Featured Consumer Reports' Highest-Rated Car-Ever

But the site several of us used to acquire our comparisons from does not include depreciation in its costs per mile and, for an expensive vehicle, deprecation can dwarf fuel costs.

If I take the difference in vehicle cost and add the difference in depreciation and add the money you can earn by investing the money you didn't pay for the expensive car ... then fuel cost differences become almost inconsequential once you get to 40MPG.

 

pip is a better choice for my driving.

 

what is the question?

 

just can't do it!

 

Nope, I meant for things like railroads, aircraft, and other very large things needing sustainable electric power and poorly suited for battery technology. I do not know where the breakpoint between batteries and fuel cells will be in the future, but I'm sure at least some must exists.

 

I'm interested in the last part of the last sentence. How will it be adjusted and why? (P.S. I consider 5 years to be an extremely short period of time when talking major infrastructure changes.)

 

Why do that when you can find 3 year old Leafs for $10k that has way better range, comfort, and features.

 

if you have solar you have to include depression and from what I've looked it is still over 15 cents per kWh (maybe different with CA subsidies). Passed by gas station yesterday, $1.89/gal down here.

 

Ask people who remember 70s double digits inflation. Basically it is not that everything will get more expensive, it is dollar which will get cheaper. Under normal scenario inflation will be ~25% over 10 years, so prices will be in $3-5 range.
I burn <50gal monthly, so it will be <$250

 

Both are smaller than the Leaf, not that I see that as a problem, but it is for many.

The iMiEV's range is 20 miles less than the Leaf's. Throwing a dirty generator, which probably pollutes more than a cheating VW, onto a trailer for those 20 miles kind of defeats the purpose of getting a BEV. If a person wants a PHV there are some good ones available now. After the costs and waranty voiding work to get that trailer to work with the BEV, they may be a better value.

The Spark EV is supposedly a great car, but it is sold in 3, maybe 4 states, and GM doesn't allow new ones to be sold outside of those states.

 

ridiculous.

 

you mean something like this?
Mitsubishi i-MiEV With Range Extender


I mean a small generator if you ran out of juice.

BTW have you looked into this? Tesla After Market Battery Pack Replacements for the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-miev | Forums | Tesla Motors

 

In my neck of the woods, a 'blue' parking spot is for the handicap. I notice the Beetle is not in the blue curb spot.

Bob Wilson

 

I was referring to the generator, on a trailer or not. A generator complies to the emission standards of a lawn mower, which means it emits more pollution than a car.

 

What do you mean by "include depression?" Did you mean depreciation? And if so, how is that supposed to affect things?

I'm not sure you really understand how rooftop solar works, at least in CA. There are no subsidies left, other than the Federal Tax credit of 30%, which we couldn't take advantage of because we are leasing. But here's how it works for me right now. I used to pay between $250 to $300 month for electricity. We were paying between 26 and 31 cents per kWh, depending upon how much over our baseline amount we went that month. Then we put solar on the roof. This past year I paid a whopping $54 to PG&E for electricity for the whole year, which was all minimum meter charges. I paid $1260 to the solar leasing company. That's a savings of between $1700 and $2200. While PG&E does "charge" me for electricity used when I'm not generating sufficient (or any) power, they also credit me at retail rates. I'll generate credits at the rate of 21 cents to 35 cents a kWh, and when I'm typically drawing power from the grid, I'm being charged between 13 cents and 16 cents a kWh. So for every excess kWh generated during the day, I can draw 2 to 2.5 times that amount at night without being charged (pun not intended).

 

yes depreciation; autocorrection does wonders in android.

So if you are leasing than your solar cost will be (consumed kWh)/(lease cost) ~11.4 cent/kWh, just 5% below national average.

 

Given that you don't know what the size of my array is, or my yearly consumption from the grid, or how much I sell to the grid, or much my array produces, you can't really say that I pay 11.4 cents a kWh.

 

I just used the numbers you gave: $1260 lease, $1950 annual savings, and 29.5 cent kWh avg. Assuming same amount your array electricity cost 38.5% of your regular, hence 11.4 cent estimated. It is a crude estimate. It doesn't include costs paid at lease signing, but includes your x2.5 trade surplus.

 

Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks for the clarification. For the record, we produced a total of 6450 kWh and used a total of 623 kWh from the grid. That 623 kWh from PG&E cost me a total of $54.12, or 8.7 cents a kWh. On the other hand, the 6450 kWh produced by the array cost me 19.5 cents per kWh produced. Doesn't seem as good a deal until you realize that I've already cut my bill by more than half & it's a capital investment that I can purchase from the leasing company in 12 years (15 year lease) for pennies on the dollar (or they could opt to abandon it on my roof). After that point, it's essentially free electricity for the next 15 to 25 years.