I’m looking for an electric car to drive back and forth to work. I cannot charge at work at this time. I can level 2 charge at the new house, definitely 3kw, probably 5kw, maybe 7kw.
We have two cars, I always let my SO have the better of the two. I drive a bucket of rust to work, and I’m fine with that. Happy even.
We used to have a Chevy volt, I liked it, my SO hated it. They prefer an SUV with AWD for our snowy winters. That’s fair.
We moved slightly north recently, and while we used to have an equal commute, mine is now significantly longer than theirs.
It is 75 miles round trip, 26 miles at 70mph, the rest mostly 50-55mph.
Though I can and am willing to add 10 minutes to my drive to cut out those 26 miles taking side roads if I need to, I know high speeds are bad for electric economy.
My goal is to buy the cheapest electric car that will do the job, and not much more. My car sits unused 4 days a week.
I’m not opposed to something tiny bit nicer, we have shared events twice a week that would benefit from using electric over gas, about 50 miles round trip.
But we just spent a lot of money, so I’m fine going super cheap for something that just gets the job done.
I’d like to spend no more than $5000. I can stretch to $8000 without too much guff. And $10,000 if I really have to but I don’t want to.
I know this is a horrible time to buy, but I swear I was pro electric before gas went insane.
Does such a car exist? I don’t even know where to look.
Are old defunct leafs cheap? This is the type of jank I’m talking about haha.
Edit: to be clear, I do my own vehicle maintenance, that’s why I always drive junkers. It’s cheap and easy for me to keep them on the road. I know EVs are a bit different, but I bought my last volt for $2000 3 years ago because it was non functional, and I fixed it.
I’m not exactly looking to do that again, but that’s also on the table if there’s good documentation.
(Assuming you are in the US since you used miles and $)
Availability, even of used vehicles, appears to be pretty limited in the sub-10k range.
It’s important to note that EV range estimates in the US are often based on the EPA estimate for new vehicles, so the cells on older models will likely have degraded and thus the range will be lower than stated. Frequently charging above 80-90% and discharging below 10-20% are also bad for the longevity of the cells, so whatever you get should have enough cushion in the range to avoid that if possible.
I’d look at listings on craigslist and facebook marketplace. Aggregator sites like Car Gurus will also be useful here.
Good reminder, I don’t want to destroy the battery just to get the range I need every day, so slightly bigger is probably better