Pondering vehicles...
We have a 2015 Mazda 3 - manual transmission, high trim level with the 2.5. It's been working just fine, and does what we need. We purchased it to last a long while, and so far, all is good on that front.
Two kids, both in child seats, and that works fine in the back of the Mazda.
We live out in the country, and my wife/kids generally do ~30 mile days when they go into town. It's in the 20-40 mile round trip range most days, but they occasionally go further (60-100 miles), the car is sometimes used for multiple trips a day (usually one in the morning, one at night if we have things going on), and we do sometimes take longer trips up into the mountains.
My original plan was to buy a beater Leaf for the shorter stuff, and keep the Mazda 3 around for our longer trips. And then I realized just how annoying it is to swap two car seats between cars, especially regularly. Plus, having a car sitting, not being used, isn't ideal. And I don't have a good spot for it (we have a big carport, but it fits the car, truck, and some other stuff in the center nicely, but would be really, really tight with three cars in there).
Further consideration of our actual use indicates that a 2nd gen Volt might be a really, really good fit. It's got a ~50 mile range on battery, which would cover almost all the regular driving on battery, while still giving us unlimited range on gas (southwest Idaho is a big place). Our power is cheap, and I'm putting a big solar setup on the house next year. The car will typically be charging late morning/early afternoon when the sun is high, so it'll use some of our solar noon production when household use is low.
The other option would be to get a slightly longer range EV and use the truck for longer stuff, but I don't think this is a better option than the Volt, as it adds a lot of miles on the truck, which is not a cheap beast to run. It's great for hauling large and heavy loads, but we try to avoid using it as a daily driver type vehicle. I work from home, so one car-type vehicle is fine.
I think I can get $15k-$17k out of the Mazda 3, give or take a bit and depending on how I sell it. On the other hand, a 2nd gen Volt is around $20k. So, a bit more expensive, but comfortably within the price delta I was looking at for a Leaf runabout.
The Volt service manuals are available, and there seem to be some good forums, so I can probably do a lot of the maintenance work myself - I've worked on a lot of stuff, and high voltage electronics don't particularly bother me either (though that side seems reliable).
At ~8k miles/yr, the Mazda 3 (31mpg actual) goes through ~260 gallons/yr, for around $900/yr in fuel costs. Plus other maintenance. The Volt, at a pessimistic 300Wh/mi, would use 2400kWh for the year's travel, and at the absolute worst case power rate (summer high use tier), it'd be $288 in electric - but it's going to be far cheaper, especially with solar installed. Probably closer to $200, plus a bit in gas for longer travel. That's around $650/yr operating cost delta, going up if fuel costs rise (as seems likely - and right now, with cheap-ish fuel, it seems a good time to buy a Volt before prices rise). That's... not a great payback period, but it also gives us independent ways to run around if there are gas lines or such. Which is worth something.
Does this make sense? I'd like to swap out the Mazda for a Volt and both save money plus be able to use (soon to be) locally produced power, but I'm not sure if that's actually a good idea or not.
Obviously the MMM answer is to sell the Mazda 3 and buy a beat to shit Fit, but... it's not like we're hair on fire in debt or anything. Savings rate is good, debt is basically monthly float on CCs and some 0% laying around on a Lowe's card, and income is quite solid for the area. My wife doesn't have a particularly strong preference, though she does like manual transmissions (which we have, and I enjoy as well, but cheaper operating costs are worth a good bit, and it's not like an electric drives like a cheap automatic or anything).
If I could find a way to do a straight up (or nearly so) swap for the Volt, I think that would be a very easy swap to justify, but I'm not sure with the fact that I'll likely have to pay more to get what I'm looking for. Plus, I feel pretty stupid only keeping a car for 4 years. :/
Thoughts? Reasons I'm an idiot for considering this?