Fortysomething Geek

 A new toy so I have a new write-up. Today's gadget is the Lenovo Miix 2 10 is a 10 inch Windows Bay Trail 2-in-1 hybrid tablet.



Here are the specs:
10 point multi-touch FHD screen (1920x1200)
1.33 GHZ ATOM Z3740 QUAD Core Processor
2GB RAM and 64GB Flash Storage

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I decided to take the plunge on a new commuter car, a Fiat 500e. Voted best Electric Car for 2013 by Road and Track, this car is now in my possession for the next three years.

First of all, let's not confused the Fiat 500e from the other legendary Mercedes Porsche built 500E (capital E) from the 90s. This is no speed rocket of a car. The "e" stands for "electric."This will be an interesting car for me as it is my first 100% electric vehicle. This post will be the first in a series of blog posts about the 500e on my blog.

There were a few reasons why I picked up this car. First, my wife's C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid proved to be economical and convenient. Her commute is the same as mine so the mileage range was feasible. Secondly, I just turned in a lease on a 2010 Mini Cooper and needed a replacement. Lastly, my main car, a Range Rover Sport was costing me around 300ドル a month in fuel. The Land Rover is a very thirsty vehicle and I was thinking of trading it in for a new sports car. However, for the time being, I still needed a commuter car and the Fiat 500e hit all the right notes.




The 500e is a California "Compliance" EV car. This means, it was built to meet California's strict mandate that automakers sell a percentage of zero-emission cars in order to sell in California.
So basically, my 500e subsidizes you guys who want to drive those SRT8 500 horsepower Dodge Challengers in California. As a result, most manufactures take a small loss. It has been reported that Fiat/Chrysler loses around 10,000ドル per 500e sold. Thus, the 500e is only sold in California. To move inventory, automakers are pushing heavy incentives and it is a win-win for consumers. At 32,500ドル before subsidies, the Fiat 500e is almost double the price of a base gasoline powered Fiat 500 pop. To ease the sticker shock, there are crazy lease deals for EV cars in the state of California.

Most geeks like myself would never buy a 500e as leasing is the way to go. Who knows how battery technology will progress in three years? Worst, we don't know what the battery loss will be like after thousands of recharge cycles. Hence, leasing an electric car is the smart thing to do. Worst case scenario, I can walk away in 36 months. Furthermore, the economics of leasing makes sense for my usage. "Compliance" cars get a bad rap by EV purists but it is a big plus for California consumers. 999ドル down and 199ドル (before tax/docs) a month gets you a 87 mile range EV car.

Now, lets look at some of the math:

199ドル a month (216ドル w/ tax) = 7776ドル (total lease). My particular lease is a little bit more (225ドル w/tax) due to the fact I negotiated higher miles and added a 1000ドル sunroof option. However, the true cost of this lease is much, much, much lower. I get a California EV rebate of 2500ドル. Subtract the EV rebate from the lease gets you total 5276ドル before docs, tax,etc. This equates to an effective lease of 146ドル.55 a month over 36 months. However, there are more incentives. You get HOV stickers which gives you discount to bridge toll. Normal toll is 6ドル during commute, carpool rates is 2ドル.50. This saves me 76ドル a month. Subtract that from the lease, the end cost to me to have this car is roughly 70ドル-75 a month. I would pay toll regardless of what car I have but here, I rather put that 76ドル a month toward a car than the transit authorities. In the end, this is cheaper than a cellphone subscription plan for me. This doesn't account for the savings in gas by using electricity. I'll be saving close to 3600ドル a year in gas. I got a good deal. Chrysler/Fiat also throws in 12 free days of car rental each year (totaling 36 days) that I can use for long business trips and long drives to Tahoe or Los Angeles.

This car is insanely cheap and an incredible deal for California consumers who's driving habits align with an short/medium range electric vehicle.

Since I got this car, I'm still feeling it out and will write a bit more later.

I'm into fast cars. I'm into European luxury and sporty cars. I love cars in general. You can call me a gearhead. My wife is into practicality. She recently got one of those brand new Ford plug-in hybrids, the C-Max Energi. This is completely out of left field for me. The picture you see above is the average MPG of driving roughly 40 miles over a period of two days. Even as a gearhead, I can totally appreciate that 80 MPG number I am seeing above.


This is not my kind of car I typically look into. Politically correct and green trendy. The visual exterior won't turn heads. The handling and drive characteristics is nothing to rave about.  I'm currently in the market for a mid-life crisis sports car so this is the polar opposite of what I look into.  However, the C-Max Energi is already growing on me. I'm starting to really like it. It is also packed with a lot of gadgetry and electronics. This blog is not going to be a full on review of any sorts. I'm just going to give my readers my impression of a car that I will driving 20-30% of the time.

Just look at how cool the plugin port is. The blue surrounds shows you how far along your charging is. The outer edge of the port lights up fully to indicate the charge status.

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