Electric Vehicle Information

The Nissan Leaf runs great.  I highly recommend it because

1. Been around for a while.

2. Realistically gets about 80 miles a charge

3. Roomy - 5 seats
          4. Cheaper than my gas car

5. Drive quietly and accelerates very nicely!

  

Thinking about buying?  Here are all the details you need to know

1. My story is pretty much the same as in the article from my friend Jeff and Mandy.  See Jeff and Mandy P. are "driving on sunshine"

2. Down payment should be no more than $2500.   Jeff got $2000 down payment and mine was $2500.  You can probably negotiate to $1500 so that the $1000 can be used for home charger (see #4 below)

3. After buying, the California government will get you a rebate check for $2500.  So down payments should be at least zero.

4. The rebate will be good as long as the rebate funding is available.  Currently 75% remains available.   You can get the information at this link.

5.  We brought a 30AMP home charger from Home Depot (see here) for $700.   We paid an electrician about $150 to make a plug in cable so we can simply plug in the 240v outlet which is usually the clothing dryer socket in the garage if you have it.    This method is better than connecting directly to the electrical system because we can simply unplug it and take the unit with us to wherever we go and use this instead of the slow 120v trickle charge

6. Solar power is installed in our house but not yet turned on.  Electricity should be zero hopefully in a few days or weeks.  If you’re thinking of solar, call Stuart Lewis of Solar City (slewis@solarcity.com) for free estimate and all.  I’ll get $250 referral fee to help pay everything.  ;-)

7. If no solar, the electric bill can be high if you charge with trickle charger or during the day (higher cost tier level with Edison).   That’s why you want to buy the 30AMP home charger and use the timer on it to delay the charger time to run after midnight or 6pm.  Below is short summary cost or click here for more info.

8. Be sure to call Edison and get on the EV tier plan.

9. The 0-100% charge time is as followed

1. Trickle charge (plug into standard 120v socket) – 15-18 hours
2. 30 AMP home charger – 5 hours
3. 30 AMP home charger with on-board charger on car (extra $1300) – 2.5 hours (we did not get this)
4. Super fast charger on car (only on higher end SV and SL model) but charging stations are only available in LA - .5 hours (we did not get this)

10.    My commute to work is 52 miles round trip.    My average mileage per day along with Jana driving it at night is about 70 miles.    In one month, we put on 1500 miles.  No gas!

11.  I leased the car for $225/month.  That includes tax, license and additional $12 to bump mileage from 12k/year to 15k/year.  Taxes are cheaper in Simi valley than Santa Barbara.   You can probably negotiate lower due on 2013 models since 2014 models are coming.  If you want more stuff, leather, rear camera, on board charger, etc. - expect to pay around $50-$200 more depending on what you want.

12. 2014 models will be similar to 2013 models.

13.  With our old car, I was spending about $250-$300 on gas per month and about $50-100/month on maintenance.  So basically saving over $100/month

14. I leased because I believe electric and battery technology will be changing in 3 years.   I have full bumper to bumper warranty from dealer for years so no maintenance fee.  If accident, my insurance will cover it.

15. I did not get the other models (Honda FIT, Ford, Volt) because they were too small (4 seats), too new and no track record or more expensive.  The electric / gas cars like Volt or Prius were too expensive or didn’t get enough mileage on electric (Prius – 11 miles).  Also I was concerned about extra maintenance with dual engine on car.

16. I got a carpool EV sticker for $8 – see here for more info

17. While cost and environmental were a factor here, the main reason is I just couldn’t stand paying money to the Middle Eastern despotic governments.  See below my letter on Facebook:

Open letter to my fellow Jews in Santa Barbara

Long, but I hope you take the time to read.

On Rosh Hashana, Rabbi Evan talked about Rabbi Prinz who spoke immediately before Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream’ speech 50 years ago. Rabbi Prinz said that in the face of discrimination, “the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and most tragic problem is silence’. His contemporary Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said “The opposite of good is indifference” and “In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible”. These faith leaders were not indifference. They spoke up, they took action, and they made a difference.

Then Rabbi Evan spoke about Syria, in the middle of a horrifying civil war where over 100,000 people were killed in two years. One side is an authoritarian dictator who thinks of nothing of slaughtering his own people to stay in power and on the other side is an increasingly radical Al Qaeda affiliated Islamist rebellion while the world has stood by paralyzed, indifferent. And now Assad of Syria has unleashed chemical weapons that have been banned by international protocols for nearly 100 years.

He explained that doing nothing is not the answer and asked what shall we do now while congress and the President debate on military action.

Here is my answer - we have to look deeply in ourselves and realize that many of the problems in the Middle East is the result of our actions. We have been dependent and buying oil and feeding the despotic governments there. 

So what to do? Where here’s what I’ve been doing – Last week, I have brought an electric car. The car runs great. I get 85 miles on a charge. Zero down and I pay less about $100 less than my 1997 Avalon’s gas and maintenance bill. I have invested a chunk of my meager savings in solar power coming next month which should hopefully reduce my electricity bill to nearly zero in the next two decade. 

So while there are many economic and environmental reasons (relatively zero carbon emission) involved in my decision, the main reason I chose to do all this is because I could not stand supporting all the countries in the Middle East where every single one of them except for Israel do not allows freedom of speech or the religious, women and gay rights.

So now I like to take this a step further and encourage my friends to think about what they are doing with their lives and how they are spending their money. I simply cannot understand why many people I know in Santa Barbara who are very well off and CAN easily afford electric cars and solar power chose not to. The reasons ranging from “I don’t like the look of it on my roof’ to “I don’t want to be constrain to driving only 80 miles before having to charge it (even though they already own another car or two) just doesn't compute with me.

Truly I believe if we examine our own actions - how we drive, where we buy things, how we connect and work with the community, I think we can see that part of the problems are not in the Middle East. They begin at home and with ourselves.

So what to do? Taking action. Buy electric cars. Buy Solar. Donate time - Get involved in community by connecting with others and volunteering our time. Donate money (BTW Hillel needs extra money to get Solar) The more we connect with people, the more we can learn and help others. The more actions, the better. 

L’shana Tovah to all of you and may each of us help G-d to bring peace to this world.