Free EV's?
 

Ok, this is kind of tongue in cheek so don't start bashing right off the top. I had been thinking about this off and on for around ten years. What if you were required to use your vehicle for work? Say pizza delivery. Normally you can write off either mileage or maintenance on your taxes at the end of the year which ever is greater. The mileage deduction is to help offset the amount of gasoline you needed to buy.

So let's say you bought a used Nissan Leaf for $5000. And that you had the capability of charging the Leaf essentially for free. Solar on your rooftop at home, charge at work between deliveries or however you were able to do it as long as it wasn't an additional cost coming out of your pocket. Then let's say you drove about 10,000 miles a year doing the deliveries.

Doing a little math with a couple assumptions.
Average mpg for a gas vehicle = 25 mpg.
Average gas cost of say $3.00/gallon.
You can change the variables any way you want but these are the ones I'm going use.

So 10,000 miles at 25 mpg uses about 400 gallons times 3 is $1200 dollars in a year. For 2019 the deduction will be 58c/mile or $5800. In the past I have found that my own deductions usually lowered my actual taxes by about a third. So say we saved about $1900 on taxes for the year. And I know that a lot will depend on actual income and how many deductions someone can take. So the net gain in this example is about $700. $1900 tax savings - $1200 gas cost. This doesn't include the maintenance needed to drive a gas vehicle for 10,000 miles.

For the Leaf, we get the same tax deduction with the added benefit of no fuel cost and "probably" much less maintenance cost. Now you're getting paid the full $1900 a year with no fuel costs. Assuming you keep the job for three years you just got a FREE EV.

I realize this is a specialized example, but just throwing it out there as a method of getting a very low cost EV. Have fun playing with the numbers.
JJ

Grab it while you can
Beyond purchase new, EVs are cheap(ish) to run

Nothing in your house sucks up electricity that fast, that much, and "smart" meters can easily detect you're charging your car.


Digital meter roll-out has started in Belgium, EU, and we're not even the first.
Taxes to follow swiftly, no doubt

If high draw charging becomes taxed or somehow billed more than slower rates of electricity usage, I'd just slow the rate of charge to whatever is necessary to avoid the extra bill. Only on very rare occasions would I need an EV to be charged at the max rate.

... I considered a new EV purchase since my company helps pay for a vehicle, and business miles are reimbursed at the federal rate. The only thing preventing me was lack of adequate charging infrastructure and the time spent charging. Since I get paid to travel, it isn't ethical to get paid to wait to charge, plus sometimes I need to get to a customer site as soon as possible.

In 2 years when my company car has to be turned in, I'll look at an EV as a business car again.

Its good then, that AGW denier re-pubic-lick-uns don't buy EVs..... oh, the taxes.... the taxes..... its worse than death!

The standard deductible for this year is $12,200 if filing single or married filing separate, $24,400 for married filing joint and $18,350 if filing head of household.
Back when the standard deductible was 9,000 for me yeah I could preform some financial gymnastics to get a few thousand past that.
But married filing together, now, unless we start our own business, there isn't any point in trying.


I drive a Nissan leaf.
Do you even have an EV?

I had an EV bicycle ten plus years ago, that I loved. Someone stole it. U got a used Leaf that takes you as far as a falling leaf travels in a wind storm. Wait. Do u have an easily abused battery pack? Maybe u can't go as far as a leaf, blowing in the wind & that's why u got the Leaf cheap.
Took my car on a sweet 600mile day trip over a mountain range, across a big river & up to another pass & then, onto a 3000 foot plateau, across the state, into another state & back. Your Leaf would have never made it to the top of the first pass. You'd be saying, "Where do I change?" & there wouldn't be a place to charge for 20miles.... & then only if you back tracked. Oh yeah. You would have been charging in the dark, too..... if you ever made it to a charger.
Oh, that's right. You don't drive your EV very far, so you ain't in any trouble...... yet. They say the Leaf goes a hundred miles. Is that true? Or is it like 60 miles, so you don't abuse your battery by charging it all the way up or discharging it all the way down. Sixty miles...... ya got a deal, tho. Or is it 50miles (& getting less) & slow? :turtle:

I like my leaf, never realized how much buying gas sucks.
Wife has the 2018 hybrid sonata for road trips.
For me I only get 60 miles when it's like 10F and I run the heater a lot. When it's that cold I would rather not go anywhere.
Since its still at 12 bars I think I know how to take care of the battery.

You select the tool for the task at hand. Useless to use just a hammer for tightening a head bolt to a specific torque. When I need to do a thousand miles in a day, I grab the Golf. When I need to drag 10,000 lbs or load plywood, it's the F250. grocery getting or doctor in the ranger.

Exactly why I made this a relatively specific example that assumed a couple of variables including the ability to charge the car essentially for free using one's own solar panels and some opportunity charging at work.
JJ

I basically agree.

But if you pay for your charging, or buy solar panels to charge .. it ain't exactly free. But instead of $1200 for 'fuel' ... maybe $200 if you charge off-peak when the power company wants you to ... a bit more if you do your own solar (solar is about a 4 year payback where I live, right now)

So maybe you deliver for 4 years instead of 3 to get the free EV ;)

The only other factor I see is registration and insurance. If the EV is used INSTEAD of another car then it should be no issue. If you need to have a gasser to do your longer trips ... and that means that the Leaf is an EXTRA car ... you need to add those costs

25 mpg baseline
 

According to the EIA,the actual mileage of American passenger cars and light trucks is 17.09 mpg,due to gridlock,idling,un-synchronized traffic lights,etc.. So the numbers may be skew the EV numbers even further into the black ink.:)

True, but I gave the higher mpg rating because, at least in my area, I see a large number of smaller Honda and Toyota vehicles used for delivery. However even with a more fuel efficient small car the large number of jackrabbit starts needed to deliver on time may offset what would otherwise be pretty good fuel economy.
JJ