I still havent purchased but I'm close. The last thing im wrestling with is considering the resale value in three years when the market is flooded with plugins and full electrics. what are your thoughts?
I bought the car knowing the resale value would be low. But we are likely to keep it for 200,000 plus miles so we don't much care.
Residual value is low so yea resale will be bad. Just look at BMW i3 depreciation, albeit BMWs depreciate like crazy, most of plug-ins and EVs have been hit with low resale. Also consider that since plug-in and battery technology is fairly new and long-term reliability hasn't been proven in many of the new PHEVs and EVs that how much the battery degrades hasn't been sufficiently proven. Keeping all that in mind, the benefits of low maintenance and never really having to pump gas outweigh those cons, in my opinion. I also plan on keeping mine forever.
Effectively, with discounts, rebates, and tax credits, my Clarity Touring cost less than US$27000. I hear people are getting much larger discounts at the dealers so the current effective cost is even lower than what I paid. The resale value of any recently purchased car is much less than what someone else can buy a brand new one for. I would say the current resale value of my 4 month old Clarity is about $23,000. Probably less. On the plus side. It should retain its resale value really well after, especially when the tax credit gets phased out for Honda (won't be for quite some time though, unlike Tesla).
I agree with you. I looked at this item closely. Look at it buy back price after lease ends after 3 years. I have noticed that the actual value is much higher than the buy back value from Honda specially if you consider rebate we will get.
You won't want to sell it. It is a gem. Raising ev above 47 miles does not seem worth it since most never use that much in a day.
Don't get this car if resale is important for you after 3 years, hell don't get any EV/PHEV they will all depreciate immensely (except Tesla). I'm probably going to be keeping the car 5+ years and that's the only way I can justify buying it. My second option was to buy a 2015 i3 and have fun for 2-3 years and then see what's on the market
I don't plan on selling for at least 5 years. I'm just making sure I have some info. This is what i expected. I was looking up old Chevy Volts on autotrader. There isnt' too many ones close by. I figure it's because people don't get rid of them. It's coming down to this car, and the new Accord. The main reason i don't want the accord is because it seems like there 1 in 5 cars is an accord. I want to be different and i want an electric. Than you guys for your input.
You also have to assume the rebates will be gone in 3 years so we have $7500 or $10,000 in my case to buffer any depreciation.
I bought the car because it's great comfort, good performance and because it's the right thing to do. I have solar so it make's charging the car free without using Gas.
Currently leasing it for 3 years. Will decide if I'd keep it depending on the battery degradation rate.
What's the KW rating of your solar panel? It would take a large number of panels to be able to charge the Clarity full overnight.
In our case we had a solar system installed that would satisfy the needs of the house. The car wasn't part of the equation at that time. The system is 6.7KW but it currently clips at 5KW because the inverter is undersized. Still on these longer sunny days of April, with the sun higher in the sky than December was, the solar is pumping electricity back into the grid. We've been charging the Clarity every day, only at home. So from about 8am until noon the solar system begins to pump power back into the grid. We plug the Clarity in after my wife's morning run, it charges for about 1 1/2 hours. While the Clarity is charging the solar isn't enough for both the house and car so we draw some power from the grid. Once the car is charged the solar returns to putting power back in the grid. By the end of the day we've supplied daytime power for the house, and charged the car. Of course at night we draw from the grid (no battery). But even with the 5KW limit we are neutral with the grid. In other words on average over the past couple of weeks we have pushed as much power back into the grid as we have consumed. Charging the car is free. Powering the house is free (except for connect fees). We are about to have a larger inverter installed, and add two more panels. So we should be better prepared for summer when we have the A/C on 24/7. That is our biggest draw for power all year long.
Jdonalds; I am in Canada and the Hydro supplier are now NOT allowing to connect solar system to grid due to excess supply , so is there any way we can use solar system to charge for car only ? Looks like I will need battery to store before we can do that correct ?
I wrangled with the resale question for quite a while before pulling the trigger, and realized with the exception of last year, I've never owned a car less than 5-7 years, and usually run 150k-200k miles on them. In that regard, assuming the EV battery life can hold in there at least to 40 miles per day, I'll be golden when it's time to trade in for my 500 mile BEV with 15 minute to 80% recharge times ...
This is my dream setup ! Unfortunately it’s winter practically half the year and we don’t get much sun here in Toronto. Have you considered the Tesla powerwall ?
