For about 6 months I have been considering the pros and cons of an electric car. At first, I was really set on a Nissan Leaf. The lease deal was great at $199 a month with 2k down. After talking to some dealers, they offered 12k miles @ $0k down for $300 a month, or $2500 down for $250.
Going from a $500 monthly SUV payment with $250-350 in gas each month, an electric car was savings I was looking forward to.
In the interested of testing out all my options, I decided to test drive the BMW i3, VW e-golf, and Fiat 500e.
I’m not a technical person, just an average girl who pretty much knows how to put gas in the car, and when its time for an oil change.
Test drive and other Pros and Cons
Leaf
Pros:
Surprisingly roomy with enough truck space. Pickup was great and no lag in acceleration. Does not feel anything like a hybrid or gas car. Quite pleased.
Cons:
Previous forum owners, many have noted that the Leaf doesn’t do well being parked in the sun. Being in Southern California where we have a pethlora of exposed parking lots, that worried me a bit. Also a friend of mine said the battery life of his 2011 Leaf had dropped significantly to about 40 miles per full charge when he reached about 42k miles. I was planning on leasing the car so I wouldn’t have reached mileage that high, but it was something to consider.
BMW i3
Pros:
Fast charge on a 120v (wall outlet), supposedly its supposed to give you a full charge (from empty to full) in about 8 hours on the wallout. I know there’s technical terms of the wattage and kW/h or something like that but I think in lay-mans terms, its wall out (120) vrs dryer outlet (240). Suicide doors are a nice touch. Navigation and lots of bells and whistles are standard.
Cons:
No Coasting! what is coasting? when you lift your foot off the “gas” pedal and the car rolls for a bit. The one-pedal driving is a different/new way of driving for most people, and for most people (like me) driving the car goes against everything we’ve ever learned in drivers ed class. Instead of slowing down a few car lengths before a stop, you pretty much need to be driving at full speed until your 1 car length or less from your stop, release the “gas’ and the car will stop. Its like a really fast golf cart. 4 seats (it wasn’t a con for me, but I know a few people who went to the Mercedes b class to get a luxury 5 seater electric car. Looks like a transformer/monkey. Many people like the way it looks, I think it looks really strange.
VW e-golf:
Pros:
Looks. Its an electric car that looks like a normal car with the space of a normal car (4 real doors and a hatch back with cargo area. It was nice to look at, pickup was normal, very similar to the Nissan Leaf.
Cons:
Price. VW has a limited supply of the e-golf and therefore they dont really have any incentives to let you get one. Also color options are nearly impossible. If you want a color you may have to wait at least 6-8 months before or IF the car comes in. Originally VW offered the car at 400, then we haggled to 330 which they said was their absolute lowest. Then another dealer offered $275 + tax, $3k down, (with a 2500 state rebate), and 12k miles.
Outdated interface. It honestly look like those free tablets you can find at Big Lots. Also they were so gratuitous to include a Built-in Iphone3 charger! Wow (sarcasm). They also included a lot of subscription based features, which just sound like more money they are trying to squeeze out of you.
Too many drive modes. There are 5 different drive modes, and where I get that VW is trying to appease all consumers, its a bit unncessary.
Drive modes
D: this is regular driving (no regenerative braking etc)
D1: Driving with some regenerative braking. etc
D2: Driving with a bit more regenerative braking. etc
D3: Driving with more regenerative braking. etc
B: Driving with the most regenerative braking. etc
The worse is to get into the modes you have to tap/move the shifter once, twice, thrice, etc for each mode and then to get out of the mode, you have to tap/move the shifter to back out of each mode.
So you would go D: (tap) D1: (tap) D2: (tap) D3: (tap) (4 taps). then to get back to D. you reverse from D3: (tap) D2: (tap) D1: (tap) D:
That’s a lot of taping and a lot of modes, which really did not feel all that different from each other.
Is it a deal breaker? No, but it does seem excessive .
Fiat 500e
Pros:
Price. This is the most affordable electric car option. If you want to save $ on gas, find a cheap commuter car, this is the way to go. Some dealers were offering $4500 down for $99/month @ 10k miles. We negotiated to 0 down $160/month.
I really wanted to keep the payments for a new car + gas +maintance and all that other jazz to be less than 200-250 a month, and I succeeded with the Fiat. It small but for 1 person (me) with a Doberman its enough room. The back seats fold down flat and my dog has more than enough cargo area.
Cons:
Size: it is a bit small for some people and the steering is a bit “floaty”. I dont know the technical terms of it, but it feels like the car is so light it blows away in the wind. The interface and features are trying to be techo-modern but is also quite lacking as well, which I’ll get into in my next post. IS this the best E car? no, but it is insanely affordable.
Overall quite pleased with my Fiat (mainly for the price)
if $dollar signs was not an option my ranking would be
BMW i3 (for the fast charging)
VW egolf (for the looks/space/cargo area)
Fiat (Price)
Nissan (Space and Price)
For economical ranking
Fiat
Nissan
(if you’re trying to save money, the cost spent on the VW and BMW could be better spent elsewhere, such as getting a used cheap civic that gets 35-40 mpg)