price. BTW Nissan still wants your service dollars. They recommend brake fluid changes at 12k miles. WTF. I'm sure some of you have had this come from some service people. Works on the misinformed. My brother has 400k on his Toyota truck and laughs every time someone mentions a brake line flush. So buyer beware. They also have passenger compartment filters, tire rotation & wiper fluid service. He he. OK so they are still trying to figure out how to make money on an electric. When nothing breaks it's hard. Still there will be struts, brake pads and bearing that will eventually wear. I know how to save using electric as I've repaired or built electrics since the turn of the century. I just couldn't build one that worked well that I could afford. Now Nissan did that for me. I sold my conversion for three thousand dollars three years ago. The person that bought it wants to sell it back for 1500. He only bought it to get a lower electric rate. I'd have to spend 12k or so to match what my Nissan can do. 8 if I could get a Leaf battery pack cheap which you can. But then all that work. You have to monitor the cells.....Nope I'll stick with the program. Let Nissan do the work or engineering. I may build my solar vehicle but that is down the road. I can now drive worry free knowing exactly what I have to do to go somewhere. Weather it be close or from San Francisco to LA. Lawrence Rhodes
http://www.evalbum.com/418 My EV exploits now all sold but the VT700
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2767806/Meet-Stella-solar-powered-car-drives-500-miles-SINGLE-charge-warns-traffic-lights-change.html My dream car...but this one you will have to build. Nobody makes it....yet. It's only a matter of time. When people realize you can build a car you never need to fuel it will catch on like wildfire.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KIo9X3149WfnAAQhgsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?p=stella+solar+car&vid=90807bef71f8ce81652fd34d6359266f&turl=http%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOVP.V42c4742535010b64f5205aea56a0736c%26pid%3D15.1%26h%3D168%26w%3D300%26c%3D7%26rs%3D1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dy3FPK0KNZuc&tit=Stella+Solar+Powered+Car&c=0&h=168&w=300&l=249&sigr=11bbkjgvd&sigt=10oeparlk&sigi=131ddbnbn&age=1411542198&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=yhs-mozilla-004&hsimp=yhs-004&hspart=mozilla&tt=b
Posted by: Lawrence Rhodes <primobassoon@sbcglobal.net>
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