The Once and Future Tesla

Or, what to get now...?

I get questions, one of the most common being along the lines of "Yes, but which electric vehicle do you think I should get now?"  or the more usual:  "I was thinking about getting an electric to do -blank,- what do you think?" ...and as usual the answer, as always is 'It Depends.'  Keeping fully in mind that this advice is worth every cent you paid for it.

There's all kinds of stuff "Coming real Soon!" from just about everybody. The only one I suspect is really serious is Volkswagen. They should have viable stuff, sorted out and ready to purchase in 2021. If you can wait that long they might be good. Just don't expect them to be much cheaper than the $35K average of the stuff below. As for the eGolf? Don't.

Modified Slide from a Nissan L+ presentation

If you've got the bucks, the answer really is nearly always Tesla.
SUV kinda thing? Tesla Model X, about $100K.
Large-ish sedan? Tesla Model S, around $80K.
Smaller sportier sedan? Tesla Model 3, the bottom end of which has penciled out around $35-37K for quite awhile now when you include Federal incentives (assuming you qualify) and color choice and destination charges. Yes I know they say $35K up front how, but the 'mid-range' model back last year was around $36-38K after incentives and the 'new' Standard+ Model 3 is still about the same amount. [If you are going to argue about dinky 2-3% ($1K) differences, well, go somewhere else.]
If you think you're going to sign up for a base model (around $37K out the door) and get it in time to qualify for the 'half-incentive' that's still available for a couple more months, well, good luck.
The 'small SUV' cross-over version of the Model 3 [Model 'Y'] has been announced for sometime in 2020, and doesn't look worth the $5-7K higher price to me, but some people really go for things like  that.

Note: We actually had the money set aside for a Tesla Model 3, the base $35K one. after incentives here that would have worked out to a little over $26K all in. From our perspective here, just --barely-- worth it.
Delaying the introduction date of the lower price model until after the Federal incentive expired was cruel and unusual. Exactly the type of calculating corporate slime-ball-ism that Tesla claims not to 'be about.'  So now ...      I'm not buying one.

Tesla Model S's seem to be aging well so a 2015 well under $50K with high miles on it wouldn't bother me, earlier ones would become increasingly questionable. 2014 maybe... OTOH I'm not someone who is spending $50K on a car regardless. YMMV.
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If, just by chance, you happen to live where they're available the Hyundai Kona looks like a fine deal. About $38K out the door and the Fed$$ are still available. Pretty nice form factor too, if you're into the mid-size SUV thing. Sounds like few of the dealers will get the base model, so it's probably an 'order and wait' thing. The previous Hyundai/Kia electric rig was nicely done.
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Ford and GM seem to be decreasing the availability of most of their options, although both have announced big plans for late 2020-early 2023 (we'll see...) with the exception of the Chevy Bolt, more on that later. If you need short range (20-30 miles) combined with gas hybrid capability the Chevy Volt can be a good buy. 2016's can be had around $15K. Nice!
For basically the same price as a Nissan Leaf Plus or a Tesla Mod.3 I just can't see the point of the Chevy Bolt. People who have them seem to like them and crow about  American Made [actually about 28% of the content is US origin, drivetrain, electronics, motor and battery are all from Korea. The body is made here, and the (awful) seats] They handle and accelerate well, but not by comparison with a Mod.3 and the Leaf+ is better at comfort and carrying capacity and has about the same range and price. Ironically the Leaf has much higher U.S. made content than the Bolt, but alas, it says Nissan on the badge...
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If you have to get real work, day to day transportation done now, and you don't happen to have the XL size bank account then we're back to pretty much the same choices that have been out there for awhile now, with the one addition of the 'Plus' version of the Leaf and the Mod.3 Std.. Lets look at how the recommended options stack up. Here we're going to use real world range and Oregon-rebate-included prices, YMMV:

Tesla Mod.3 Std.                      $34K  Range 220 mi. note: Superchrgers are Nice!
Nissan Leaf Plus.                     $27K  Range 200 mi. note: Fast charging less available
Nissan Leaf 40KWh                 $21K  Range 120 mi. Good as the Plus if lower range OK
Chevy Volt (used 2016)            $15K  Range 30 mi. plus gas beyond that
Nissan Leaf 24 KWh used'15   $10K  Range 70-80 mi. Not a bad rig for the price.
Mitsubishi iMiev (used'12-14)  $5-6K  Range 50 mi.  *See notes below

Notes:
Buying used electric cars is not quite the same as buying a standard I.C.E. (gasoline engine) in that you can't take it down to your average shade-tree mechanic to get it checked out. Use CARFAX as usual to check history. There are previous posts on this blog about using Canion and LeafSpy to check the batteries on the Mitsubishi and Nissan respectively, but it will take some research time on your part to determine how to use these correctly. The MyNissanLeaf and MyIMiev forums are a goldmine of useful information. Having it into the dealer could be good too, although I've heard enough stories of the dealers' having little clue about battery testing (some only check the 12V battery, seriously!) that doing your own checking is wise.
Still, if you're willing to put in a couple hours effort (OK, 10-15 hours...) you can get around town in fine electric style for under $10K. 
The Volt's are nice although the maintenance costs can be a bit higher. (I'd look for an extended warranty...)

* We're (collectively) still using our 2012 Mitsubishi iMiev and have four friends that have them. They're all still going strong and some have over 7 years and 50K miles on them. Sure they're an around town runabout, with maybe occasional trips 10-15 miles out of town. For that they work great. They're basically useless for longer trips. Even the ones with fast-charging capability are lame on even slightly longer jaunts. Don't buy them for that. I'd hold out for a 2014 given the 2 years less battery ageing. Great 4 passenger local transportation that's awesome in traffic and when parking...
IF If if you have a Mitsubishi dealership with factory trained iMiev mechanics in a reasonable range of your house. If you can't get it fixed, don't buy it regardless of how good a 'deal' it is. That applies to the Nissan's too.

2017 vs, 2018, Realities collide!

Realities collide, and produce: ...meh...   not much.
Note based on feedback: This is a comparison of the early 2017 and late 2018 Leafs. Either one is head and shoulders above any other car we've seen or had (exception: Tesla Model 3, which is -still- out of our price range) and should be seen as a positive for both vehicles. The fact that we're arguing over such relatively small nitpicks speaks volumes about both cars. On with the show:

[Edit Spring'19] Almost 10K miles in, No problems except getting the NCTC ('free' charging) program going. They were handing-off between providers and the PITA process became an extra extra PITA process.
Still slightly more efficient than the 2017 model, which is good because it charges slower at 'fast charging' stations.  #1 irritant is the lack of a driver side sun visor extension. Yes, that's not a big list...

We're almost a thousand miles into our 2018 Leaf experience and it's probably time to compare the 2017 Leaf S+FC (last/best of the first generation) and our new 2018 Leaf S + Fast Charge, the first wave of the second generation Leaf. We should note up top here that it's really like the 1.5th generation, since nothing stupendous and gigantic has changed. Maybe the rumored 60KWh 2019 1/2 Leaf will change enough to warrant a real version 2.0 badge.

Yes, it's very blue and the wheel covers are not entirely tasteful.

It's basically the same body, doors, etc. as the 2017.  The front two feet of the nose was restyled and the back has the last foot or so re-done so it all looks more current/normal. The 'A' pillar is still gigantically wide so you can't see pedestrians in crosswalks until you've almost hit them*, even in broad daylight. This is something that desperately needed improvement and it didn't happen.
*I'm told this only applies to tall people. For those short enough to have the seat all the way forward, it works fine. You learn to move your head sideways a bit.  It's still a BAD design.

There is still no Thermal Management System (TMS) for the battery, so it's still going to degrade in hot climates. Think 10-12 year lifespan instead of 15+ years for a cooler climate. Fortunately we don't have much of that 'hot' problem here.

The larger battery feeds a bit more current to (basically) the same motor and controller, so there's somewhat more power to the wheels during acceleration.

The new ePedal function that integrates all the speed control (including normal braking) into the accelerator pedal is an absolutely great feature. All cars should have this!
Of course there is a major implementation problem: There seems to be no way to keep the ePedal turned on. You have to manually enable it every time you turn on the car. I'm told this is for 'safety' reasons, but it won't feel very safe the third time you coast through a stop sign or almost rear-end someone because ePedal isn't working.  "So just turn it on every time."  Mmmm, how'bout letting me just leave it turned on?  ...ya know, for safety reasons... [EDIT] Turns out the 'on' function is buried 4 layers deep in a menu, but its there. Yay!

The onboard L2 charger went from 6.6KW to 7.2KW which isn't much, although the charging cord (EVSE) that ships with it really is a bunch better/faster, was 1.2KW now 7.2KW. Assuming you have a 240V Dryer outlet to plug it into (we don't).

The car seems to be about 6-8% more efficient at highway speeds, showing 3.6 miles/KWh instead of 3.3 miles/KWh under the same conditions. Adding that to the larger battery: At 72-75 mph we can go 120-125 miles on a charge, assuming minimal elevation changes and headwinds, with a 'reasonable reserve' left over . The 2017 was good for 80-90 miles under similar conditions. The 2018 will go well over 150 miles at 60-62 mph. Maybe 165-ish? We haven't tested that completely.

EDIT 2019: It went just under 180 miles on a late spring day at 45-58MPH on local rural roads. Pretty good! although 75.deg.F no heating or AC, daytime, no lights and little wind at 50MPH average isn't exactly 'normal' conditions. As they say: YMMV.

One thing that really improved is the headlight coverage and 'reach.' We can how actually see pedestrians at the side of the road and decide whether or not to run them over.  Previously you couldn't see them until it was too late, leaving the whole thing up to chance.

Fast charging seems to be about as fast as before. It takes a bit longer (no surprise) since the battery is bigger.  There are a number of reports (search on 'rapidgate leaf') that the second and third charges on a given trip are much slower. We haven't seen this since no longer trips have been attempted.

NitPicks:

The paint is a little nicer, the wheel covers are considerably uglier, but supposedly more aerodynamic.

Maybe not a whole bunch, but it is somewhat quieter at speed. Road noise from rough surfaced pavement is about the same. Handling seems about the same too. The new contoured not-so-round steering wheel will appeal to some drivers and not others.

The center console was restyled to move the cup holders to where you'll hit taller cups with your arm and it looks a little wider so it makes the interior seem -slightly- smaller. Moving the cup holders does keep them from impeding access to the 12V socket you plug your phone/tablet usb charging adapter into. Of course that wouldn't be an issue of Nissan weren't cheaping-out by not providing one in the armrest like everyone else in the first place.
The console redesign did have the advantage of making the flip-up armrest storage area much smaller, it was so big before you could actually store too much useful stuff in it.

The cockpit display has a number of new options, including showing the current tire pressures, which is rather nice. A number of the display 'pages' are bigger and clearer. They are easier to navigate too, with buttons on the steering wheel rather than the dash.
In the not so nice category is that there used to be a big digital speedometer just below your line-of-sight, above the steering wheel.  You could actually read it with your peripheral vision. Now there is a 'normal' old-school gauge type speedo down in the wheel opening, just like with 'normal' cars but still slightly  more difficult to read at a glance. This was probably to reduce costs (only one display area instead of two) and to pander to clueless people who dislike change. (ie: digital speedo)  Not really an improvement.

Another irritating change that is that they removed the slider from the visor that could be extended to keep the glare from bothering you when the visor was swung to the side.  A 'vanity mirror' was included instead. This is a large dis-improvement for people with glasses and low sun angles. 

EDIT 2020: We finally noticed that you can slide the entire visor sideways. Opps.

The heated seats were removed from the 'S' model and now show up only in the SV and SL variants. Since we never used then, even at ten degrees below freezing it wasn't an issue for us. Yer butt makes cloth seats warm up so much faster than leather...

The effect on the Guess-O-Meter (range indicator) of turning on the heater or AC is less than on the previous model. If course given the longer range of the newer one this is to be expected. We'll have to go through a winter to see how the heater efficiency really works. We expect a real-world range of around 100 miles on cold blowy pounding rain days with the heater and defrost full on. That sounds bad but the 2017 would only go about 70 highway miles in those conditions.
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So summing up, it is over-all a nicer vehicle. Ignoring a few irritations most things work better, faster, longer. The additional range comes in Very Handy in our use case (100 mi. round-trip commute).

Q: Would we have paid more ($100/mo.) for this new vehicle if we didn't really need the additional range?
A: Maybe,  Although the weird financial quirks associated with leases and rebates played a large part.

Edit 2021: An even later Leaf

Turning a new Leaf

This was extracted from another post, Separated so they're not  "Toooo darn long."

So once the sale of the 'old' car was in the bag (or handshake as the case may be) it was time to go out and get the new rig.  As you might imagine, if you have been reading this blog for any extended period, there was quite a bit of research time and talking with dealers throughout Oregon and Washington. After talking it over with the most local-ish dealer, it quickly became obvious that volume sales of the Leaf were not exactly their 'thing.'  It's not that they weren't interested, just not interested enough to actually have much stock and the stock they have is heavily weighed toward the higher profit margin units. They did have a really nice guy at the Drive Electric event. Bonus points!

Once we went through a bait and switch session with one dealer who will remain nameless the final competitors were Bellevue Nissan in the Seattle area and Dick Hannah in Gladstone (Portland OR). I would highly recommend either dealer to any potential buyer. Kyle at Bellevue was nice, informative and very responsive to questions. That dealership MUST be one of the top ones in the country for Leaf sales and it was impressive watching the stock on hand fluctuate over the last couple months. At one point I think they had almost 140 Leafs in stock. Highly recommended.
Jason Channer (the Sales Mgr) and Solomon Lopez at Dick Hannah were also great to work with and after recovering from one miscommunication early in the process things went smoothly. Highly recommended.
[Edit, a week later]: There was an error in the lease contract we signed. Maybe we should have caught this (in the dozen documents we signed) and maybe the finance guy at the dealer should have caught it, but regardless, Jason went the extra mile (or 200 miles...) and sent someone down from Portland to Eugene with a copy of the correct paperwork for us to sign. I've never heard of customer service like that. Kudos! Did we mention these folks are Highly Recommended?
[Edit 2  almost a month later]: Somehow the revised paperwork got snarled up between the dealer and NMAC (the Lease agency) and as a result we never saw the first monthly billing. Not wishing to be 'behind' right from the start we contacted the dealer, they found the problem and then stated that they would make our first months lease payment for us. Cool!!  I don't know what happened, but they found the problem, they owned the problem, and totally went out of their way to make it right. Still highly recommended.
Anyways...
The two dealerships, selling the same product and using the same (NMAC) Leasing system, ended up within a couple dollars of each other on pricing. What's interesting is how far off from that the 'other' dealers we talked to were. Generally at least $1000 or more ($2000!) higher when totaled out over the course of the lease.
Both Dealers had stock of what we wanted: 2018 Leaf 40KWh model S + Fast Charging Package in Deep Blue. ~$5000 down and ~$200/month for 36 months.  The final 'who got the business' ended up having much more to do with chance and nothing to do with who had the best deal or was the nicest.

Folks have had the usual "Why are you leasing again?" questions, and it comes down to the same reasoning as last time. See the earlier post on that.  Leasing isn't the cheapest option, but it does have several advantages: Someone else takes the hit if the battery degrades more rapidly than expected. You don't have to qualify for the full Federal Tax Credit to get a good deal and you still have the option of buying it at any point in the process. Yes it does cost an additional ~$500 'Lease Origination Fee' at the beginning, but I think it's worth it. The effective interest rate is not 3% but rather 0.03% so from a time-value-of-money perspective it's not bad either. Do the math: $5000 + (36 x $200) + $9800 residual is around $22K. There are worse deals...
Now add in the $2500 Oregon EV Rebate (assuming that ever happens) and some other considerations we're now going into here and both cars taken together look (financially) like a $Zero down $200/mo four year 60,000 mile lease with a $9.8K residual.  Will it be worth the $9.8K at the end? Ask me in three years...

One good reason to lease is highlighted by http://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/ and his Recent 6 month review of the 2018 Leaf.  If the battery stats continue to degrade at his current rate he'll lose about a third of his battery capacity in the first 100,000 miles. If it's still looking bad near the end of the lease, I'll give it back. If OTOH the market value is high enough I'll buy it out and sell it ... which is what we did with the 2017:   Totaling all up-front costs, registration, insurance, electricity and the buy-out price results in a number less than we sold it for. ie: 2017=Free Driving for almost two Years!

The other reason for getting the 2018 now is that Nissan should hit their 200,000 units cap for the federal tax credit in 2020 or 2021. If we waited to the end of the 2017 Leaf lease there might be no credits left.
Q: "But you're leasing, what do you care?"
A: The credit goes to the leasing firm and is the major portion of the ~$10K discount that Nissan applies before calculating the base price from which the lease dollar amounts are derived.
The difference should be about $120/month. Not small change...
Edit Oct.18:  According to http://evadoption.com/ev-sales/federal-ev-tax-credit-phase-out-tracker-by-automaker/ the Leaf won't come off of the Federal$$Credit until 2020 or 2021 sometime. It appears our reasoning based on the credit phase-out in 2019 (at the bottom of the post) was incorrect. It's still possible all the credits will get killed in 2019 based on current maneuvering in the Senate.

We'll do another post later on the comparison between the two cars.

Edit 2021, there's also a post on the link above about an even later Leaf.

Carshow and Gone

As per the previous post the 2017 30KWh Leaf S was for sale and has moved on to greener pastures. It didn't fetch the asking price but it was closer than expected. Here it is in it's last Hurrah at the Drive Electric celebrations last week. Closest to the entrance and with a small but subtle for sale sign in the window.

There was lots of interesting stuff to see but after three hours talking to folks standing in a hot parking lot I was DONE. There were about 40 cars there and a pretty good turnout.



The Archimoto ridealong and talking to the UBCO electric trailbike guys was probably the most interesting parts of the show.
One wheel drive for the three-wheeler and all wheel drive for the bike. Go figure...

Oddly enough the sale of the Leaf did not evolve directly from the show but rather from a discussion that occurred while I was getting it ready. How life works: Random shit happens...

And then getting the new one...

Leafs turn in the fall

Actually not so much 'turn' as 'sell.'
Yes we're selling our less than two year old Leaf.        Edit: SOLD!

"What? What's wrong with it?"

Actually nothing, it's in nearly perfect condition, bit over 20K miles and since we got a pretty good deal on it (see previous posts)  the asking price will be aggressively fair.

"But,  so,  Why?"
Well you may have noticed a newer nicer (if rather more expensive) electric vehicle starting to show up in the area.
I think an order might be in order. Besides, "We want's it, my Precious!"
...but... we can't afford to have two EV's (OK scratch that, there's already two, we can't afford three) knocking around the house so one of them has to go. Payout on the lease is reasonable, (remember that the monthly billing was really, artificially, low) but it takes a couple weeks to process, already in process. Or the process of processing,   or whatever.

It has everything that's important, at least from my perspective:
It has the fast charging option, and experienced Leaf owners from 2015 -OR- 2018 will tell you that no Leaf before or since charges as well (or as quickly) as the 2017 30 KWh Leaf.
The backup camera, the hands-free bluetooth, the big playlist you can load on the, actually pretty darn good, audio system. It doesn't have the larger 'Nav System' screen, but given how much better (seriously, lame.) your phone works for that you won't miss it. It is missing the aluminum wheels and the leather 'trimmed' interior but it's hard to say if that's worth several thousand dollars.
Not a bad package at all.
If you just gotta have the additional 40 mi. range of the 2018 model, then march right into the dealer. But, make sure to haul an additional $13K in with you.

Up until a couple weeks ago I would have hesitated to sell it to anyone I know as some reports of accelerated battery degradation had started to pop up.  Oops, not good, glad we're leasing.
Then there was an announcement that Nissan had identified an error in the battery management system that was reporting an incorrect value to the main computer in the car. Making it look like the range had decreased, even though the underlying battery cells tested fine.
They issued a recall and all the 2017's will be getting an update to fix the problem, even though some (like ours) aren't showing any symptoms. Whew! So we're getting scheduled for that.
Some of the big fleet operators, who had been involved in identifying and publicizing the problem have now had some time to do testing and report that the fix is real and works correctly.
That information isn't really sunk into the market yet and it's 'helped' depress values somewhat.

So, on to the pricing issue:
'Book Values' are all over the map, as is apparently usual for a new (30 KWh) type of an existing model in it's first two years. I saw expected prices from just below $16K to nearly $20K. Given it's under two years old, doesn't have any problems, is in excellent shape, and sold for nominally about $32K a year ago, I'm going to pin the tail on the price graph right at $17.8K.  Yes that's 45% down in less than two years.  Welcome to my world....
Actually I just saw a report showing the average Leaf loses 72% of it's value after 5 years. The average for all cars was 56%. That sounds horrendous except they were comparing each car to it's original sticker price. If you compare instead to the post-credit(s) and Nissan/dealer markdowns price, the Leaf looks only a tiny bit (4%?) worse than average.