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Fiat 560e, three months in Posted by Justin VanAbrahams [Email]  (#32) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Justin VanAbrahams) on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:20:20
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We've had the 500e for three months now, so I thought I'd give a status update...
The car still continues to delight. It's still interesting to look at and fun to drive. I am told not a week goes by that someone doesn't stop and stare at it, or approach in a parking lot to ask questions. I have personally experienced drivers in other cars inspecting it while slowly drifting towards it, or matching speeds to look thus preventing us from changing lanes. Kinda fun, kinda annoying.
I'm told that riding in an ICE after spending days or weeks in the 500e is odd. Even the super-smooth idling Jaguar XJR and Mercedes E320 have more NVH when stationary than the silent, still Fiat. Cars shifting gears around to make power feels strange after driving a car with only one ratio. And, not ever having to leave early or interrupt the rush to get home after work to get gas is pretty amazing.
Two weeks after we got it, my parents went over to the same Fiat dealer and bought another, identical car. Sadly, it replaced the 9-3SE in their driveway but you just can't argue with ownership costs on this vehicle. As I mentioned in my original post, it's just a couple grand over three years.
The range-o-meter hasn't been wrong once, suggesting about 90 miles available on a full charge. Two times in three months there has been concern about range - once, a trip from Sacramento to Solano and another time a trip from Sacramento SF. The first trip ended up being canceled, the second trip we took the gasoline-powered Fiero. Of course, if we'd not had a second, ICE-equipped vehicle an included Enterprise rental credit could have been used. The other ~90 days of ownership the car has never been a source of anxiety, and I'm only aware of one day it came home with a single digit number on the range-o-meter. The rest of the time, it's been doing it's 25-60 mile daily chore, coming back with 1/3 to 3/4 of its charge remaining.
Until last week we'd been charging with 120v wall current, which requires a full 24 hours to recover from empty. Since it rarely comes home empty, the time between getting home at ~6pm and leaving again at ~7am has been plenty to ready it for the next day. On a half dozen occasions, it's been charged at a pay or public 240v charger for an hour or two. That costs between $0 and $3, and nets an additional 20 to 40 miles. As a side note, with gasoline at about $3.75/g, charging only on a public charger would be break-even versus a very fuel efficient car, like perhaps a Prius. Obviously, we minimize the use of pay chargers. :)
Our electricity bill has increased an average of $40/mo, which is slightly more than I anticipated it would, about $16. It's still a huge improvement versus the $160-$170/mo previously being spent on gasoline. (The Audi would have also been due for a $50 DIY synthetic oil change by now, which I thankfully don't have to do. ;) The reason for the increase in electricity cost vs. my original estimate is that charging the Fiat has pushed us barely into "Tier II" usage, which comes at a premium price.
I suspect that is going be a massive problem in summer when we're running the AC, so we had a 240v/30a charger ("EVSE") installed. The EVSE allows us to take advantage of lower priced, off peak electricity. We'll get electricity for the EVSE (only) at a slightly lower cost than Tier I with the caveats that the program costs a fixed $12/mo, and can essentially only be used at night (10p-6a, or something like that). The Fiat can schedule itself to charge, so now its programmed to start charging at midnight. No worries, as 240/30 charging takes just over four hours from empty to full. An inexplicable side effect of high-rate charging is a few extra miles on the range-o-meter, which is quite nice.
For those of you doing the math, an $800 charger plus an $800 installation plus a $12/mo charging plan to save an average (including brutal summer months) $40/mo over 36 months doesn't work out. ~$2000 for the 240v stuff vs $1440 in extra utility bill. It would be cheaper to pay the kwh penalty. But, there is an environmental advantage in balancing load on the grid and we couldn't do that with a 120v charger and the few extra miles with high-rate charging is nice. It's not a huge price to pay to do the right thing. If I'm lucky, the Feds will renew a 2012/2013 tax credit for 2014 and I can get back $500 of the cost, and then it'll be a wash anyway. ;)
All said and done, this car has been an amazing exercise in cost control. No repairs, no maintenance, no gas, and now a near fixed-rate charging plan to boot. Three months later, even with my compulsive car shopping, the 500e was still the right decision.
posted by 12.195.130...
http://www.saabnet.com/tsn/bb/othercars/index.html?bID=8486
, Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:20:20 <-- Viewing This Message
, Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:16:08, Mon, 17 Mar 2014 10:46:59, Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:48:50, Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:00:48
, Tue, 18 Mar 2014 07:35:40, Tue, 18 Mar 2014 10:02:46, Mon, 17 Mar 2014 15:47:02, Fri, 14 Mar 2014 19:50:43
, Wed, 26 Mar 2014 10:27:05
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