It's Official - My FFE lease is cheaper than a new ice lease

WattsUp said:

damania said:

It's hard to drive the EV a lot of miles due to the 76 mile range.

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Hmm, pardon, but you don't know what you're talking about.

After 2.5 years, my FFE has 32K miles on it. That's as much as I ever put on my old gassers.

I wasn't "hard" to drive that distance. I drive my FFE to work every day (just like my old car) and charge there. During the week, my FFE is always ready to go when I need it. I also do plenty of leisure driving on the weekend, either charging at home or on the go.

Yes, you cannot go further than 70-80 miles at any one time, but I personally rarely do so (and rarely did before I got my FFE, hence the FFE fit my lifestyle). When I do need to go further, I take a gasser. In the future, I hope to be taking something like a Model S. )

I never want to drive a gasoline car again.

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Agree with WattsUp - there are a ton of folks that were in the BMW MiniE and ActiveE programs that were averaging near 100 miles per day because they had the ability to L2 charge at home and at work. While those cars had slightly longer ranges than the FFE, there is no reason that someone couldn't easily put 35k miles in one year on an FFE - even in colder climates.

I definitely have to watch the miles when I drive mine and I can't really change or add to destinations on the spot, hence I'll put in at least 30% less miles on the FFE compared to a gas doing the same driving.

damania said:

It's hard to drive the EV a lot of miles due to the 76 mile range.

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It's easy according to this BMW i3 owner with an 81 mile epa range. He doesn't have the range extender either.
http://practicalbev.blogspot.com/2015/04/3-weeks-into-it-3k-miles-already.html?m=1

Currently, he's at 8000 miles in only 9 weeks of ownership. His commute is about 100 miles and it takes almost 3 hours each way daily. Wow, I couldn't do that every day.

damania said:

It's hard to drive the EV a lot of miles due to the 76 mile range.

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I've covered 36,000 miles in 20 months. Daily commute 80-100 miles typical. As stated above, workplace charging makes high mileage very practical.

For weekend use, I originally installed a 220 outlet at a friend's house about 25 miles away so I had an emergency recharge spot across town without reliance on public stations. She subsequently bought her own EV and I installed an EVSE for her which I use if necessary.

My wife and daughter drive the Volts since they can't deal with the pressure of a BEV, but in reality they very rarely use gas except on planned long trips.

Family of three, roughly 40,000 miles/year combined, total gasoline consumption about 120 gallons/year including planned long trips (Las Vegas, San Diego, Palm Springs, etc.)

damania said:

I definitely have to watch the miles when I drive mine and I can't really change or add to destinations on the spot, hence I'll put in at least 30% less miles on the FFE compared to a gas doing the same driving.

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We're not saying the car isn't range restricted. It obviously is. But, you said it was"hard to put a lot of miles" on the car, when there's actually plenty of evidence that it is not hard... even easy. (When first got my FFE, I put more average miles on it than my old car... because I kept just driving it for fun. )

In in case, if one were to drive even just the full range (76 miles) every day of the year, that would "easily" be ~28K miles right there. Of course, you one were able to charge multiple times per day, you could multiply that even higher. And this could "easily" happen, for example, for somebody who needs to drive near the full range to get to work, charges at work, and then drives the same distance back home.