Near the end of last year my company was looking for new people to help build our antennas. \u00c2\u00a0I was thinking our son-in-law Patrick was a smart person who learned quickly so I talked to my boss about bringing him in to see if he would be able to help. \u00c2\u00a0He started around the beginning of December and has worked out very well. \u00c2\u00a0Everyone likes him and thinks he is a great worker and asset to the company.<\/p>\n
I stopped riding my bike to work because I was car pooling with Patrick. \u00c2\u00a0We took my F150 4X4 most of the time but that thing gets terrible gas mileage. \u00c2\u00a0I knew we needed something that would do better.<\/p>\n
I started looking at information on electric cars. \u00c2\u00a0Daryl has had his Volt for several years and really loves it. \u00c2\u00a0I thought that might be an option and then I looked at the Nissan Leaf.<\/p>\n
The Leaf is electric only which means if the battery runs out you have to either tow it or recharge it and there’s no gas engine to do it for you. \u00c2\u00a0But it also has an 87 mile range for the older versions and 107 miles for the 2016. \u00c2\u00a0I figured 87 miles would be enough since I could drive it the 30 miles to work and then charge it back up while there.<\/p>\n
We looked at a 2013 Leaf that had 18,000 miles but it didn’t have the Level 3 socket which allows you to charge to 80% in 30 minutes. \u00c2\u00a0I felt if I was going to have one I might want to take it to someplace like Santa Barbara where I could do the Level 3 charge and then come home the same day.<\/p>\n
We went to the Nissan dealer to see if they had any used Leafs but they didn’t. \u00c2\u00a0I started talking to them about what a new one costs. \u00c2\u00a0Turns out when you buy a new electric car you get a $7,500 tax credit from the US and a $2,500 rebate from CA. \u00c2\u00a0Nissan was also giving a $4,000 rebate and since I belonged to a credit union I got an additional $3,500 off. \u00c2\u00a0That’s $17,500 off the sticker price. \u00c2\u00a0That’s close to 50% off. \u00c2\u00a0I figured I might as well buy new and that way I got the Level 3 socket.<\/p>\n
I’ve been driving it for several months and I have to say I love it. \u00c2\u00a0Since I got it I have only had to stop at the gas station once when I drove Betty’s Camry on a day it was low on gas. \u00c2\u00a0Since we have the solar panels on the roof most of the electric is “free”. \u00c2\u00a0It’s not exactly but very close.<\/p>\n
I love being free from gas so much I’m contemplating trading in the Camry for a Volt. \u00c2\u00a0I would still get the $10,000 in tax rebates and credits on a Volt. \u00c2\u00a0I would definitely want to do it before the end of the year so I could take the Federal credit off my taxes next year. \u00c2\u00a0We will see how things go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Near the end of last year my company was looking for new people to help build our antennas. \u00c2\u00a0I was thinking our son-in-law Patrick was a smart person who learned quickly so I talked to my boss about bringing him in to see if he would be able to help. \u00c2\u00a0He started around the beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24,6,2,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1082,"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions\/1082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donlafferty.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}