Went to the dark side, well not really...

OK folks, my lease was coming up for turn in and I decided against leasing another I-MiEV. I ended up buying a clean, low mileage 2012 Volt at a great price. The Volt had just come off its lease, and made the perfect car for my family. We have an ICE vehicle, a 2002 Kia mini-van that is on its last legs or at least is decidedly not the car it was 13 years ago. Our family needs a car that has the ability to travel beyond the range of the "I", and I absolutely did not want to give up on EV travelling. As we all know, it's in a class by itself. The Volt allows me to commute back and forth every day in all electric mode, as I was doing in the "I", and also makes longer trips possible. In the last few months we'd had to take a limo to the airport as the "I" could not travel that far roundtrip, and without any QC option we simply would not have been able to return home. So, this makes our life a lot easier. Loved the time I spent in the "I", a very fun car and oh so inexpensive to drive. Best wishes to the I-MiEV'ers still out there.

Lou

Good luck with the Volt, and I hope you still drop by now and then.

Will do!!! If I ever get back out to Pittsburgh I will look for your "I".

Hi Lou. Thank you for your update and all your thoughtful contributions to this forum. Sad to see you leave the fold, but I understand your need to have a reliable long-distance vehicle and the Volt certainly fills that need as well a providing you with a fossil-fuel-free EV which can meet most of your daily driving needs. Hopefully, your Kia mini-van (presumably used for local driving) will eventually get replaced by a BEV, maybe even an i-MiEV coming off-lease. :roll:

Oh, so there's an iMiev available off lease somewhere near me ? I'm thinking about a 2nd iMiev for me (my wife drives the other), but the price has to be right. My Mitsu dealer near me wants $15k for a used 2012 with 22k on it w/o QC. Seems like a foolishly high price. I think these can only sell around the $10k range (hate to say that since I am an owner of one that has, even after incentives, a lot more than that invested).

Anyway, Lou, hope you enjoy the Volt. I keep thinking just a couple more QC chargers in the Philly area would make driving to the airport, or 100-200 miles not too bad in the iMiev. Yes, longer trips would be better in a PHEV or ICE, but having used the QC near us recently sure makes those just slightly long trips in that range doable without large inconvenience.

Dan

I'm seriously looking at a Volt to go with our iMiEV - It would replace the 2003 Mazda Protégé 5 we currently use for longer trips and to pull our utility trailer for trips to Lowes, etc

If the changes predicted for the all new 2016 model prove to be all they're suspected of being, we may very well buy one when they come out about a year from now. Supposed to have slightly more EV range, seating for 5 (which would likely mean an all new battery pack placed under the floor, ala Tesla) and a new, more efficient 3 cylinder ICE range extender which will raise the non-EV mileage rating of the current model

Worth waiting for, I think

Don

danpatgal said:

My Mitsu dealer near me wants $15k for a used 2012 with 22k on it w/o QC. Seems like a foolishly high price. I think these can only sell around the $10k range

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Let it sit on their lot for 6 months and they'll be in a better mood to deal! We got our i-miev used with 8800 miles for $10,500, but the dealer originally asked $15,000 for it. While it sat for 6 months on their lot they dropped the price to $14,000, then $13,000 then finally $12,000. I offered $9,500 but finally agreed to not cut them too bad and settled on $10,500. It takes a special customer to buy this EV, most lookers will strike this wonderful little car off their list of possibilities (be it it's short range, small size, odd looks, unfamiliarity, etc).

It feels kinda weird seeing several i-miev'ers going Volt, since we went the other way. Started with the Volt and went with the i-miev.
Feels like I'm going up the down staircase. When I bought the Volt I wanted an all-electric car, but I knew there would be some instances where an all electric wouldn't work. Since I've got the extended range base covered with the Volt, I knew a BEV would work for my wife since she drives a lot less than I do. When I found the i-miev used I felt sure I could get a good deal on it and I was right. Correction: Wasn't really looking for the Mitsu, it found me!

Love the i-miev and the Volt. Glad we have both! Last month we used 2.6 gallons of gasoline operating two cars. Each has different strengths making them suited for different uses. But the main thing is we drive almost totally gas-free!

DPG: Funny how the end of lease cars seem to be so high priced yet (eventually)sell for so much less. The Chevy dealer I purchasd the Volt from actually offered to buy the "I" from Ally, but they quoted the residual price(something like $26,000!!!!!, are you kidding me??), wouldn't budge and that was the end of that. FWIW, my old Mitsu had no QC, no back up camera nor navigation(not that I needed the last 2 but the lack of QC was a killer)and was really a basic EV. I liked it like that, loved driving the little bugger. I was getting 82 miles range almost every day in the summer. Of course, I drove almost entirely back roads at 35-40 MPH, so that explains some of it. If my emplyer had installed Level II charging(as they had intended to, until the collapse of Ecotality/Blink)I very well would have tried to see if I could extend the lease another year. But, I was not going to go through another winter w/o using the heater(as I had done for the most part last year). Having workplace charging would have allowed me to fill up while parked and made it feasible to use the heater on the way home. Oh well, things will work themselves out...