Hello everyone! New here, first post...

[ThatElectricCar]

Hi everyone! I'm glad I signed up, I'm Austin, I'm 19 years old, and I'm from West Virginia. I'm not new to the hybrids or EV's, my ex partner bought a Chevy Volt in January of 2011 VIN#736 and I had approx 25,000 miles behind the wheel personally. I rented an i-MIEV last summer from a dealership here in WV for 5 days and I LOVED every minute of it. It got so many stares and probably broke countless necks here in WV. :lol:

So, I'll get right down to it. As you guys probably know, the 2014's are starting to hit the lots. I know there are usually amazing lease deals on EV's. Was it last year or the year before last, Mitsubishi was leasing the i-MIEV's for 79$ a month? Anyhow, called the dealer, told the salesman I had a trade I'll probably go upside down a little bit, but not much, and that I wanted to keep the payment below my current payment which is 282.24 a month. I asked about leasing because I heard somewhere (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that with leasing an EV, whoever leases the car to you gets the $7,500 federal tax credit and that's why the leases on EV's are generally affordable?

He said Mitsubishi doesn't have anything on leasing the i-MIEV, but that some third party bank is doing it, but the payment won't be all that great. My question is, when do you guys think Mitsubishi will offer a lease program for the i-MIEV? My guess is early to mid summer… But i'm getting impatient and really want one now lol.

Also, feel free to tell me the in's and out's of the i-MIEV. I'm sure you guys have way more experience than my 5 days behind the wheel. I'll also snoop through the forums. Thanks in advance!

 

[JoeS]

Hi Austin. Welcome to the i-MiEV forum, and happy to see your enthusiasm for this unique little car!

Just about everything you need to know about the i-MiEV is on this forum, and you might find it interesting to poke around a bit. If you don't find what you're looking for, you'll find plenty of owners here willing to answer any specific questions you may have. Even though this forum's search engine is rather weak, you can always use Google to find things here; here's how:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1526

BTW, I took the liberty of deleting your duplicate post.

 

[siai47]

There may be cheap leases again but maybe not for a while. The cheap leases on the 2012's happened in early 2013 where I live. It was as low as $69 per month for a ES and $99 per month for a SE with minimum down on a 24 month lease. Not long after that was the $10K "dealer cash" deal which got the price down to pretty much where the MSRP on a 2014 is (if you figure in the now standard things such as QC charging and aluminum wheels on the ES). The leases finally went away as most leasing companies won't lease on a "new" car that is over one model year old. The bank that was doing the leases for Mitsubishi was Ally Bank. If you want a really good deal on a two year old I-MiEV, stick around until Spring when those lease returns start showing up. Otherwise, make the best deal you can with a dealer and make sure you have enough taxable income, less deductions, to take advantage of the full $7,500 tax credit. I got burned on that one time and I am trying not to let that happen again. If you decide to go with the I-MiEV, use the information in this forum to make sure it will do the job for you--if it fits your driving model, I am sure you will be very happy with it.

 

[Don]

Welcome Austin! Glad you found us

Mitsu brought a bunch of the 2012's here pretty much all at once and when they still had lots of them left in dealers showrooms a year later, they offered the cheap leases and the $10K off to move them quickly . . . . and it did - They were leasing year old cars though. I doubt we'll ever see that with the 2014's (and certainly not by summertime) because they are not going to import them much faster than they can sell them this time around. You can wait a year or so and see if any lease deals show up, but I wouldn't count on it and the deals will likely never be anything like they were on the year old 2012's they were trying to get rid of in the fall of 2013

If you're looking to lease because you don't have enough income to get much of the Federal $7500 tax credit, look into buying the car with a co-owner (maybe one of your parents or a rich uncle) and put their name on the title with yours. They will get the big tax credit and hopefully, turn it over to you

Don

 

[Rocky49]

Why not consider a slightly used I-miev? There are a bunch of them out there not too far from you. You won't get tax credits or rebates but the initial purchase price is pretty good. I have seen a few with less than 2000 miles for in the 12 to 15 grand range. Yes they are 2012s but if someone else has already stripped the tax credits and the depreciation so what, less interest for you to pay. There is an SE with lots of options for around 14 grand in the Nashville area and a couple of ESs for around 12 k in your part of the country,

I bought my SE from Texas about 5 weeks ago. Got it for 14,200 and I live in an area of Canada where there are no rebates or credits so I was happy for a straight up low price deal. We trucked it home and my wife loves it big time.

Rocky

 

[ThatElectricCar]

Hey everyone, thank you for all of your replies! unfortunately I'm on my mobile phone right now but whenever I get home later tonight I'll have a chance to reply to each one of you individually!

 

[nhhecker]

Hi there,

I had some of the same questions it sounds like you might have, at least about the leasing. I was looking for a lease as well but ended up getting ‘suckered’ into buying the car without a lease. It sounds like you’ve got more time behind the wheel than I do, though!

I was told by my dealer that they might have leasing information for the car as of the first of this month (the dealer said ‘probably under $200/mo’) but obviously that hasn’t happened yet. I was impatient, but if you’ve already got a vehicle then you may be able to give it a few more months to see what they do. But like siai47 and Don have said, it doesn’t seem all that likely that Mitsubishi will put themselves in a position again where they’ll be forced to offer $70/mo leases. At least, not if they can help it. Rocky49‘s idea is good too. Unfortunately I didn’t even think to look for any used cars in the area -- I discounted the i as such a low-volume vehicle that it wouldn’t be worth checking. Oops.


Nick

 

[ThatElectricCar]

Hi Austin. Welcome to the i-MiEV forum, and happy to see your enthusiasm for this unique little car!

Just about everything you need to know about the i-MiEV is on this forum, and you might find it interesting to poke around a bit. If you don't find what you're looking for, you'll find plenty of owners here willing to answer any specific questions you may have. Even though this forum's search engine is rather weak, you can always use Google to find things here; here's how:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1526

BTW, I took the liberty of deleting your duplicate post.

Thanks for the link! And sorry for the duplicate post, I'm not sure what happened, but when I seen it, I was confused haha.

 

[ThatElectricCar]

Why not consider a slightly used I-miev? There are a bunch of them out there not too far from you. You won't get tax credits or rebates but the initial purchase price is pretty good. I have seen a few with less than 2000 miles for in the 12 to 15 grand range. Yes they are 2012s but if someone else has already stripped the tax credits and the depreciation so what, less interest for you to pay. There is an SE with lots of options for around 14 grand in the Nashville area and a couple of ESs for around 12 k in your part of the country,

I bought my SE from Texas about 5 weeks ago. Got it for 14,200 and I live in an area of Canada where there are no rebates or credits so I was happy for a straight up low price deal. We trucked it home and my wife loves it big time.

Rocky

I wouldn't mind a slightly used i-MIEV, however I really would like my payment to be right at or less than what I'm paying now. I spend roughly 40 bucks a month on gas with my Insight. My payment is 282.24 a month. I know if I traded it in, i'll probably go upside down a little but not much, and my payment would be around $330 (give some or take some) a month if I financed a used i.

The salesman I talked to at University Motors in Morgantown, WV did a rough estimate on how much my payment would be if I financed a brand-new i and it came out to $350 a month if I went upside down $3,000 and also had 0% financing for like 74 months... I declined.

But he said he'd let me know if a lease deal popped up.

 

[danpatgal]

Not too far from you, here in Central PA, there was a new iMiev that sold pretty quickly after arriving. Not sure if someone traded in (like I was contemplating), but there is now a used one for $17k:

http://www.lancastermitsubishi.net/for-sale/3790000/mitsubishi/4355A/

I had a car with fewer miles + QC (not sure if this one has QC), and they quoted me a trade in of only 12,300. So, you have an idea of the spread they might have in negotiating a price. If you could get 0% APR (available on the 2014, I'd guess they'd give it to you on the 2012), financing $17k would cost you $282/month. With just a little negotiating, I'm thinking you could be saving the $40/month in gas and paying only $10/month in electricity instead.

 

[PV1]

If that one picture was just a tad lower, we'd be able to see if it had the QC release handle.

I hope those pictures were before the dealer cleaned it. :?

 

[jray3]

I wouldn't mind a slightly used i-MIEV, however I really would like my payment to be right at or less than what I'm paying now. I spend roughly 40 bucks a month on gas with my Insight. My payment is 282.24 a month. I know if I traded it in, i'll probably go upside down

That's a problem that Mitsu faces. Many prospective i-buyers are already in an econobox, and going electric doesn't offer the order of fuel and maintenance savings that say, a Tesla Model S offers someone who's accustomed to piloting a big luxury sedan. I think they need to pitch the convenience of home charging, the ultra-smooth and torquey driving experience (certainly an order of magnitude better than most ICE econoboxes), and the nearly maintenance-free nature of an EV.

And oh yeah, even if you only spend $40/month on gas, we'll still cut that down to $10.

We were lucky that the i came along in time to replace our twice-totalled '92 Civic, though the used MiEV are certainly a bargain today.