Following upon last month’s overview of the used EV market (#15: best options and #15b: Cheapies; also #15c: a very short list of pricier options somewhat cheaper than getting a new one), I turn back to the scene of new midmarket EVs.
In particular, what has become the Holy Grail of EV marketing: a BEV (“pure-electric”) with 200+ miles average range, for $35k. I last visited that scene in November 2018. What has changed?
Why 200 miles? Why $35k? And what are our real-life options for getting one, including how much it would cost to lease rather than buy outright?
Answers below the fold, which lies below the resource tables.
*The term “EV” covers both “pure” battery-electric (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). IOW: if it has an externally-rechargeable battery, it’s an EV.
(ICE stands for Internal Combustion Engine: the outdated technology still driving >99% of vehicles)
Action Resource TableHere’s Sierra Club. Here’s Union of Concerned Scientists. Here’s Friends of the Earth. Here’s Greenpeace. Here’s the EU position. Here’s my own perspective. |
Maybe you are not in a position to get an EV that meets your needs yet. But you surely know someone who is. Find them and help them get it. |
Note YRWV (tl;dr, in very cold winters range can easily be 30-40% below average), and the good news under Don’t Panic I/II. See this diary for recommended EV model lists. |
New EV purchase deals. AND New EV lease deals (that’s how we got our Leaf!). Updated! Best used EV options. And Cheapie used options. |
Don’t nickel and dime your own personal footprint of buying an EV. Every transition has its costs. We’re playing the long game here. It is long, but urgent: we need YOU to join. |
| EVs consumed ~10% of mined cobalt in 2018. And one-third of EVs have no cobalt at all (e.g., Gen 1 Nissan Leafs, most e-buses). But we must do more to curb “artisanal mines” where child labor/slavery is widespread. DRC’s children deserve better. |
Home of the monthly US plug-in sales scorecard — which has become the standard source for US EV numbers. I write there occasionally ;) |
| Current/historical numbers from most global EV markets. The main resource for my annual Top 10 Countries in the EV Revolution series. |
| EV website and Youtube channel with weekly episodes, by tireless EV pioneer Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield. |
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| Daily digest in plain-text format, plus a podcast if you like those. |
Both target numbers are likely due to that Master of the Global EV Narrative, Elon Musk. They symbolize the point when BEVs are ready to hit hard at the mainstream market. True, most ICE cars have highway ranges of 250-350 miles, and ICE hybrids can reach 400-500 miles, but the idea isn’t to match ICE toe-to-toe. Rather, given that long easily-replenished range is ICE’s single core strength and BEVs’ single core vulnerability, the idea is to reach a level where the gap on this front is small enough so that BEVs’ strong advantage on most everything else wins the day.
public service announcement: bev’s win the day especially on the climate crisis battle, and in particular keeping oil in the ground. playing a direct part in the resistance against drumpf’s regime. sorry to bother you, but my 6th sense can hear a few readers scoff at what ev’s bring to the table vs. their range limitations, and conveniently forget why i’m even bothering to write these diaries. so this is a gentle reminder.Back to our regular programming.
With 200 miles range, one can go about the weekly routine without batting an eye about remaining battery. Even for people without home/work charging options, this range gives plenty of breathing room to find alternative regular charging options (while shopping/etc.), without worrying about running out. This is likely true even with 100-150 miles range.
On a road trip things get a bit dicier. BEV efficiency math is opposite that of ICE cars: highway range is ~10-12% shorter than “Nameplate” EPA range (the Teslas can cut the loss by about half). And if you have a stubborn Lead Foot, you will face an even worse speed:range tradeoff. Add to that shorter range in winter, and the 200 miles can easily become <150.
Fortunately, for most households in most road trips, 150 miles is about as long as one can drive without stopping for bio necessities and/or mayhem in the back seat. You cannot be as spontaneous as ICE drivers regarding where and when to stop, but if you can find a reasonable quick-charging-plus-food/coffee location every 120-150 miles, this is workable and even pleasant. Believe me, we’ve done it with half the spacing between stops, and it is pleasant enough.
Why $35k?Again, my mind’s ear can hear the readers whose last car was bought in 1984, or with no car at all, sending rays of holy wrath at me: $35k on a piece of metal with wheels! The planet cannot sustain this, etc. etc. How can I endorse this rampant consumerism?
Totally true, and totally ignorant of the fact that until someone “hereby orders” everyone to stop buying cars, there will still be >10 million new cars and trucks sold in the US on the weakest auto sales year. More like 17-18 million most years. It’s nice to see an overall downtrend this year, and hopefully indeed there’s a generational change and the trend will continue. But.
Lots and lots of new cars are getting sold and will continue getting sold. For how much? Some $37k and change on average, according to Kelley Blue Book, a grand up from last year.
So $35k gets you smack in the middle of the pack then, even before EV-specific incentives.
Sure, you can get this baby for $36.2k plus delivery… if you have it in black with those funky (but better!) wheels, *and* go to a store or on the phone to order the cheapest trim, *and* agree to drive a car with 20 miles of range electronically robbed off of it. No autopilot, either (that too might be good!). Ok… to Business. What Do EV Makers Claim?If you take EV maker claims at face value, you emerge with this list of currently available 200-mile, midmarket BEVs (ordered by date of first appearance):
Chevy Bolt, $37.5k Tesla Model 3, $35.4k $36.2k (price keeps fluctuating) Nissan Leaf-Plus, $36.5k Kia Niro EV, $38.5k Hyundai Kona EV, $37kThe problem is, some of these prices refer to models that are practically unavailable or practically untouchable. What is “untouchable”? The base (“standard”), $36.2k Model 3 is the textbook example:
You cannot order it through Tesla’s standard online interface: you must call in or show up at a store. All forms of autopilot are disabled (although they likely exist in the car’s software). (true for all trims) For any color except black, add $1k. Even worse: Tesla deliberately sabotages ~10% of your range, even though you still haul that extra battery around. Again, it’s a software lock-out rather than a smaller-battery model.Sure, one can go and insist on getting that model. But how many people would rather save ~$3k and endure this vehicular hazing they will have to live with for as long as they keep the car?
Nissan does the same trick but in reverse. Its cheapest 200-mile trim, the S-plus, actually has the longest range rating. However, it is virtually unavailable: I have never seen more than 40-odd on a cars.com search, and right now there are 33 available. Nationwide. By contrast, the next highest trim has ~250.
What is the Reality?So, for the sake of Truth in Advertising and apples-to-apples, the table below lists (still in order of appearance) each model’s cheapest midmarket 200-mile BEVs that meet the following criteria:
Reasonably available nationwide (at least ~100 units total), via all of the automaker’s standard ordering mechanisms. No range/performance sabotage by the automaker. More than one color allowed (the days of Model T are long gone). Has a quick-charge (QC) port.The prices incorporate the current Federal rebate the car is eligible for. I know many people don’t reach $7.5k tax liability, but generally if you can buy a new car outright, you do.
The prices also incorporate any nationwide automaker discount, if those have been going on for a while. Prices do exclude delivery and local taxes, however. Nor does it include additional state/local incentives.
A few other spec details I consider important also appear. List ordered by arrival date to market, as before. Last note: all cars are 5-seaters.
| 238 | 29* | 20.9 | 17 | 60 |
| 240 | 38.1 | 19.6 | 15 | >100 |
| 215 | 31 | ?? | 24 | 100 |
| 239 | 36.5 | ?? | 22 | 77 |
| 258 | 33.9 | ?? | 19 | 70 |
*GM currently offers a universal $5.5k discount on the Bolt LT. Check it out!
** Per my search, the Niro EV is currently available almost exclusively on the West Coast and in the NY-to-DC corridor, and the vast majority are Premium trim.
*** Likewise, only 80 Kona EV Limited and 12 of the cheapest (SEL) trim are online. There are a few in Colorado, but otherwise the same distribution as the Niro.
Also, note that the bottom 3 in the table above enjoy the full $7.5k Fed rebate, whereas GM now only has $3750 dropping down to $1875 on October 1, and Tesla is already at $1875 dropping down to zero on January 1. No wonder GM is offering this steep nationwide discount.
What Do All These Numbers Mean?Unless you’re in the West Coast or Northeast Corridor region, the pickings are still fairly slim. Compared with November 2018,
we finally have the >200-mile version of the Leaf. Obviously pricier than the 150-miler and base-trim is very rare, but post-rebate price falls within the $35k range. Tesla is finally offering something close to a $35k Model 3 (in Nov. 2018 the cheapest was $47k), but this is offset by losing nearly $6k of Fed rebate. The two Korean >200-mile SUVs have appeared, but only in some geographies. Also, numbers are small and heavily weighted towards premium trims.Unlike shorter-range EVs, no automaker seems keen upon offering lucrative lease deals on the 200-milers at present (local exceptions might exist). By contrast, you can leave any Nissan dealership with a 150-mile S trim paying $12k for 3 years, and probably less in many locations because Nissan dealers tend to offer extra discounts. That too is not as good as it used to be, but after factoring in depreciation it is a reasonable deal. And it will tide you over to a time when 200-milers should be both more plentiful and cheaper (you can also choose a 2-year lease and pay ~$8k). This is what we did on August 1: lease a 150-miler for 2 years, for a total cost of ~$7k after additional discounts.
Speaking of discounts, Nissan just struck a deal with the American public utility association, for $3.5k off the 150-mile versions and $2.5k off the >200-mile versions. It’s only for purchases, and you are not allowed to combine it with other discounts. So if you are in the Venn diagram bit that includes public utility customers whose local Nissan dealers don’t offer good discount, this is useful information they will be forced to honor. You may find private utilities with similar deals, but I don’t have the info at present.
Bottom line: with sad irony, by far the best deal on a 200-mile midmarket EV is still the Chevy Bolt, just like it was when launched nationwide 2 years ago.
I am saying “sad irony”, because Chevys have ended up being the #1 deal this summer on all levels of used EVs as well (check out the diaries linked above), a few short months after GM has killed the fabulous Volt, and while its dealership network continues to show cluelessness and even hostility towards selling EVs.
Quick (charge) Bolt note if you are potentially heading to a dealership after this: the Bolt is the only car in the table for which you have to specify an extra option to get the QC port. It costs $750, and it’s included in the tally above. So don’t forget to request it.
With all caveats and ironies, a new 5-seat, 240-mile BEV with 2 years of track record backing it up, for <$30k (before local discounts/incentives), is definitely a good deal.
The Leaf-Plus is the best deal if you need more size.
The Model 3 is the best deal if you need a Tesla :) Seriously, besides brand joy the Model 3 enjoys by far the fastest and most ubiquitous QC network, so if you do many long road trips that’s the one for you. Conversely, it has the smallest cargo space.
Choices, choices...
Happy Sunday,
Assaf