Yup, it's been just about two years, so we're ripe for a sequel.

myfocuslectric.com member tinilk and his father make a Home Depot run in their FFEs

Way back in the fall of 2013, I went on a senseless rant called "Trunk Wars", retaliating against the repeated implications made by self-proclaimed experts that battery intrusion reduced the trunk of the ICE-based Focus Electric to miniscule, useless proportions. However, armed with facts and data from manufacturer web sites, it was easy to show that the Focus Electric actually had the second-largest trunk of all the affordable pure electric 4-door cars on the market at the time.  And at 14.5 cu ft of available space back there, its trunk was actually larger than a number of compact-class ICE sedans. 

Well, that was then, this is now. A lot has changed in two years.  Today, in 2015, there are almost twice as many affordable 4-door pure electric cars on the market compared to 2013, and as expected, most of the new kids on the block have bigger boots. In fact, three of the four new models provide much more cargo space behind the rear seats than the Focus Electric, which is now ranked fifth in the current field of eight. Moreover, these three newcomers provide a flat floor, rendering battery intrusion, if any, invisible to the naked eye. So for those of you obsessed with having a voluminous rear on an EV that won't cost you an arm and a leg, you now have more than just the LEAF to look at. Take a peek behind the e-Golf, Soul EV and B-Class ED.

Need even more space for your stuff? Gonna have to give up that arm and leg for a Model S. If you're willing and able do that, might as well throw in a left nut for that P85D so you can really haul ass.

Willing to consider pre-owned? How about a used 2012-2014 RAV4 EV? At 38.2 cu ft behind the rear seats, none of the 2015 offerings come close to the capacity and versatility of this cute-ute's cargo space.

Interestingly, what hasn't changed in the past two years is the cargo space provided in 4-door ICE sedans that are potential competition to today's affordable BEVs. In that respect, the Focus Electric's cargo capacity is still on par with popular cars such as the Civic, Corolla, Mercedes CLA, and BMW 3-series, all with about 13 cu ft of trunk space.

 
 Here's a table compiled from data that's readily available online that includes PHEVs, BEVs, 2-doors, 4-doors, sedans, CUVs, not-so-affordable models, and discontinued models. After two years, the LEAF is still king of the affordable plug-ins, followed closely by the e-Golf, PiP, and B-Class ED.

However, with rear seats down, the e-Golf trumps its competition with a whopping maximum of 52.7 cu ft, then the B-Class ED nearly matches it at 51.4 cu ft.  Mitsubishi's i-MiEV and Kia's Soul EV round out the top, both with about 50 cu ft back there.

Now here's a curiosity... am I seeing things, or are there now a couple of BEV "conversions" on the market that match the cargo capacity of  a BEV built on a dedicated platform?  Looks to me like the space behind the rear seats of the e-Golf and B-Class ED are within 10% of the LEAF. Even more surprisingly, particularly to those who still preach superiority of dedicated BEV platforms over shared platforms, is that the max cargo space of the LEAF is over 20 cu ft smaller than the e-Golf and B-Class ED.

So now I'm wondering... what again is the advantage of a dedicated BEV platform?  It just doesn't seem like it's "All About That Bass" anymore...

Oh, well. I guess like anything else that's done on a grand scale, it's just not the same the second time around. Back in April when we first charged up at Disneyland, The sight of ten dual-port Chargepoint EVSEs serving one long row of  EV-dedicated parking spaces was truly glorious. Now, seven months later, as I approached that hallowed ground in the Mickey and Friends parking garage, the wonder and amazement just wasn't there. Perhaps after seeing it once, such creations become reduced from a surreal dream-come-true experience down to mere expectations. And with so many EV parking spots available, my expectation was to pull in, swipe in, plug in, lock up, and then head toward The Magic Kingdom. Just like last time.

No such luck. As we approached, it was painfully clear that we arrived a few minutes too late. The last EV spot was just taken by the driver of a Fusion Energi that had just finished plugging in. Of the twenty or so spots, about a third were occupied by Volts. My older son was in awe...  our Volt is his favorite ride of the family fleet, so seeing seven in a row in the wild pretty much made his eyes pop out of his head. There were about the same amount of Prius plug-ins, a couple of LEAFs, a couple of Teslas, and a couple of Energis. All the plug-ins were plugged in, except for one - a white Model S. That Model S blocked one of the two spots that was within reach of an unused EVSE port. The other spot, which was all the way at the end of the row next to the motorcycle parking, was ICEd by a Toyota Camry.

I was a bit miffed, to say the least. There should have been two more spots left, but I was denied by an ICE that couldn't charge and a Tesla that didn't need a charge. I'm not sure which ticked me off more.

Improvised! Thankfully, Guest Services was okay with this.

I figured it was time to improvise. So I created an EV spot using three of the fifteen or so open motorcycle parking spaces, backing the RAV's charge port as close as possible to the unused EVSE without invading the Camry's personal space, ignoring my wife's egging on to inch right up to its front bumper. After swiping in, plugging in, and locking up, we were ready to go. But my wife was worried.

"What if you get a ticket?", she asked.

Confusing signage may have been a factor.

"By whom? Goofy? Pluto? Dumbo?", I responded.

"The police," she said, sternly.

"This is private property, and I don't see a posted sign giving them jurisdiction," I said, as if I really knew what the heck I was talking about. I actually didn't.

"What if they tow us?", she prodded.

"Oh, you mean with Mater?"

There was a long pause, a sigh, and a cold stare. So I backed off.

"Okay, I'll write a note to Disney Security, put it on our windshield, take some pictures, and then show the pictures to the good folks at Guest Services.We have to go there anyway. If they want me to move the car, I'll come back and move it while you and the boys enjoy the park. By then we'll have over an hour's worth of charge, which will top us off enough to get home as long we obey the speed limit and don't make any detours."

She was good with that, so we headed for the trams. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed two familiar headlight patterns rolling past the row of plug-ins - one was a Model S, the other was the distinctive Angry Birds expression of a Focus Electric. As the Blue Candy Focus Electric passed us, I tapped on the window and told the driver that we have the improperly parked RAV4 EV back there, and that we can text her in about four hours when we're fully charged. She smiled and thanked us, then said she has just enough to get home, holding her thumb and index about an inch apart. "Good to hear," I said. She thanked us again as she pulled away.

The Guest Services representative was very understanding. She said she will radio the parking folks to make sure they are aware of our situation. I offered to give her our cell phone numbers in case she  needs to ask us to move our car, but she said not to worry and to just enjoy our time at the park. So we did.

Turns out the park was pretty packed, which partially explains the high demand for EVSEs. According to the Mousewait app, the crowd index was at 91/100...  almost full, on the Monday before Thanksgiving. In contrast, the crowd index was only 51 during our Spring Break visit last April; back then the EV spots were less than half-full. Despite the huge crowd, everyone had a good time. My wife got to see the Christmas parade at night and enjoy the Holiday decor. My older son met Captain America, flew in a Mark 42 Ironman suit, and mixed it up with pod racers after being chased by Imperial Forces because Darth Vader identified his brother as a Rebel Spy. My younger son (younger by two minutes, they're twins) got his fill of sensory overload on Space Mountain and Indiana Jones. And at the end of the day, we were swept into a different time and place while strolling down Main Street on our way out. The street gently darkened, leaving only Christmas lights and the castle illuminated. Snow started falling, dancing in the breeze above the buildings before fluttering down onto the heads and faces of smiling parents and delighted children. In the same fashion that we were immersed, the glimpse into the past was swiftly and softly lifted, returning Main Street to its bright, bustling normalcy. Disney magic at its best.

Back at the Mickey and Friends parking structure, every EV space was still occupied at 8pm, albeit with noticeable turnover. And from what I could tell, there were at least a half dozen plug-ins of various marques scattered amongst the non-charging spots that are shared between EVs and those with disability parking permits. Our RAV4 EV was still there, butted up against the nose of the Camry that denied us a proper space seven hours earlier. As I unplugged, my wife eyeballed that Camry and said I should write a note.

"I'm tired. Not worth the effort. And besides, I think it's your turn to write a note," I said, pointing to my message to Security on the RAV4's windshield. She took my note, ripped it in two, scribbled on the blank half, then stuck it under one of the Camry's wiper blades.

"So... what did you say?" I asked, curiously.

"THIS IS AN EV PARKING SPACE. DO NOT PARK HERE."

"Ah, good one," I said. "Short and sweet."

Just then, off in the distance, a young woman evidently watching us smiled and yelled, "Good for you!". She was unplugging a very cute sky blue 500e, and said she had to come back to the parking structure in the late afternoon to plug in when one of the spots opened up. She said she was glad to see that we figured out a way to work around that ICEd spot.

 Although the journey ended well, I do have a few lessons learned for next time, which could perhaps serve as guidance to those that haven't been there yet with their EV:

• Think twice before heading to Disneyland in a BEV when the Mousewait app says the park is nearly full. Chances are that demand for the EVSE spots will exceed capacity.
• If you still have to go, try to get there much earlier than 1pm, otherwise all the EVSE spots will  probably be taken. However, there should still be plenty of space to park in a non-EVSE spot.
• Don't completely trust the Chargepoint app when it comes to EVSE availability. There may be spots that are ICEd or occupied by plug-ins that aren't plugged in.
• Plan a break from the action in the park, if possible, to unplug and move to a non-charging spot after you're charged up. Even in the late afternoon, there may be wonderful folks like the driver of that 500e, monitoring their Chargepoint app, hoping for an open spot so that they can juice up to get home. 
• With a BEV, always have a Plan B.  

Yup, good ol' Plan B. Plan B on this trip was to crawl home in the slow lane in the unlikely event that we couldn't charge up at all. Or in my case, if I forgot to tell the RAV4 to override delayed charge settings, so it would charge immediately when plugged in at Mickey and Friends. So the ride home took a bit longer than planned, but we did get home without stopping. More on that later....

Okay, so the good news is that when it comes to energy costs, driving an EV is way cheaper than driving an ICE. In my case, replacing three ICE vehicles with two BEVs and a PHEV is saving me about $400 every month in gas. The bad news is that charging up isn't free... yet. Most of my charging is done at home, and I have yet to go solar, so for now Southern California Edison is reaping the benefits of my vehicle choices.

Fortunately, SCE offers a few choices as far as rate plans... stay with the current residential rates, go with a time-of-use plan, or dig deep into my pockets ($2000 or so) to install a separate meter for the EVs and enjoy the lowest rate possible on my charging sessions at any time of day. After bringing home my first EV almost two years ago, a Focus Electric, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and tried out SCE's EV rate assistant tool, then switched to the time-of-use rate plan, figuring I'd never have a reason to charge during peak rate hours.

Twenty-two months and two additional EVs later, the TOU plan still seems to be the most cost-effective plan for me. To this day, I've never had to plug in between 10am and 6pm on a weekday, and most charging is done during the super-off-peak hours of 12am-6am. Based on my November bill for 1238kWh used in October, the TOU plan saved me over $80 when compared to residential rate plan.

I'd save even more if I could do all of my charging at the super-off-peak rate, which would be entirely possible if I had just one L2 EVSE. Right now I'm running with two L1 EVSEs on any given evening. Swapping out one of those L1 units with an L2 would enable me to fully charge the FFE or the Volt in less than 6 hours, after using 10kWh to 12kWh of energy on the homeward bound leg of my daily commute.

Typical daily electricity consumption

On a typical weekday, our electricity consumption look like this... about 3.5kW to 5 kW every hour during super-off-peak times, and less than 0.5 kW per hour on average during prime time. The off-peak usage at the 6am-7am and 11pm-12pm hours are higher due to charging of one of the commuter cars; the RAV4 EV is typically charging 12am-6am since it's typically only used close to home during the week.

Heaviest daily electricity consumption (once per week)

Our heaviest daily consumption occurs when the RAV4 EV is needed to run errands out of the Valley or clear across town; on those days our consumption during off-peak is much higher since I have to start charging it at about 9pm instead of midnight to replenish as much of the charge as possible and as cheaply as possible before the weekend starts, which is when we usually go on longer treks with the RAV4.

Hopefully in the next month or two I'll finally have a L2 EVSE. I've signed up for the submetering pilot program that comes with a free Juicebox. When that happens, all of my charging should happen between 12am and 6am.

If you're staring at the graphs and checking my math, you're probably wondering... if I'm only running two L1 EVSEs, why is the consumption peaking at well over 4kW at night? Well, the extra 1 to 2 kW is from running a pool pump. Since we're on a time-of-use plan, I've reprogrammed the pool pump to run between 12am and 6am only. We've also moved other activity to late night, such as running the dishwasher.

So... is time-of-use right for you? Well, if your on-peak usage is already minimal, or if you can move a good chunk of your current on-peak consumption to the off-peak times, and you have no need to charge up during on-peak hours, then yes, the TOU plan is probably your best bet. Check out your daily usage profile online, and if it bathtubs like mine does on the weekdays, I'd say go for it.

Are you one of those gifted types that can freehand a long, level, straight line with one smooth effortless stroke of a paintbrush? Not me. Far from it. In fact, I need all the help I can get to keep things straight around here. So when it came to adorning each of our EVs with California HOV stickers, I had to resort to tricks that I learned through net wisdom and from a couple of friends that are graphic artists.

Here's how the stickers arrive in the mail. One long strip. They also came with the some official paperwork to stuff in the glove box in case you are pulled over and need to prove that those stickers are assigned to your car. Installation instructions are also provided, but they only tell you where the big ones go and where the little ones go, sort of. No tips on how to stick them on straight.


If you're one of those gifted types, this is not an issue since you can probably just peel each of those stickers off the strip and slap them onto the car one after another, perfectly placed and aligned, creating an exact replica of the ideal world you visualized in your mind. However, if you're just a regular Joe like me, that strategy might not work out so well. Instead, you might want to try a method that allows for dry runs and includes visual aids while permanently affixing the stickers to the pristine finish or your new ride.

First off, get a pair of scissors and cut off the backing around each sticker. Perfection is not required, so leave enough margin while cutting around the curve so that you don't accidentally slice into the decal in the event something unexpected happens, i.e. you sneeze, the phone rings, maybe your kid bumps into you, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits.... you never know. But try to keep the cuts straight on the straight edges; you'll need those edges to line things up on the car.


Next, figure out where in general you want to stick those puppies and clean the areas. Some folks wax the areas to make it easier to remove when the HOV privilege expires or is revoked; I didn't. Too lazy. I just used Windex.

Now stick a couple of pieces of painter's tape on the back of the decals, rolled over itself so you can hang it on the car temporarily. I just used two pieces. If you are going around a curve, like on the sides of the rear bumper on a Fiat 500e, you might want to use more tape. Don't use garden variety masking tape, transparent tape, or duct tape. Use painter's tape. Other stuff is too sticky for me, and tends to leave adhesive residue on the car unless you wax the area first. Even then, it's harder to work with.


Okay, so after that, just slap the entire assembly on the car and move it around until you're happy with the way it looks. You can try lining it up with character lines, trim pieces, or some other feature on the body or bumper. Or you can use a laser level to line it up parallel the surface of the Earth... just make sure you're parked on a level surface. The point is that you can try out multiple positions and angles before committing.

After you've temporarily hung it on your car exactly where you want it, stick pieces of painter's tape along the straight edges of the sticker. The tape will serve as a guide when you're ready to permanently affix the sticker.



I think it took me about a half hour total to install all three stickers, including the time to trim the backing and take some pictures. Which to me was time well spent since I've seen way too many sticker installs while on the road and at charging stations that were so randomly misaligned and out of place that I couldn't help gawking at it, like staring a train wreck. I couldn't help looking and thinking, "How the heck did that happen?".

To the right are some photos of HOV stickers on our Volt and Focus Electric, for your consideration, in case you're like me and are prone to wasting way too much time trying to decide where to put the stickers before spending the short 30 minutes to install them. Sometimes seeing what others have done can help you quickly decide what you like. Or don't like.

For the Volt, I tried to line up the stickers with the lower valance all around. It looks okay, but my first choice was to stick them on the valance itself, at least for the side and rear stickers. I opted against it in case I felt the urge to Plasti-dip the valance for a monochrome look. In retrospect, even though I won't be painting the valance after all, I'm glad I didn't install them down there because I've seen a few Volts with their stickers peeling off of the textured black plastic.

On the Focus Electric, I went with how WattsUp, one of the prominent contributors to myfocuselectric.com, adorned his FFE with HOV decals. They're all level with the ground, and the side stickers wrap over the start of a character line that sweeps across the bumper. I thought it looked great on his car, so I followed suit.

Okay, so long story short  (yeah, yeah - too late like usual), here's my recommendation:

• Trim the backing to the shape of the decals and test fit them on the car by sticking them on temporarily with painter's tape. Try different positions. View your candidate placements from different angles and distances before committing. A laser level really helps if you want it level to the ground.
• When you find the perfect position, frame the sticker around its  straight edges with painter's tape. Then affix the sticker permanently using the painter's tape as a guide.

Good luck, I hope this helps!

"Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit."
     - Gus Portokalos, from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002

In a post titled "Apples to Apples", I proposed an easy way to compare the costs of leases of identical duration... for each offer being compared, simply total up the drive-off and all the payments over the lease term. Just like in golf, the lowest total wins.

But what if you're mulling over whether to lease or buy a particular vehicle, with the end goal of owning it free and clear? Well, back in the old days when I used to lease ICE vehicles, circa 2013, I found it was pretty much a wash dollar-wise between leasing and buying, assuming that a leased vehicle would be bought for its residual amount at the end of the lease term. Lease charges over the three years seemed to be within spitting distance of finance charges on the first three years of a six-year loan, and the loan balance after three years was about the same as the residual on a lease. So typically I chose to lease because it resulted in lower payments, tax on only part of the negotiated sales price, and an easy out at lease termination.

With electric vehicles, the decision is sometimes a bit more complicated. Sometimes choosing a lease over a purchase with the intent to own isn't only about minimizing up-front cost, lowering monthly payments, and enjoying the convenience of haggle-free disposal at termination if you change your mind about keeping it. Total cost might be a major factor, because the cost comparison is muddied by the federal tax incentive for EVs. Top that with the fact that some manufacturers offer different rebates on the same vehicle that hinge on whether you buy or lease, and the least expensive path to ownership becomes even less clear.

Let's cut to the chase... Below is a comparison between leasing and purchasing for the Toyota RAV4 EV, Chevrolet Volt, and Ford Focus Electric. With the current offers available, it's significantly cheaper to buy the Volt and FFE rather than lease, so long as the plan is to keep the car for longer than 3 years.  As for the RAV4 EV, it's much cheaper to lease first, and then take ownership by paying the residual at lease termination. The Grand Total line in the table below sums it all up for each of the three vehicles.


For the RAV4 EV, I used the Carson Toyota offer posted in June 2014 on myRav4EV.com by Dianne Whitmire, which included both lease and purchase offers. The lease offer I used was for 12K miles/year. Clearly, the huge $16.5K rebate on a lease far outweighs the $10K total incentive (rebate plus federal tax credit) on a purchase, making the lease a much more desirable option. $38K with sales tax included and before any state incentive is a heck of a deal on a $50K vehicle. 

For the Volt, I took Rydell Chevrolet's offer from their June 16, 2014 print ad, which gave folks a choice between a $246/month + tax, 10K miles/year lease, or $4500 off of a purchase on top of a $1000 rebate, on base models with an MSRP of $34,995. What makes this lease offer unattractive for those wishing to keep the Volt longer than three years is the inflated residual value, a whopping 61% of the purchase price (aka capitalized cost in lease lingo). Most vehicles have a 50% or less residual for a 3-year lease; for example, the RAV4 EV deal shown above is at 41%, and the FFE deal is at 48%. I've heard FFE lease deals go as low as 41% to 43% on higher-mileage leases.  Where Toyota and Ford properly channel the federal tax benefit back to the consumer in the form of an immediate rebate, US Bank and Ally apparently decided to pocket the tax credit and then set the residual artificially high on their Volt leases to synthesize an attractive monthly payment. Bottom line... if you want to keep a Volt for the long haul, don't even consider leasing it. Buy it instead... $25K with tax included is a great deal for a shining example of what corporate America is capable of producing when they decide to do the right thing. And that's not even including any state incentives.

As for the Focus Electric, I didn't use an offer published by a dealership because, well, I just couldn't find any. So I took an recent killer lease deal posted on myfocuselectric.com by a forum member for an FFE with leather and premium paint, 10.5K miles/year. The deal was based on an offer that was initiated through the Costco Auto Program, which at the time was good for $1000 under invoice. In this case, the lease deal is incredible, but the deal on a purchase is epic. How many other new cars can be had for under $23000, tax included? Okay, so there's lots of them. But of those, how many have leather? And a rear camera? Navigation? Seating for five? More cargo space than a 3-series or C-class? Oh yeah, how about a fully electric drivetrain and a state rebate that would, at least in California, whittle down the cost to something pretty darn close to $20,000? All things considered, it seems that the FFE is currently the best $20K car that money can buy, electric or otherwise. One might argue that the killer deal I used as an example is unachievable for most folk since inventory is pretty slim in most areas. Unfortunately that's probably true for those outside of The Golden State, but it does serve as a well-documented benchmark. In my opinion, even if  you can only negotiate $1000 off of MSRP rather than $1000 under invoice, the FFE rebates still make for one of the best new car values on the planet.

The RAV4 EV, Volt, and Focus Electric probably represent three of the most extreme examples where the total dollars shelled out toward ownership are drastically affected by a choice between leasing and buying. There are others... for example, the BMW i3 currently has a $4875 lease incentive, but no purchase incentive. In this case it should be cheaper to buy the i3 rather than lease and then pay the residual. Why? Well, If the lease incentive is not more than $7500 over the purchase incentive, chances are that the lease will be a more expensive path to ownership.This comparison of the manufacturer incentives offered for leasing versus buying is probably the best indicator of which one is the cheaper path to ownership.

Another factor to consider, which you are probably already aware of but might be worth mentioning for others that are new to this, is whether or not your total federal tax liability next year will be large enough to take full advantage of that $7500 federal tax credit. If not, you should seriously consider using a lease as an instrument to finance your quest for ownership. Look at it as a loan with a low monthly installment for 3 years, and then one huge balloon payment in the end that can be financed with a used car loan.

One more thought... most folks don't pay cash when buying a new car. More likely than not, they will finance it. So for the case where a purchase looks better than a lease (i.e. FFE and Volt),  how should the interest on a loan be factored into the decision? My advice is to plug some numbers into an auto loan calculator, like this one on bankrate.com. Model a 7-year loan for the full purchase amount with tax, minus the fed rebate and any manufacturer rebates. Interest rate for such a loan looks to be about 2.5% to 3%. Then look at the total interest paid after 36 months into the loan. For the FFE and Volt examples above the total interest paid after 3 years will only be about $1400 to $1500, which is much less than the $4000 (FFE) to $8000 (Volt) benefit of buying over leasing. In other words, for the Volt and FFE, a financed purchase is still much cheaper than a lease if your intent is to keep the car for over three years.

Still clear as mud on which way to go? Just do the math both ways based on your situation, and let the numbers guide you. Need help? Post your numbers below, and I'd be happy to take a crack at it, see what we see...

For the uninitiated, comparing one lease to another can be confusing.  I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I can share one  simplification that might help to make a decision that is right for you.

When comparing leases, I think that the easiest and quickest comparison is to just add up what you’ll be shelling out over the next three years, all the way to lease termination. This includes the total drive-off and all the monthly payments. You can also add the lease termination fee, but often that’s not provided on the web page or newspaper ads. Seems to be about $400 these days.  I usually ignore it since I end up trading in the car rather than turning it in. When comparing leases for the same vehicle from the same financier, it washes out so I won’t consider it here.

Let’s take a current example in Los Angeles area newspapers today. One of the Valley dealers is advertising two three-year 10,000 miles per year  leases on a base 2014 Volt: One is $287/mo+tax, $0 due at signing, the other is $179/mo, $3990 due at signing. And via email, the local dealer in my area is advertising $159/mo, $4000 + taxes + fees to start. So to compare:

• Lease 1: ($287+$25.83 tax) * 35 payments + $0 due at signing = $10949.05
• Lease 2: ($179+$16.11 tax) * 35 payments + $3990 due at signing = $10818.85
• Lease 3: ($159+$14.31 tax) * 35 payments + $4000 + $246 tax on rebate and first pmt + $350 license fee = $10415.85

Over 3 years, Lease 2 is over $100 cheaper than Lease 1, and Lease 3 is over $500 cheaper than Lease 1, but as a rule I always go for $0 at signing if possible since I can reliably make over 10% in dividends a year on REIT stocks. Over three years, that $4000 would make me about $1200 (about $400/year), more than enough to cover the extra $100 – $500 I’d pay out over the three years on Lease 1. Another perhaps more compelling reason to minimize the drive-off payment is in case I want to trade in the car well before lease termination, say after two years. In that case, Lease 1 with $0 due at signing lease would have cost me $7507 over two years. Compare that to Lease 2… its high $3990 drive-off and 24 months of payments would have cost me $8672.64 – over $1000 more than Lease 1 after 2 years! Lease 3 comes out the worst of all: $8754.44 over the first two years. Given the above scenario, I’d go to the local dealer and tell them I want a $0 out of pocket lease where the payments add up to about $10,415 and see what they come up with. My bet is that they’ll quote something within $100 of that.

All of these leases are better than Chevy’s website deal – $269/mo, $2679 due at signing, plus tax, license, and fees. That comes out to ($269 * 35) + $2679 + tax, license and fees. That’s $12094 over three years. Tax of 9% on the $2575 rebate and the 36 payments (first payment is part of the drive-off) is about $1113, and license is $350, which brings the total of $13557 after 3 years, which is over $2700 more than the above leases (!). It’s horrendous, but good to know when negotiating with the dealer. It serves as a shining example of what NOT to pay.

So in my case, last month I was able to get a $0 drive-off, $267/mo lease (tax included) for a 36-month 10,000 miles/year lease on a base Volt from my local dealer. After all 35 payments, that’s $9345… about $1100 – $1500 off of the above dealer-advertised offers and over $3700 off of the corporate offer. I’m not bragging… just trying to give you a sense for what is possible. I suspect that my deal would be fairly easy to beat at this moment since dealer inventory seems to be up since last month and there’s a $1000 voucher you can get on the Chevy website that can be applied to the cap reduction cost, which should lower monthly payments by $30 or so.

Hope this helps… it really is that simple – just add up the total 3-year cost to get a decent comparison between leases.

Now if you’re thinking of keeping the car after lease end, it gets a little more involved. You’ll have to add the residual cost, plus tax on that residual cost, to the 3-year total, then compare that total between leases. But if you’re looking at a Volt, beware… the banks that offer the leases on Volts set unreasonably high residuals to lower the payment – about $7500 high it seems, equal to the federal tax credit they are pocketing. Leases on the Focus Electric and RAV4 EV are much more palatable since the fed tax credit is given immediately to you in the form of a huge rebate, so you get the benefit of a low payment and a residual value that is much closer to the anticipated market value of the car after 3 years.

In the near future I’ll blog some thoughts on comparing leases between competitive models (i.e. Volt vs FFE vs Leaf vs ???) and on deciding between a lease vs loan vs cash purchase.

From what I’ve seen, much of the angst of those contemplating EV ownership is centered around the battery. Range anxiety seems to be the most prevalent worry bead.

Another source of angst is battery life. And why not? For those not driving an EV yet, their only experience with batteries in cars is with lead-acid units that last five to seven years before crapping out. Even worse, their only experience with Li-ion batteries is probably with cell phone and laptop power sources that suffer noticeably degraded performance after a couple of years of continuous use. Not to mention the fact that there are stories of LEAF owners out there that lost 20% or more of their range after two or three years. Why should we believe that the batteries in EVs will fare any better than cell phone and laptop batteries?

Fortunately, my Focus Electric came with an 8-year/100K mile warranty on its thermally-managed Li-ion battery, so initially I didn’t worry too much about battery life, figuring that I can just ditch the car after three years if the battery turns into a relatively useless brick. But in short order I fell in love with the car, and since it might be a keeper, I started surfing the net for battery info and started paying attention to articles offering tips on prolonging Li-ion battery life in a plug-in EV.

There’s lots of stuff out there, but this is one that I like to refer folks to, from insideevs.com:

Understanding Battery Capacity Loss From A Four Year BMW Electric Trial Veteran

In short, five tips offered in this article are (in case you don’t want to read through the whole thing):

1. Avoid deep discharge.
2. Don’t leave a fully charged EV sitting unused for long periods of time.
3. Avoid excessive fast charging.
4. Don’t leave the car parked in a hot parking lot in direct sunlight if possible.
5. If you don’t need all the range the car can offer on a daily basis, then don’t fully charge it every night.

There are other similar articles out there on prolonging EV battery life, they pretty much say the same thing, but it’s nice to have a second source to help draw your own conclusions and plan of action. So here’s my second favorite, from plugincars.com:

Eight Tips to Extend Battery Life of Your Electric Car

This article has more tips than the previous one, but they center around the same three mantras as the first article: (1) avoid deep discharge/full charge, (2) avoid excessive fast charging, and (3) keep the battery cool.

As an Enginerd, I yearned for technical information that these tips are based on, as well as some specific data and values that can provide better guidance (i.e. how cool is cool?). Fortunately, batteryuniversity.com is a great reference for such information:

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries

Interesting stuff in this article includes a comparison of cycle life as a function of depth of discharge, which illuminates why we should avoid full charging and deep discharging. It also illustrates the effects of elevated charge voltages on cycle life, which backs up the the tip to avoid excessive DC fast charging. It talks about capacity loss as a function of temperature and state of charge:

“Lithium-ion suffers from stress when exposed to heat, so does keeping a cell at a high charge voltage. A battery dwelling above 30°C (86°F) is considered elevated temperature and for most Li-ion, a voltage above 4.10V/cell is deemed as high voltage. Exposing the battery to high temperature and dwelling in a full state-of-charge for an extended time can be more stressful than cycling.”

With 86F being a considered an elevated temperature, it’s no wonder that a thermal management system should be considered a necessity for an EV. It also explains why I’m constantly frying laptop and cell phone batteries, which have no thermal management system.

Although not published anywhere, owners of Focus Electrics have figured out that only about 85% of the battery’s advertised capacity is used, leaving a 15% reserve. One owner on myfocuselectric.com did a pretty good analysis (in my opinion), and surmised that 10% of that reserve, about 2kWh, is used to avoid full discharge, and 5% (about 1kWh) is used as a buffer to avoid full charge. I would think other EVs also implement similar reserves and buffers to prolong battery life.

What about when we need to leave our EV unplugged at some parking facility, like at an airport, for a long period of time? Well, here is another batteryuniversity.com article that might help:

How to Store Batteries

This article addresses how to store several types of batteries, including Li-ion. In essence it says to avoid storing at elevated temperatures, and that leaving it at a partial state-of-charge, ideally 40%, is recommended.

Oh, there’s one more article on this subject of prolonging life that I like. It's from DesignNews, one of my favorite trade rags:

Can EV Batteries Last 20 Years?

This article states, “Lithium-ion battery packs need to stay as close as possible to a 50 percent charge”… “usually going no higher than 80 percent and no lower than 20 percent.” It’s a good read, explains why we should expect thermally managed Li-ion batteries to last 20 years before losing 20% of its capacity… as long as we treat them right.

As Eric Cartman once said… “Well, I’m pissed off!”

I get a bit riled than when self-proclaimed experts make statements that are simply not true, or may be true but are completely irrelevant to a point they are trying to make, particularly when the intent is to just to rip apart some product that they seem to hate, especially when it comes to the Focus Electric or Volt, which in my non-expert opinion, are two well-designed plug-in electric vehicles for the masses.

Case in point… there’s a fair number of complaints about the trunk space of the Volt and Focus Electric, particularly from have-nots that bought something else or don’t own an EV yet. I guess there’s a price to pay for beauty, and both of these cars  are arguably  the best looking of the reasonably priced EV sedans currently available. Perhaps the sweeping roofline contributes to the visually appealing shape of both sedans, but does it really tax available cargo space, especially when a huge battery system needs to be stuffed somewhere?

Much of the incessant whining comes in the form of comparisons to the trunks of ICE versions of these vehicles. That’s because behind the rear seats, the Volt has 33% less cargo volume than the Cruze (10 cu ft versus 15 cu ft), and the Focus Electric has almost 40% less than  its ICE siblings (14.5 cu ft vs 23.8 cu ft). But really, who cares how much space is “lost” when we’re in the market for an EV? If I’m fixated on going electric, why should I give  a rat’s ass what can fit behind the rear seats some ICE vehicle that I have absolutely no interest in acquiring?  What I might care about is how trunk space compares between competing  EVs.

So here it is, reasonably-priced EV sedans ranked from first to last, based on cargo space behind the  rear seat. Data came from edmunds.com and manufacturer websites.

1. Nissan Leaf            23.6 cu ft
2. Ford Focus Electric    14.5 cu ft
3. Mitsubishi MiEV        13.2 cu ft
4. Honda Fit EV           12.0 cu ft
5. Chevy Volt             10.6 cu ft
6. Chevy Spark             9.6 cu ft

What surprised me is that I thought the Volt had more room than that; however that’s just based on looking at images on the internet and one in-person peek under the hatch. Looks can be deceiving, I guess, but it seems to be a highly usable space, since I prefer a shallow area with lots of floor space rather than a deep pocket that forces me to stack things up.  Also, for safety reasons, I prefer a space that provides some distance between the rear bumper and my kids’ butts when they’re sitting in the back seat.  But that’s just me.

In the end, the Leaf takes the cake on this one, thanks to its highly functional shape. What really got me laughing is that the Focus Electric has the most trunk space out of all the ICE-based EVs on this list, which is something those righteous, Ford-hating self-proclaimed experts should chew on for a few minutes. Also, note that the Focus Electric beat out the MiEV, which purportedly lost absolutely no trunk space in its conversion to an EV. Guess it didn’t have much to start with in the first place.

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t include the Prius plug-in because, in my opinion, its electric-only range makes it more of a hybrid than an electric. And I didn’t include that cute little 500e since it’s a two-door. Off the record, it’s got about 7 cu ft behind its back seats, which would put it dead last on this list, but to me that’s not a fair comparison.

Just for grins, I looked at different compact ICE vehicles other than the Focus, which seems to have a LOT of space back there…  Turns out the 3-series sedan and Corolla have 13 cu ft, a Civic sedan has 12.5 cu ft, the Sentra has 15 cu ft, a C-Class sedan has 12.6 cu ft,  and my old 2005 C230 Sport sedan has 9.9 cu ft. Bottom line… all the EVs in the above list have  a rear cargo capacity that’s similar to ICE counterparts; the Leaf and ICE Focus just seem to really excel when it comes to trunk space.

So anyway, I hope this helps clear the air on a trivial matter, especially for those looking to step up to an EV. I hope I’ve convinced you that trunk space comparison is truly trivial… these EVs give you as much space as comparably-sized mass-produced ICE vehicles. In other words, if you fit your daily routine into a small car now, you will have no problem fitting it into one of these fine EVs. All you need to do is figure out if you can live with the limited electric range.

PS – for a great little write-up on living with an EV trunk (with pictures too!),  see jamiegeek’s blog (http://jamiegeek.myevblog.com), “Dude, where’s my trunk?”.