Got a Leaf...anyone want it?

There is a good reason most of us do not speculate for a living

 

No. The traction battery will provide 3kW and be recharged by the Prius ICE.

 

If I was the guessing type, I say you are an opportunistic speculator. Meaning if you do not sell the car you will not beat yourself up too much for the impulse buy, but if someone wants to take the car off your hands and leave you with a nice profit, even better.

 

From reading the Leaf posts, I gather that 85 miles is typical freeway range. 100 miles is on the LA-4 cycle. So you might have needed a charging stop.

When I was on the Leaf waiting list I imagined the possibility of selling it if I found it not suitable, or if the Tesla Model S became available. So I phoned the IRS to ask about the tax implications. If you buy it with the intention of re-selling it, you are not eligible for the tax credit. Of course, intention is hard to prove. But if you re-sell it within some specified time (I don't remember what they said, maybe 6 months or a year) there is the assumption you bought to re-sell. And of course, the buyer of a used car is not eligible for the tax credit.

You can phone the IRS (their number is on their web site, irs-dot-gov) with any tax questions. I've always found them to be friendly and helpful.

I agree with the folks who say keep the Leaf, at least for a few hundred miles of driving. I test-drove one, and quite liked it. If Nissan had not screwed up my order about four times, treating me like crap until I began to hate the company, I'd probably have been very happy with it. Not interested now, since I ended up with a much nicer EV.

 

Not bashing here but are you near Portland, OREGON? I'd be wary of having a pure electric in a less than warm mean year round climate. That's pretty far north. I understand impulse purchases but that's a doozy; I sure can't afford that myself. Maybe just spend more time with the car and see how it does in the winter; you lose so much on depreciation if you unload it now. Since I'm an only one car guy at a time I had to rule out a pure electric as my only car despite some interest in Ford's upcoming Focus Electric. The Chevy Volt was compelling but too pricey so I ended up with a Prius. Hope you reconcile your dilemna with the Leaf and don't lose too much on your purchase; you can always sell it if you decide it's not for you. Good luck with this.

 

There's a reason people like the West Coast.

Portland, Oregon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If temperatures kept to annual means I think I'd hardly ever use climate control.

If anything, precipitation would be more of an issue.

 

How do you propose to connect the two vehicles?

I assure you just sitting them side by side won't charge the leaf no matter how much energy is in the Prius.

 

Looks like you don't know much about the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_climate"]maritime climate [/ame]we have in the north west. BTW, EVs are very popular in Norway.

 

I'll give you $16k for it.

 

I was originally on the Leaf reservation list, and toward the end pulled my reservation and bought a Volt instead pretty much for this very reason. I have seen quite a few listed on ebay where people bought them, and did not realize all that was entailed in an electric vehicle. Like others have said though since you already brought it home you may as well drive it a few hundred miles to see if you can use the car or not. Driving gas free for me so far has been pretty awesome. Just be sure to be mindful of your range. That is one thing I have noticed with the Volt is depending on acceleration, hills, and all of that is how far you will go on your range. Especially with no back up getting stranded would not be fun.

 

Zacher; its been two months. what is your thoughts on the Leaf now that we are getting into range reduction weather?