I live at the crossroads of liberal and libertarian. Despite what some of you have said, I’m not Marxist (although I have read plenty of his work, along with Ayn Rand and Adam Smith, Milton Friedman followers, et al.) and economics for me qualifies as a hobby.
Therefore, the economy of how Colorado just made the Nissan Leaf one of the least expensive new cars in America is fascinating.
Right now, Leaf buyers in Colorado can receive the following perks: a $7,500 federal rebate, around $5,000 back from the state of Colorado, and $5,000 from Nissan if you finance your purchase through them. (Georgia, West Virginia and Connecticut are pretty high as well.)
All told, that’s $17,500 back in Colorado on a car that starts at $29,860 ($850 destination included) and your price — before negotiations with the dealer — is $12,360, if your shirt is starched, teeth are white and you max out rebates.
I called up a local Nissan dealer to confirm the details and after a little bit of checking (and a lot of trying to sell me on a lease) she confirmed I could score a Nissan for severely cheap.
FYI: A Mitsubishi Mirage starts at $12,995.
The financing rebate ends at the end of August, and Colorado’s $6,000 incentive (which is the highest in the nation) can’t last forever.
Awesome, if you want to drive a car that looks like a refrigerator mated with a frog, with the resulting creature having developed two symmetrical brain tumors.
If an E-Golf were that cheap, I’d give it serious thought.
This and the Juke…
How do these people purposefully design cars like THE UGLIEST ANIMALS?
Mazdas for example look like fish – like the JSF X-32
Why not shape everything like sharks and dolphins like BMW does?
And BLUE???
The flagship color of these monstrosities should be Green.
Please the environmentalist libtards who are DESTROYING California.
“Please the environmentalist libtards who are DESTROYING California.”
Another wonderfully irrelevent breitbart fueled non-sequitor from bigtrucks. My day wouldn’t be complete without one.
Environmentalist libtards who are DESTROYING California. Green. Please the Juke…How do these monstrosities should be Green. Please the environmentalist libtards who are DESTROYING California. These monstrosities should be Green. Please the JSF X-32. Why not shape everything?
Again, no idea what you are bloviating about. But good use of CAPS.
Oh isn’t this interesting.
Brain dead conservative f***tards damn near destroyed the whole country by the end of 2008. Now people like BTR want to do it again.
I puked when I first saw a Juke 4 years ago, and LOLed when a friend bought one.
Not that it’s gotten any better looking, but my kid fell in love with Jukes and wants one. She also loves stray animals. I love my kid.
Guess we’ll be getting one in the next year or so…..
Regarding the Leaf…this is seriously a lot of technology for little money. If I needed a commuter I’d be all over it.
This is a better “suited” picture.
http://allthingsd.com/files/2013/12/A-Christmas-Story-Bunny-Suit.jpg
For those playing along at home it is the bunny suit Ralphie in Christmas Story got as a gift.
Go ahead put it on.
While you’re wearing a bunny suit. Maybe we can touch on what George Carlin said about the difference between a maniac and a crazy person is.
http://38.media.tumblr.com/769a0669edf4928bba2440f964681546/tumblr_inline_n4wn6mAJZK1s0u9u5.jpg
Also: Yes that is a fine deal, so nice of the Colorado taxpayers to eat $5K/car so some of ya’ll can have a street legal golf cart. I will be very interested to see the resale on the block because in this case it might be higher than the purchase price (in the first year).
The car is still expensive, it’s just that the users aren’t the ones paying for them. There used to be this thing called shame to discourage this sort of behavior.
“So nice of the Colorado Taxpayers…”
As one of them, I can tell you that ‘green’ rebate programs have been extremely well received as long as you don’t live in the Conservative Black Hole that is Colorado Springs. And, FWIW, this IS the revamped program – people don’t know the old program used to be a % of the sale price. It’s why we’re the largest Tesla market per capita outside of SoCal.
Denver is actually a really good city for electric and hybrid vehicles – as long as you aren’t planning to take a drive in the mountains, the metro area is extremely flat, and most commuters drive less than 50 mi/day.
I’ve never been to your state but I’d be curious to what the rest of the state thinks outside of Denver/Boulder and the already spoken for Colorado Springs. If one travels outside of the major metroplexes are things like Leafs, Volts, or Teslas common?
What if you found out that not everyone is as selfish and shortsighted as you. What would you do?
Sell the chumps something ‘sustainable’ before they smarten up, natch.
Cui bono?
Well received by the people who take advantage of other taxpayers.
I’m going to have to agree with the Conservative Black Hole in Colorado Springs.
The irony is that Colorado has the dirtiest electricity supply in the country. All coal.
Yes but when you drive an electric car the trees know and they love you for being so 510nm in wavelength.
That is ironic. I’m guessing Nissan can’t sell these things as well as they had hoped/thought and are willing to knock off 5K to move the ones they have.
“The irony is that Colorado has the dirtiest electricity supply in the country. All coal.”
Yeah, every time I go to Colorado, I start choking and wheezing from all the coal smoke.
A good portion of Denver power comes from the vast wind farms along the I-70 corridor. Must be the warm breeze off the coal fires
Who said coal fires couldn’t be green?
Just about everybody
The rapid depreciation of the cars will probably hurt its carbon footprint more than anything. The cheap prices and rapid depreciation will turn these green cars into a disposable Bic lighter. Sort of hard to justify spending $$$ to replace a battery in an 8 year old car that is essentially worthless. But, the range for these cars will go down (but not enough for Nissan to replace them). How many of these cars do you think will even reach have the mileage of an average Prius, before they are junked?
Not many, although the same fate might befall Teslas as well.
Teslas start out with a greater range than a Leaf, so when it loses half its range its a lot more useful than a leaf, so, assuming it is not that expensive to maintain–I would expect for it to have the opportunity to accumulate a lot more miles.
Also, it’s high initial investment gives a great incentive for the car not to be treated as a disposable car–plus the cars it competes with (“luxury cars”) have a much larger carbon footprint than the cars the Leaf competes with (“gas misers”).
That’s an overall good point but
“it’s high initial investment gives a great incentive for the car not to be treated as a disposable car”
isn’t necessarily accurate because this is frequently what happens to 7 Series BMWs, Mercedes S/E classes, Jaguars, and Audi A8s.
Let’s say the replacement battery is $5000. Why wouldn’t you invest that $5000 in your paid-for ride?
Natural gas is quickly replacing coal all over the country so it will only get better.
That’s my viewpoint. Coal is nose diving. Anticipated future power production should be considered more than today’s. And when power plants are upgraded or decommissioned/replaced, that instantly upgrades the vehicle fleet–a feat only possible with ICEs by introducing a better fuel (and no, current ethanol doesn’t really get the job done). I have much more confidence in improving coal power plants than I do a new fuel that works in gasoline engines.
But even with the nation’s dirtiest power production, EVs are still less polluting than most ICEs. (EVs in all-coal areas are equivalent to low-to-mid 30s mpg combined).
CO has excellent solar potential, and GE was going to build the nation’s largest PV factory outside of Denver, but China’s dumping of panels dropped the price enough to make new US production unfeasible. But anyway, I see value in creating fuel for my car myself–I can put solar panels on my roof, but I can’t refine my own gasoline.
“The irony is that Colorado has the dirtiest electricity supply in the country. All coal.”
Completely false. Colorado ranked about 10th in their use of coal as of Feb ’14. It’s ALSO in the top 10 in generation of “other renewables” like the wind farms already mentioned.
That really doesn’t bode well for the real, marked to market, value of e-cars.
Bodes well for me looking for an off-lease one, used, as a daily bad weather commuter.
The value is already pretty terrible, apparently:
MY14 Nissan Leaf Hatch S
8/19/15 DALLAS Lease $9,400 13,880 Avg CAYENNE EL A Yes
07/28/15 RIVRSIDE Lease $10,250 14,117 Above BRILLIAN EL A Yes
08/25/15 GEORGIA Lease $9,900 15,268 Avg BLUE OCE EL Yes
08/05/15 CALIFORN Lease $10,100 17,792 Above BRILLIAN EL A Yes
08/19/15 NASHVILL Lease $9,200 18,075 Avg LIQ PLAT EL A Yes
08/25/15 GEORGIA Lease $9,600 21,643 Avg RED EL A Yes
08/18/15 RIVRSIDE Lease $8,000 22,782 Below GUN META EL A Yes
MY14 Nissan Leaf Hatch SV
07/28/15 GEORGIA Factory $12,300 7,306 Above WHITE EL A Yes
08/12/15 NASHVILL Factory $11,400 11,731 Avg BLK OBSD EL A Yes
08/18/15 RIVRSIDE Lease $11,750 15,284 Avg SILVER EL A Yes
08/12/15 NASHVILL Factory $10,600 15,344 Avg RED PERL EL A Yes
08/04/15 HOUSTON Lease $10,600 17,612 Avg BLACK EL A Yes
08/12/15 NASHVILL Factory $11,000 19,182 Avg RBJ EL A Yes
MY14 Nissan Leaf Hatch SL
08/11/15 RIVRSIDE Factory $15,000 3,028 Above BLACK EL A Yes
08/20/15 NASHVILL Factory $15,000 4,823 Above GRAY EL A Yes
08/18/15 CHICAGO Factory $13,200 5,754 Avg RED EL A Yes
08/18/15 NASHVILL Factory $14,000 9,041 Avg LIQ PLAT EL A Yes
08/21/15 NASHVILL Factory $11,510 11,879 Below RED PERL EL A No
08/07/15 PA Lease $13,200 21,592 Avg BLACK EL A Yes
SCV – do not buy out your lease if you can avoid it.
@28: See my post below. I’m walking away from it soon. I love the ownership experience (except for winter battery range), but I know a fleecing when I see one. My crystal ball hinted of this, which is why I leased it.
Its unfortunate things worked out the way they did as I know you liked yours. Didn’t Nissan release a better battery pack recently which drops into these?
The so-called ‘lizard’ battery has been put into the production 13-15 Leafs.
It is a backwards-compatible replacement for the 11-12 Leaf battery, for the cool price of $5500. Under certain warranty conditions, Nissan will replace it for free. I don’t qualify.
Hey, can you do this for a 2012-2013 Fiat 500 Abarth? I can get a 2012 model with 24k miles for about $13k, but I’d love to know what they sell for.
Hang on
MY12 Fiat 500 Coupe “Abarth”
08/25/15 TAMPA Regular $14,300 10,391 Above Black 4CY M Yes
07/23/15 DFW Regular $12,800 12,112 Avg WHITE 4GT 5 Yes
08/12/15 NASHVILL Regular $12,500 27,006 Avg BRIL BLK 4GT 5 Yes
08/12/15 CALIFORN Regular $12,500 28,628 Avg RED 4GT 5 Yes
08/03/15 DFW Regular $13,000 31,830 Avg White 4CY M Yes
07/29/15 SAN DIEG Regular $11,300 32,463 Below GRAY 4GT 5 Yes
MY13 Fiat 500 Coupe “Abarth”
07/30/15 CINCINNA Regular $13,200 7,333 Avg Red 4GT M Yes
08/25/15 ST LOUIS Regular $12,900 11,033 Avg BRIL BLK 4GT 5 Yes
08/14/15 PA Regular $14,250 12,427 Above WHITE 4GT 5 Yes
08/12/15 SF BAY Regular $13,600 14,818 Above WHITE 4GT 5 Yes
08/14/15 FT LAUD Regular $10,700 16,466 Below GRAY 4GT M Yes
07/30/15 CHICAGO Regular $14,300 19,651 Above WHITE 4GT M No
08/19/15 CEN FLA Lease $12,000 20,281 Avg ROSSO 4GT 5 Yes
08/11/15 DALLAS Factory $10,200 20,955 Below RED 4GT 5 Yes
07/31/15 PA Regular $12,500 24,609 Avg BLACK 4GT 5 Yes
08/13/15 SO CAL Lease $12,000 24,952 Avg WHITE 4GT 5 Yes
08/19/15 NEW MEX Regular $9,100 29,314 Below GRAY 4GT M No
08/12/15 RIVRSIDE Factory $10,250 29,494 Below BLACK 4GT 5 Yes
08/07/15 FT LAUD Regular $11,888 38,196 Avg Black 4GT M Yes
Thank you kind sir!
You’re quite welcome. These seem cheap for what is I thought was the expensive trim.
I may be asking for punishment since I have one, but do you have any prices on C5 Audis? I’ve been looking at getting a second one in the spring.
@matador
MY00 Audi A6 (C5) 2.8 Quattro
08/26/15 NJ Regular $2,650 77,508 Above SILVER 6G A Yes
08/13/15 NYMETSKY Regular $1,050 97,493 Avg SILV 6G A Yes
07/27/15 PA Regular $2,000 134,118 Avg Silver 6G M Yes
08/19/15 SEATTLE Regular $900 171,012 Avg BEIGE 6G A Yes
08/25/15 NEWENGLD Regular $600 181,834 Avg MAROON 6G A Yes
08/06/15 DETROIT Regular $700 184,948 Avg SILVER 6G A Yes
MY00 Audi A6 (C5) 2.7T Quattro
08/07/15 PA Regular $2,400 73,684 Above GREEN 6GT P Yes
08/11/15 BALTWASH Regular $1,700 116,141 Avg SILVER 6GT 6 Yes
08/26/15 MILWAUKE Regular $1,500 156,280 Avg BLACK 6GT 6 Yes
07/29/15 MILWAUKE Regular $1,800 161,556 Avg SILVER 6GT A Yes
08/20/15 NORTHSTR Lease $1,000 191,656 Avg BLACK 6GT 6 Yes
08/12/15 SF BAY Regular $450 208,928 Below TAN 6GT A Yes
MY00 Audi A6 (C5) 4.2 V8 Quattro
06/23/15 PHILLY Regular $1,400 106,462 Avg SILVER 8G A Yes
06/16/15 CENTPENN Regular $3,300 110,844 Above BLACK 8G P Yes
08/26/15 SF BAY Regular $1,000 127,713 Avg BLACK 8G A Yes
06/10/15 MINNEAP Regular $3,000 145,760 Above BLACK 8G A Yes
06/16/15 PHILLY Regular $850 147,776 Avg BLACK 8G A Yes
08/11/15 BALTWASH Regular $550 189,494 Avg SILVER 8G A Yes
Thanks! So, C5’s are about as worthless in the market as I thought! ;)
It’s a lot of car for the money. The upkeep may be a little worse, but the experience is worth it.
Now, about that whole two Park Avenues idea….
Go for the two Park Aves.
I seem to recall hearing anecdotal complaining about the turbo A6 back in the day. I drove a 2.8 for a short time and I did like it but without dealer records I wouldn’t want to get into one. I didn’t even realize there was a V8 on the C5 A6, maybe that one was awesome (one did 189K in DC no less).
Where are these prices coming from?
Manheim auctions.
Dealer auctions?
Yeah, they’re dealer auction prices.
Wow. Thanks for that. If I could get past the ugly, a used leaf would be perfect for my daily beater. Aside from the battery degradation (which appears to be more gradual in NE climates), they seem to be super reliable and dirt cheap to operate.
You’re welcome, its certainly an opportunity depending on your needs and finances. Depending on what happens in the next say two years with oil, you might be able to pickup an MY12 for a few thousand dollars form dealers desperate to unload them and pickup the new better battery pack for 4500. Then you could have a new-used electric car for maybe 10Kish?
for the money, I’d sooner have a nice used Buick.
Which one? The only newer one which might interest me is Verano.
@28-cars, aren’t you the master of surfing the web and telling us what we can get for $X?
Tell us what sort of used Buick we can get for $12,500…
I had Verano up in MMR bc like I said I kinda like it for what it is (Leather pkg seems to be the highest without turbo):
MY14 Buick Verano Leather
08/06/15 TX HOBBY Lease $16,500 17,240 Above WHITE 4G A Yes
08/06/15 PA Lease $14,000 39,124 Avg SILVER 4G P Yes
08/12/15 PITTSBGH Regular $16,500 18,123 Above CHARCOAL 4G A Yes
08/14/15 PA Lease $13,600 54,487 Below WHITE 4G P Yes
08/18/15 DENVER Lease $15,000 15,055 Avg GRAY 4G A Yes
08/19/15 MILWAUKE Lease $14,900 24,271 Avg BLACK 4G A Yes
You can have an MY11 Buick Lucerne CXL V6 for roughly that figure:
08/11/15 ORLANDO Regular $13,400 29,272 Avg WHITE 6G A Yes
08/13/15 NORTHSTR Regular $14,800 32,014 Above SILV 6G A Yes
08/12/15 PITTSBGH Regular $12,700 42,700 Avg WHITE 6G A Yes
07/29/15 PITTSBGH Regular $13,700 46,833 Avg SILVER 6G A Yes
08/20/15 DETROIT Regular $11,700 71,467 Avg BLACK 6G A Yes
08/20/15 NORTHSTR Regular $11,900 75,414 Avg PRLWHITE 6G A Yes
08/06/15 NORTHSTR Regular $1 75,414 Below PRLWHITE 6G A No
08/13/15 CINCINNA Regular $10,900 81,713 Avg SILVER 6G A Yes
08/20/15 ST PETE Regular $9,600 82,938 Below WHITE 6G A Yes
07/28/15 ST LOUIS Regular $9,100 95,161 Below WHITE 6G A Yes
or a Lacrosse V6 with miles (lesser miles 13-14):
MY11 Buick Lacrosse CXL V6
08/13/15 DETROIT Regular $12,300 55,301 Avg BLACK 6G A Yes
08/05/15 NY Regular $11,800 56,394 Avg BLACK 6G A Yes
08/05/15 NASHVILL Regular $13,000 66,246 Avg BLUE 6G P Yes
08/19/15 MINNEAP Lease $12,500 66,528 Avg WHITE 6G A Yes
08/18/15 GEORGIA Lease $11,400 69,660 Avg BLUE 6G A Yes
08/20/15 DETROIT Regular $12,800 70,507 Avg BLACK 6G A Yes
08/12/15 ORLANDO Regular $13,700 78,394 Avg BLACK 6G A No
08/04/15 HOUSTON Regular $11,900 84,669 Avg TAN 6G A Yes
08/05/15 FT MYERS Regular $9,000 103,230 Below SILVER 6G A Yes
07/29/15 DALLAS Regular $10,800 105,219 Below WHITE 6G A Yes
08/25/15 OHIO Lease $8,800 116,249 Below SILVER 6G A Yes
Enclave is still $$$$ in MY11 so its out at 12,5ish
MY11 Buick Enclave CXL V6
08/04/15 NEWENGLD Regular $24,200 37,574 Above Silver 6CY A Yes
08/11/15 NEWENGLD Regular $19,000 45,433 Avg WHITE 6G A No
08/21/15 PA Regular $22,750 45,906 Above SILVER 6G A Yes
07/29/15 NJ Regular $19,600 52,273 Avg BLUE 6G A Yes
07/27/15 NJ Regular $20,500 53,325 Avg WHITE 6G A Yes
08/14/15 PA Regular $19,900 64,696 Avg WHITE 6G P Yes
07/28/15 OHIO Regular $18,800 73,396 Avg WHITE 6G A Yes
07/30/15 LOUISVLL Regular $17,200 77,641 Avg GRAY 6G A Yes
07/29/15 OHIO Regular $18,600 78,023 Avg RED 6G Yes
08/12/15 PITTSBGH Lease $16,900 78,587 Avg GREY 6G A Yes
08/20/15 CHICAGO Regular $17,700 78,776 Avg BLACK 6G A Yes
08/19/15 NJ Regular $17,300 79,331 Avg RED 6G A Yes
08/19/15 MILWAUKE Regular $17,100 80,150 Avg SILVER 6G A Yes
07/28/15 OHIO Regular $16,400 82,720 Avg WHITE 6G A Yes
I’m not even looking at Regal. For 12,5 I would look for two nice Park Aves and save the rest for repairs.
FWIW I had a 2012 LaCrosse as a rental – loaded version (no nav however) with the 3.6L V6 and I was darn impressed with it.
If you could pick one up for under $15K – I’d call that a good deal.
Don’t never dare 28 no more.
You can, but you must: dare greatly.
Do I get an assist on that?
Indeed. How many does that make for this season?
Dunno… I’m innumerate.
Here in Washington, where we have no-carbon hydropower, there are some attractive deals to be had on these things. It really is unfortunate that they are so ugly, because otherwise they’re excellent commuter cars.
No doubt the North West Power Pool is flush with water this year. Oh wait, there hasn’t been a drought? No affects on hydro power yet? Give it a year.
Washington wild fires are currently busily generating more CO2 than all the coal power plants you could shake a stick at.
So it’s not all sweetness and light.
Sure there will be an effect, but even with more supplemental generation we still have power that’s more than clean enough to make driving an electric car a carbon-positive exercise.
Keep in mind, you’re saving another ~$60/month on fuel costs. Amazing buy for those with a reasonable commute.
That adds up, these make much more sense to me as city runabouts than those sub-subcompacts such as Fiat 500 and Buick Encore for drivetrain alone.
RBOB gasoline price has collapsed, down to $1.36 a gallon for still summer blend short contract 9/15 delivery. Where WTI is showing support around $37 and is trading from $37 to $40 now, RBOB is going down, down, down. Heck, even Brent is below $44 a barrel now.
The national average price for gasoline is out of whack a good 50 cents a gallon compared to Brent and RBOB pricing.
Nissan is getting ready to refresh the Leaf, the market for the early adopters are churned through, and they have to move metal, errr lithium. Well OK, lithium is a metal but still.
Prices at the pump for consumers are going to drop like a rock after Labor Day, and it is going to be bad for cars like the Leaf, Volt, Prius, etc. etc. etc.
More trucks, SUVs and CUVs — ‘merica memories are very short.
I think Prius sales/resale will remain relatively intact but the other models are screwed. Volt rebates will be interesting.
Prii sales are already in decline, have been for a couple of years and the decline is more significant this year.
Sales still better than when there was the single model going back to 2011 – so in no way is it a collapse, but the other data point is a fair number of Prii drivers aren’t turning into repeat customers (which isn’t to say they’re leaving the Toyota family – but they aren’t buying another Prii)
It’s resale value is quite safe because of the Lazy T logo on the front.
“Prices at the pump for consumers are going to drop like a rock after Labor Day…”
Must be an election coming up.
I got my first ever gas price DROP alert from Gasbuddy yesterday.
My 12 Leaf lease expires in a month. The sum of my 36 payments is about $12,269 – approximately the same as the S trim Aaron described, after rebates.
Last week, I approached Nissan asking them to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I informed them I was aware of the Leaf 1.5 (110 miles) and 2.0 (150-200 miles) coming out soon, that Chevy, Tesla, and others would soon have mid-size products in that range. Used 12 Leafs with SL trim and similar mileage are retailing for $9-10k.
They unemotionally told me the terms haven’t changed: A) I could buy the car for $13k (this includes a $5k reduction recently offered by Nissan), or B) I could lease for another 6-12 months at the same monthly rate. [They didn’t even bother to tell me about the $5k Nissan discount on new Leafs, which I learned about later.]
No deal I said. I offered to continue leasing for 1-2 years at a much reduced rate, but they’re simply not interested. They told me my car will go to auction, and will never be resold on their lot.
2011 to 2015 Leafs will soon become worthless with their short range and worn batteries, which degrade much faster than a Tesla’s battery. My car has been trouble-free, cheap to operate ($0.03/mile), and wonderful to drive at any speed up to 96 mph.
The Colorado deal is a good one. For the money I’ve paid, I’d own the car already.
You can expect to see Nissan continuing to increase incentives on the 2015 models, because the 2016 model (with optional 110-mile range) is due in a month or so.
As for me, I will walk into the arms of my minivan, and save money on car payments and insurance for a while. The extra gas is still cheaper.
Did you like the Leaf while you had it though? I can’t imagine driving one.
Loved it. Zero hesitation off the line, zero maintenance, very comfortable and quiet.
You get very spoiled by the instant response and silent operation. I love an ICE as much as anyone, but waiting even a fraction of a second for a car to hook up is annoying once you’ve driven an EV. It’s also nice not to worry about fluid checks, belts, garage idling, transmission failures, or exhaust pipes.
My chief complaints are:
1. The winter battery range (I live in Pittsburgh) of only 36 miles this past very cold winter. Summer is much better.
2. Terrible navigation system.
3. Depreciation for anyone who actually bought one.
A little-discussed feature of the car is its double-piston brakes on the front; it stops extremely well.
My commutes a bit long for electric (65 mile round trip often 75 miles when I need to pickup kids) but these are great deals. If I had a little more cash I would pick one up as a daily driver and buy and old pickup for other duties.
Georgia *had* probably the best lease rebates on electric cars, which led to Atlanta being the top selling city for the Leaf (Google “drive a Leaf for free in Georgia”)–but that all ended this summer when the Georgia legislature killed the rebates and instituted a special (punitive) tax on electric cars.
*poof*
Add to that low gas prices, an aging design, and a used car market flooded with off lease *free* Leafs….
I get the repealing of a rebate but wtf on the punitive tax? Seems rather close to entrapment to offer money and then to repeal it to go after them for revenue.
They don’t *call* it a punative tax. But, the tax is based off of the gas tax revenue lost on a 24mpg car driving 24K miles/year. But, almost all of the Leafs sold in Georgia are leases that have mileage limits that are around 12K/miles a year–and most probably don’t approach that because they are city cars. So, basically Leaf owners are paying a higher “gas tax” in Georgia than someone driving a 12mpg car!
So IAW, a punitive tax for what seems to be political reasons. Gawd bless ‘Murica.
“the Georgia legislature killed the rebates and instituted a special (punitive) tax on electric cars.”
This is hilarious.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t have leased my Leaf without the incentives, so it’s no surprise that Leaf sales dried up in Georgia when they ended.
As for road taxes, my opinion is that cars should be taxed by weight and annual miles, and that gas taxes should be repealed. Then everyone gets equal treatment.
Here in PA, given my Leaf’s MPGe, I’d still only pay $45/year in gas taxes if I fueled it with gasoline. That doesn’t seem right, and it highlights the problem with increasing CAFE standards being the cause of reduced gas taxes.
I suspect a healthy portion of those “gas taxes” here go to into Harrisburg’s general slush fund with a specific portion designated to fund the failed transportation authorities of Port Authority and SEPTA. They will only fix the roads/bridges they absolutely have too, don’t feel you are cheating them on road use as they are the ones cheating you/us.
Did you see this one?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-03/pennsylvania-governor-calls-for-3-billion-bond-to-boost-pension
“Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf called for selling $3 billion of bonds to bolster the state’s public-employee retirement system as part of his first budget.”
…or 10.03% of the $29.9 billion dollar current budget.
“Pennsylvania administers two pension plans covering about 700,000 people. The funds had 62 percent of what they needed to cover promised benefits in 2013, down from 75 percent in 2010. Pennsylvania’s pension liability as a percentage of revenue, at about 130 percent, is ninth-highest among states, according to Moody’s Investors Service.”
“Leaders of the Republican-led legislature said Wolf’s plan doesn’t address the rising retirement costs that are taking up funds that could be spent elsewhere. Pensions account for almost one-third of the $1.6 billion in spending increases required in the $29.9 billion budget for the year beginning in July, according to a presentation.”
…or 5.35% of the current budget in spending increase, with 1/3 to pensions.
So increasing spending 5.35% of the current budget and then borrowing 10% more percent in the form of bonds… this is a train wreck waiting to happen.
The private sector moved away from defined benefit programs in the 1990s. The geniuses in government are just getting around to thinking about it.
I covered this on Yahoo last month. The hate mail in my inbox was quite a shocker since I tend to endorse gas sippers for those folks who could care less about cars.
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/used-evs-hit-by-plunging-values-could-give-savvy-124255982617.html
Oh, and this one kinda found a few readers too.
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/08/17/should-you-buy-an-ev/
Thanks for those links! I just read both of those articles for the first time.
I’m the perfect candidate for an EV and actually had one 15 years ago (a 1980 Jet Electrica 007, basically an electrified Omni hatchback) that I never quite got on the road (but spent a bundle on brand-new lead-acid batteries for).
The initial price keeps me from getting one, plus the fear about battery pack issues. I keep my cars for a long time, and currently have a 1997 Civic and a 1996 Passat TDI that both get very good fuel economy.
I’ll keep my eyes out for deals on EVs over the next few years for sure. Our temperate Seattle climate is ideal for the Leaf’s non-cooled battery pack.
Whats so funny and the reason also that I dont like them anymore is that Truecar states that I can get one with their lead for 37600 bucks..hahahahah…Truecar needs to just shut down. I prefer them before they got took to the woodshed by the dealers.
It’s been years since I slogged through The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital and to this day, I’m still not totally convinced that Marx was really serious about any of it.
I really got the sense that he was just mad at the world and that his writings were nothing more than the ravings of an impoverished academic who felt the world owed him a good life because he was just so smart.
God knows he had no fucking idea what he was talking about.
Well said, and academics to this day tend to be the same way. They don’t realize they need to generate actual goods and services people pay for in order to make money, rather than being awarded money for being smart.
THAT is a killer deal! I’d be tempted to take it if I lived in CO, but I’m in NM. I drove a BMW i3, an even uglier electric car than the leaf, and with similar performance, and loved the responsiveness. It’s significantly slower than my 335i, but around town the instant responsiveness makes it almost comparable. Little electrics like this are great transportation appliances, and then I can have something like a big F-150 or Acura MDX in the garage for road trips.
Right now I have a 335i and, while I LOVE that car and am always happy to walk up to it, I just can’t use most of the performance day to day in my city commute. It’ll also be expensive to maintain when I cross 100k in a few years, I have to slow down on a couple of bad intersections to not bottom out, and it gets about 21mpg on premium. Gas is cheap now so that’s no biggie, but this won’t always be the case. A cheap little short-range electric would in many ways be better for daily driving (I typically only go 25 miles per day…double that if I go mountain biking after work).
The downside is they didn’t properly cool the battery, which is a killer for longevity of this expensive piece. Penny wise, pound foolish. It makes the car depreciate too fast. Perhaps in a couple years there’ll be an affordable aftermarket pack with a proper cooling system. Until then, even at this price, it might make more sense to pay twice as much and get a Prius, which’ll go 200k no problem.
“(Georgia, West Virginia and Connecticut are pretty high as well.)”
If by “pretty high” you mean “none” in the case of Connecticut. At least not in the page you linked.