evnow said:
Speaking of which, you could possibly lease Volt instead of Leaf. Your daily commute will be electric and you can drive around. Unless you need more than 40 miles of electric driving a day or the 5th seat, Leaf & Volt have the same lease price.
That seems sensible to me for someone looking for a single car.
If leafenvy intends to keep the car a long time, though, and purchase is better economically than leasing, then the Volt's high price tag could be a barrier. Then buying a Leaf and renting a car occasionally might work out better. Suburban car rental offices are usually more convenient for city residents, and lack the extra airport access fees of airport rental offices. You'd have to estimate how often you'd take road trips to see whether it was worth paying extra for the Volt. One full week plus two more weekend days rental of a Nissan Versa at Enterprise would cost $286 plus fuel. That's 28 times the $8,000 MSRP difference between Leaf and Volt, or a lot of vacationing.
Zipcar offers a nice alternative for city dwellers who have zero cars, and occasionally need to drive, since their rates include insurance. Otherwise you have to pay close to the same annual cost for insurance to drive 1 mile as to drive 10,000 miles. But since leafenvy will already be paying insurance for the Leaf, there's typically no extra cost to insure rental cars, and Enterprise or other traditional rental companies have prices much lower than Zipcar - even considering that Zipcar rates include fuel. I wonder whether, if EV's become popular, Zipcar or another company might offer new rental plans tailored for customers who own one EV and carry their own insurance.
If the Leaf has the L3 charging option, then the availability of charging stations in leafenvy's area could change the equation too. For me in San Diego, if there are L3 stations in Temecula and San Juan Capistrano, that probably puts Disneyland and Palm Springs within weekend trip range. ICE would only be needed for less frequent longer trips.
PS - I don't know why everyone talks about Leaf as a great
second car, for someone who has another ICE car to use for road trips. I tend to think of the first car as the car you put the most mileage on, i.e. the one you use most for daily commuting and entertainment around town, i.e. the EV.