Hacker News Reader

Comment by cowmixtoo | Hacker News Reader

@40K up until this fall (and 35K now), I would hardly say that is "being given away" prices.

It's always interesting seeing these sorts of discussions. On HN, every now and then you uncover a conversation about what's financially reasonable, between the guy making $450k/year and the guy making $45k/year.

They had lease specials for as low as $250/month. If you can run all-electric the majority of the time, your TCO is damn near free.

Not many people spend $250/month in gas.

Many people don't want to spend $250/mo on gas. Whether they do or not is separate.

I had a Nissan Pathfinder once and it was okay when gas was $2-2.50/gal (16 gallon tank, $40/wk, $150/month). Once it got to $4.00/gal damn right I found alternatives to driving that Pathfinder. The 20 minute walk to the store in the hot, Florida sun didn't seem so bad anymore.

I have many friends who bought SUVs (for the "utility") and commuted way out from the exurbs. They had no choice but to eat the cost of $100 fillups while looking for cheaper alternatives.

The average family spends $368/month on gas:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/05/news/economy/gas_prices_inco...

No doubt. But that's with two cars, so it's still less than the $500 you'd spend leasing two Volts.

Yeah, not sure what that guy is on about. Both prices are lower than the Leaf's nominal price, and I've heard you could get ~$10k worth of tax credits or something with the Leaf. Unfortunately I don't remember the details, but I met a guy who leased a Leaf who told me about all this. He got a pretty sweet deal on the lease too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com