New Commuter Car: Fiat 500e "electric" car

I decided to take the plunge on a new commuter car, a Fiat 500e. Voted best Electric Car for 2013 by Road and Track, this car is now in my possession for the next three years.

First of all, let's not confused the Fiat 500e from the other legendary Mercedes Porsche built 500E (capital E)  from the 90s. This is no speed rocket of a car. The "e" stands for "electric."This will be an interesting car for me as it is my first 100% electric vehicle. This post will be the first in a series of blog posts about the 500e on my blog.

There were a few reasons why I picked up this car. First, my wife's C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid proved to be economical and convenient. Her commute is the same as mine so the mileage range was feasible. Secondly, I just turned in a lease on a 2010 Mini Cooper and needed a replacement. Lastly, my main car, a Range Rover Sport was costing me around $300 a month in fuel. The Land Rover is a very thirsty vehicle and I was thinking of trading it in for a new sports car. However, for the time being, I still needed a commuter car and the Fiat 500e hit all the right notes.

The 500e is a California "Compliance" EV car. This means, it was built to meet California's strict mandate that automakers sell a percentage of zero-emission cars in order to sell in California.
So basically, my 500e subsidizes you guys who want to drive those SRT8 500 horsepower Dodge Challengers in California. As a result, most manufactures take a small loss. It has been reported that Fiat/Chrysler loses around $10,000 per 500e sold. Thus, the 500e is only sold in California. To move inventory, automakers are pushing heavy incentives and it is a win-win for consumers. At $32,500 before subsidies, the Fiat 500e is almost double the price of a base gasoline powered Fiat 500 pop. To ease the sticker shock, there are crazy lease deals for EV cars in the state of California.

Most geeks like myself would never buy a 500e as leasing is the way to go. Who knows how battery technology will progress in three years? Worst, we don't know what the battery loss will be like after thousands of recharge cycles. Hence, leasing an electric car is the smart thing to do. Worst case scenario, I can walk away in 36 months. Furthermore, the economics of leasing makes sense for my usage. "Compliance" cars get a bad rap by EV purists but it is a big plus for California consumers. $999 down and $199 (before tax/docs) a month gets you a 87 mile range EV car.

Now, lets look at some of the math:

$199 a month ($216 w/ tax) = $7776 (total lease). My particular lease is a little bit more ($225 w/tax) due to the fact I negotiated higher miles and added a $1000 sunroof option. However, the true cost of this lease is much, much, much lower. I get a California EV rebate of $2500. Subtract the EV rebate from the lease gets you total $5276 before docs, tax,etc. This equates to an effective lease of $146.55 a month over 36 months. However, there are more incentives. You get HOV stickers which gives you discount to bridge toll. Normal toll is $6 during commute, carpool rates is $2.50. This saves me $76 a month. Subtract that from the lease, the end cost to me to have this car is roughly $70-75 a month.  I would pay toll regardless of what car I have but here, I rather put that $76 a month toward a car than the transit authorities.  In the end, this is cheaper than a cellphone subscription plan for me. This doesn't account for the savings in gas by using electricity. I'll be saving close to $3600 a year in gas. I got a good deal. Chrysler/Fiat also throws in 12 free days of car rental each year (totaling 36 days) that I can use for long business trips and long drives to Tahoe or Los Angeles.

This car is insanely cheap and an incredible deal for California consumers who's driving habits align with an short/medium range electric vehicle.

Since I got this car, I'm still feeling it out and will write a bit more later.

The range after my first full charge. The car will analyze your driving habits and instantly update the range as you drive. I doubt I'll get 96 miles per charge. More likely, 90. I'll better the EPA rated 87 mile range due to my driving style. 

Ford C-Max Energi update and Hybrid, Electric car shopping

As many of my regular readers know, about 2 months ago, my wife bought a Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid.  The car that happens to have the worst 2013 year Consumer Reports reliability rating. However, it happens to have one of the highest number of owner satisfaction.
When asked, "Would you buy this vehicle again?" It ranked # 3 out 19 hybrids. It also got a high score of 83 from Consumer reports. No issues report for mechanical drive-train from their users. A majority of the complaint is from the Navigation Infotainment system, designed/powered by who else, Microsoft. Go figure, Microsoft is mostly responsible for bringing down a fairly advance, high-tech car. Yes, the Infotainment can be clunky for a non-techie person!

Well, it has been almost two months since she got the car and it has grown on me. I'm a petro gearhead and this car has pretty much help change my outlook a bit on cars. It is now shaping my opinions on cars in general. Don't get me wrong, I still love horsepower and European sports cars.  So this is my two months observation for those interested in a plug-in high tech gadget car.

In short, amazing little ride! Now, I know why this car has a high number of satisfied users.

First and foremost, the incentives are pretty much worth it. We'll be getting back more than $5,000 in tax credits/rebates which offsets the price (and I'll detail later below). But the main kicker are these green stickers.

Current Obsession the Alfa 4C

This is my current obsession. The new Alfa Romeo 4C. If you don't have an obsession, life isn't fun.

I'm in the market for two new cars right now, a daily commuter and a weekend car. Unfortunately, Alfa Romeo's return to the USA has been hit by delay after delays. In a way, this is good for me. I just purchased a new house this year so I am recuperating from that so the projected 2014 Quarter 2 release fits in line with my goals. I've gone through the hassle of buying first year cars with advance deposits and waiting list before so I am ready to do it with this one. Unfortunately, there is no clue who will carry this. Initially, it was suppose to be FIAT dealers and now, it looks like Maserati dealers will be carrying Alfa Romeo.

As many people don't realize, Alfa Romeo has been out of the US market for 19 years now. I remember my friend's in high school who had Alfa GTVs, Spyders and even one had the 164 sedan. For some reason, I really like this car despite the funky looking, often criticized, headlights. The list is suppose to be 55 grand starting in the US. With options like sports exhaust, I think 63-65 is a good bet for a loaded model. With 65 grand, one can get a used, low mileage manual tranny Aston Martin Vantage V8. So there are obvious other competitors like that and the new Corvette and Porsche Cayman S.

I have a 1/2 a year to think about this. I may end changing my mind in a few months.

This car is pretty low-tech except for the Carbon fiber tub and twin clutch flappy transmission. It is also bare-bone like the Lotus Elise. I've test driven the Elise and it was pretty spartan as well. There are no glove compartments, no boot space in the front, and a small trunk in the rear for small luggage. It is light so the power-to-weight ratio is pretty impressive. Yep, it is a 4 banger so that would be interesting as well.

In the meantime, the lease for my company commuter car is up. I think I am going to look at either the Fiat 500 or Prius C for my daily commute. I want something to hold me over for a year. My wife is getting almost  90 MPGe (MPG equivalent) on her new plug-in hybrid. 650 miles in two weeks and the tank is still half full.

LINK:
Alfa's delay hinged on IPO:
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/10/07/alfa-romeos-us-return-chrysler-fiat-deal-video/

Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid. An observation from a geeky gearhead.

I'm into fast cars. I'm into European luxury and sporty cars. I love cars in general. You can call me a gearhead. My wife is into practicality. She recently got one of those brand new Ford plug-in hybrids, the C-Max Energi. This is completely out of left field for me. The picture you see above is the average MPG of driving roughly 40 miles over a period of two days. Even as a gearhead, I can totally appreciate that 80 MPG number I am seeing above.

This is not my kind of car I typically look into. Politically correct and green trendy. The visual exterior won't turn heads. The handling and drive characteristics is nothing to rave about.  I'm currently in the market for a mid-life crisis sports car so this is the polar opposite of what I look into.  However, the C-Max Energi is already growing on me. I'm starting to really like it. It is also packed with a lot of gadgetry and electronics. This blog is not going to be a full on review of any sorts. I'm just going to give my readers my impression of a car that I will driving 20-30% of the time.

Just look at how cool the plugin port is. The blue surrounds shows you how far along your charging is. The outer edge of the port lights up fully to indicate the charge status.