The variables in our day to day car usage seem to me to be perfectly suited to incorporating an EV into our car mix. We have had a 5kw grid tied PV system for about 2 years with annually about 40% of electricity produced wastefully being exported to the grid for a measly 9 c/kwh return. We currently do about 90 km a day of metro driving comprised largely of soccer mum duties with the car sitting at home for periods during the day. So with a combination of charging the i when the sun is shining along with the overnight 15 c/kwh tariff I estimate our car energy costs should drop to about 20% of what they were.The plan is that our ageing ICE will become our secondary car to fill in the gaps when 2 cars are needed, when we occasionally need to do longer trips and for towing duties.
The i is an ex demo 2011 MY12 with 5k on the clock. i's for sale in the west had dried up in the last 6 months so when this appeared last week with a $20k price tag, new car warranty, sat nav, mats and stamp duty included it was well past my tipping point.
I test drove it with a full charge and nursing it along the best I could with a mixture of freeway and metro driving, it managed 100 km with 2 bars left, so happy with that. With the vehicle being almost 3 years old and obviously having sat around for most of that time it appears the battery pack has held up well. After the first few charges it seems the range has even improved slightly.
Respect for all the input and experience on this forum, I don't have anywhere near the technical knowledge some of you do, without your wealth of information I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to buy this black sheep of a car. With the final piece in the puzzle coming back lately on longer term battery degradation seeming to be optimistic, this car seems to make sense purely from economic point of view.... time will tell.
