My wife and I had been driving a 2008 Honda Odyssey (hers) and 2013 Mazda5 (mine) .
In September, not knowing about how affordable used Leafs were, I got a used 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage to replace my Mazda5 since a change in work schedule meant that I rarely needed to transport all 3 (soon to be 4) kids in my car.
Then we looked at the horrible 14 MPG the Odyssey was getting, and boiled it down to two options - trade in the Odyssey and get a Mazda5 or a more fuel efficient van (but they all don't get better than 19 mixed, ours was just doing really bad on fuel economy) OR get a 3rd vehicle as a commuter car for her that could fit 3 kids in the back. This is only an option because the occasions that we would need to have all (6) of us in the car are limited to vacations / trips, visiting family closer to town, and weekend mass. So we bought a Black 2013 Nissan Leaf S (w/ charging upgrade) with 36K miles for her to use as a commuter car for $9200. That was about 3 weeks ago.
I liked the Mirage and got fairly decent tank MPG (43 MPG) in it using hypermiling techniques and higher tire pressure, but was itching to get away from the gas pump, so I pulled the trigger on a Morningsky Blue 2015 Nissan Leaf S (sans charger upgrade, so no 6.6 kWh charger or QC port) with 14K miles for $10,986 and traded in the Mirage. (that was last week)
2013 Nissan Leaf S (w/ charging upgrade) - projected 6000 miles per year
2015 Nissan Leaf S - projected 9250 miles per year
2008 Honda Odyssey - projected 3000 miles per year (mainly used for weekend driving and trips)
Obviously if I would have never bought the Mirage, I would have avoided the bath I took on it from dealer markup to resale, but lesson learned. We have plans to have the loans (pretty small on all of them, but needed to finance due to shortage of liquid funds from a recent house move and building a modest 2 room addition) on all of these paid off in under 2 years. Hopefully these two Leafs last us until we can buy used Bolts in 2019 / 2020 for $10-15K... outright. Or more realistically use these as long as they run - hopefully 10 years + with battery replacements in both cases.
With gas at $2.50 per gallon and our kWh rate at $0.12 we are taking our $219 auto fuel bill and turning it into about $85.67 per month
Odyssey: (3000 miles * $0.18 per mile) / 12 = $45 per month (admittedly most of the "vacation" gas comes from a different line item in out budget, but meh)
2015 Leaf S (mine, longer commute): (9250 * .032) = $24.67
2013 Leaf S: (6000 * .032) = $16
I wanted to get most of our miles moved over to electricity before gas prices do start to rise like I believe they inevitably have to. Given, the cost per mile in fuel for us to drive the van will also go up but that's a much smaller portion of our total miles now.
We got a Juice Box Pro 40A EVSE with the Wifi capability installed, so that's been pretty nice to see how much of our kWh usage day to day is going into charging the vehicles. Our electricity provider also shows daily readings on their website so it is easy to line the two up.
I have been enjoying reading these forums the last few weeks!
In September, not knowing about how affordable used Leafs were, I got a used 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage to replace my Mazda5 since a change in work schedule meant that I rarely needed to transport all 3 (soon to be 4) kids in my car.
Then we looked at the horrible 14 MPG the Odyssey was getting, and boiled it down to two options - trade in the Odyssey and get a Mazda5 or a more fuel efficient van (but they all don't get better than 19 mixed, ours was just doing really bad on fuel economy) OR get a 3rd vehicle as a commuter car for her that could fit 3 kids in the back. This is only an option because the occasions that we would need to have all (6) of us in the car are limited to vacations / trips, visiting family closer to town, and weekend mass. So we bought a Black 2013 Nissan Leaf S (w/ charging upgrade) with 36K miles for her to use as a commuter car for $9200. That was about 3 weeks ago.
I liked the Mirage and got fairly decent tank MPG (43 MPG) in it using hypermiling techniques and higher tire pressure, but was itching to get away from the gas pump, so I pulled the trigger on a Morningsky Blue 2015 Nissan Leaf S (sans charger upgrade, so no 6.6 kWh charger or QC port) with 14K miles for $10,986 and traded in the Mirage. (that was last week)
2013 Nissan Leaf S (w/ charging upgrade) - projected 6000 miles per year
2015 Nissan Leaf S - projected 9250 miles per year
2008 Honda Odyssey - projected 3000 miles per year (mainly used for weekend driving and trips)
Obviously if I would have never bought the Mirage, I would have avoided the bath I took on it from dealer markup to resale, but lesson learned. We have plans to have the loans (pretty small on all of them, but needed to finance due to shortage of liquid funds from a recent house move and building a modest 2 room addition) on all of these paid off in under 2 years. Hopefully these two Leafs last us until we can buy used Bolts in 2019 / 2020 for $10-15K... outright. Or more realistically use these as long as they run - hopefully 10 years + with battery replacements in both cases.
With gas at $2.50 per gallon and our kWh rate at $0.12 we are taking our $219 auto fuel bill and turning it into about $85.67 per month
Odyssey: (3000 miles * $0.18 per mile) / 12 = $45 per month (admittedly most of the "vacation" gas comes from a different line item in out budget, but meh)
2015 Leaf S (mine, longer commute): (9250 * .032) = $24.67
2013 Leaf S: (6000 * .032) = $16
I wanted to get most of our miles moved over to electricity before gas prices do start to rise like I believe they inevitably have to. Given, the cost per mile in fuel for us to drive the van will also go up but that's a much smaller portion of our total miles now.
We got a Juice Box Pro 40A EVSE with the Wifi capability installed, so that's been pretty nice to see how much of our kWh usage day to day is going into charging the vehicles. Our electricity provider also shows daily readings on their website so it is easy to line the two up.
I have been enjoying reading these forums the last few weeks!
