After reading the latest MMM post about the Nissan Leaf, I started looking more seriously into what it would take to get an electric vehicle. I was pretty surprised at how many models are on the market now, as I don't really pay attention to new cars. What was also surprising was how cheap a 36 month lease was on a 2017 LEAF or a 2017 Kia Soul EV. Living in California, we qualify for a $4,500 rebate on EVs (purchased or leased), and with the total cost of a Soul lease coming in at ~$9,500, my interest was piqued slightly. Then I remembered that there are federal tax credits for EVs that can net up to $7500. Could I really get use of a car for free for three years???
I started doing the math and it looked like I could come out WAY ahead, especially with some ROTH conversions and contributions to take advantage of the full credit, and then selling my current ride and investing the proceeds for the short term. With dollar signs in my eyes, I made a lunch break trip up to Irvine to look at a Soul EV.
Then...I learned the hard way that there really is no free lunch (at least not yet). The tax credits go to the dealer, rather than the lessee. I had gotten so caught up in thinking I was some kind of evil genius that had discovered something entirely new, that it took driving an hour round trip to get an answer that could have been googled in five seconds (and not wasted so much time running numbers the past couple days).
Even if I was able to charge my car for free at my office every day, I would only just barely break even (if at all), compared to just paying for gas in my Jeep.
To make myself feel a little less like a sucker, I just opened two new bank accounts with bonuses, and snagged an AMEX Platinum with a 100k point bonus and annual fee waived for military members. Still is embarrassing though, especially since I had some pretty animated conversations trying to convince my wife that I really had just found a gold mine.
Anybody else have any stories to tell of false money hopes? Something seemed too good to be true, but you wanted it to be true so badly that you believed it for a while?
