The Wait is Over! (update to Timeline for Rebate and HOV Stickers)

Finally! Today the rebate has arrived!

Overall this was my waiting period was as follows;

It took 10 days for my plates to arrive, which then I could submit the application to the DMV for the carpool sticker. It was 43 days since purchase (or 32 days since application) for my HOV sticker to arrive. and a final count of 50 days for the rebate to arrive.

The rebate arrived much quicker than I expected (after I got the “Rebate approved” email. I thought it would’ve taken even longer.

In hindsight, 7 weeks doesn’t seem like a long time, but when you’re checking your mail box every day for stickers or a check, it can feel like 7 months.

I hope this timeline can help others who are waiting for their HOV sticker or rebate.

🙂

Timeline for Rebate and HOV Stickers

Waiting for rebates sucks. Waiting for the HOV sticker while you longing look at the easy breezy HOV lane while you’re stuck in traffic, Sucks.

Here is the timeline that I have experienced since the date of purchase. Still waiting..
The “Rebate Approved” email says I should receive the check within 90 days. (3 months is another long wait. I hope its sooner).

You can submit the rebate right away after purchase,
You need to wait for your plates before you can submit the forms for the HOV stickers

Update –
Finally got the HOV Sticker!

43 Days (6 weeks) since purchase, 32 Days  (4 weeks) since application

200 Mile Range electric car in the near future

Thank you Telsa for sharing your brilliance and patents.

Fiat and Mercedes already incorporate Telsa technology into their electric cars, and now that Telsa has shared their patents, the manufactures are currently working on cars that will go double the current range (150-200 miles) on a single charge. A 200 mile range would ease a lot of worries for most people and probably make an electric car very appealing. I think a major road block will be charging when electric cars become more popular (which also includes the infrastructure for electricity distribution).

Chevy’s concept car the Bolt is expected to have a 200 mile range and a $30k price tag.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/197327-200-mile-30k-chevy-bolt-ev-and-chevy-volt-2-0-revealed-at-detroit-auto-show

So what happen when the battery runs out

This is the first question most people will ask, (and I have asked it myself)
Now that I own an electric car, I do find the question rather silly. Since a full charge of an electric car is safely 80 miles, (you can push it farther) but 80 is a safe # to stay at where you wont freak out. 80miles is roughly about 1/3 of a normal car’s gas tank MPG. So when you think of it, how often do you really worry when you gas tank is at 1/3? Not very often.

Now imagine only driving with 1/3 of your gas tank, but every morning when you get home your gas tank is filled back to 1/3 again.
On your typical day, you can probably go quite far finishing most errands with 1/3 of your gas tank and not really worry about it.

For now, my daily commute would only be 40-50 miles/ day, and my boyfriend (who was so impressed with the Fiat 500e got one himself) has a 60 mile commute everyday and its been fine. We’ve been able to get the cars home and charge them overnight. The cars only use about 50% of the battery, which is easily replenished to 100% with an overnight charge.

it is important to not think of the Fiat 500e (or any electric car for that matter) as your primary car. Its a commuter car, its gets you from point A – B to save you $ on gas (within a 80 mile round trip on one charge – or unless you have a charging station at your work a 100-160 mile round trip).

Rising gas prices to $4 within the month.

The best part of having an electric car is you want to high-five yourself every time you see gas prices going up. Since we’ve gotten the Fiat500e gas prices have gone up $1, and is expected to be $4 within the month. *Horray*

The Fiat500e comes with an andriod/iphone app that monitors your car’s performance and see how much $ you’ve saved overall and per trip.

🙂

How Do I charge this electric car?

So I learned the hard way, even when people say “there’s free charging” Its not as easy as it sounds, not that its not free, but you again gotta plan.
In my area there are Chargepoint chargers, Blink, and Clipper creek. there are probably more but these are the ones I’ve encountered.

Clippercreek – Free. So this one is the best because you can just plug it in.
Chargepoint – These may be free, or have a fee (its based on whoever owns it) BUT you NEED  a membership card inorder to use it. It took me over 2 weeks to receive the card.
 Blink –  Needs membership and activation to use. This card took 4 weeks to arrive.

 However, you can use a credit card with the “tap and go” at most stations but I have noticed that the rate is higher.

So about 2 weeks -3 weeks before you purchase your car, sign up for all these membership cards because it takes them a while to mail it to you, then you have to activate the card, then you can use it.

So far the only one I have found that I can use would be Clippercreek without a membership.

There are more but these are the only ones I know right now. I’ll update as I find out more.

To Buy or Lease? Should everyone go electric?

Before heading out to a dealership to get an electric car, you should first decide why you want an electric car.
There are usually 2 factors that people consider:
1: “I want to save the environment”
2: “I want to save money”

for me, it was #2, and #1 is just a nice bonus on top. Starting a 40-50 mile daily round trip commute, my big Premium unleaded Gas SUV, was not gonna help my wallet. I wanted to be economical, to spend as little as possible on transportation. My SUV was $500/month + about 300 in gas (with my new commute) = $800 a month.. That’s just too much. So I started researching electric, hybrids, or really cheap cars with high MPGS (like a Honda Civic).

However, nothing was as affordable as the electric car.
My total monthly payments on the Fiat is ~$150 (including taxes) with Zero down (due to the rebates)
Even on a free gas car, I would be spending $200-250 on gas + maintenance)

So, should everyone go electric? 

If you’re good at

• counting miles
• planning
• have a really scheduled commute where you know you’ll be going to and from under 80 miles a day
• have access to an outlet or charger
• have a paid off or really cheap gas car as a backup

then Yes its a good option

So, Should you buy or lease? 
Lease!
Electric is still in its infancy and technology is always upgrading. In a few years, the cars today will be ancient. Lease because there are a lot of great rebates from the Federal ($7500), State ($2500), and City (check your local area) I’ve seen some at ($2000). The rebates make having an electric car very affordable, so if you can manage it in your lifestyle its a great decision.

Fiat 500e Day 1 – finding the sweet spot

After I picked up the Fiat500e from the dealership, there was a full charge of 92 miles on it. It seems like the first 10-20 miles the range doesn’t seem to update really quickly. The first 10 miles the range barely moved a few miles, however near the 20 mile mark, the range dropped 20 miles. I drove a total of 35 miles, charged the car for 3 hours using a 120v (wall out) (that gave me ~10 miles of charge. So I started the drive with about 70 miles. I drove about 25 miles back home pretty ‘aggressively’, meaning how I would drive a normal gas car. By the time I got home I only had a 30 mile range left. (no a/c)

So the “Sweet Spot” where the car performs best is at speed limit on all roads. My parents house is 1 mile uphill, and the car didn’t use much power if I kept the speed at 25-30 mph (which is the speed limit at that area). On the freeway, the car didn’t use extra power if I stayed at 65 mph. Using A/C will drop your range by a 10 miles.

Test Drive and Electric Car comparison (Fiat 500e, Nissan Leaf, VW e-golf, BMW i3)

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)