So, we just passed the 2 year anniversary of our first Volt - saw the photo popup on my Facebook "memories" thing a few days ago.
She still loves it. It's been one of the most reliable vehicles we've ever owned, and yes, the battery is still perfect and getting it's rated (or more) mileage now that the winter is behind us.
But, I brought up the possibility of upgrading to her a few days ago, primarily for two reasons. Mileage, and the goal of going 100% electric.
On the mileage perspective, the car is now coming up to 207,000KM (she's put about 70,000KM on it in 2 years) and I'm looking at it from a dollars and cents standpoint. Current book value for trade in shows around $10K still - so we'll only loose about $3500 in deprecation from the purchase price for 2 years and 70,000KM in use, I'd be super happy with that. Private sale values show around $12K, so the loss is even less..but I have to deal with the usual private sale drama, and if I can get a dealer to push up to $11K trade in value (which offsets taxes) then the tax savings and convenience outweigh the hassle of private sale.
Considering she's still going to be driving around 30,000KM/year, in another 12 months the depreciation hit at ~240,000KM is bigger. In another year, potentially climbing towards 300,000KM, it's value will be less yet.
On the "going 100% electric" perspective, the reality is with her commute (she at a new corporate gig now commuting to the east side of the GTA) she's still using gas every day for 50% of the drive - the battery gets her to work, gas to get home. Charging at the new employer is supposedly in the planning stage, but neither guaranteed, nor may there be enough chargers that she will be guaranteed one every day. Too many questions. She's driving about 100KM/day (for the commute, just short around town stuff afterwards) so even some of the midrange EV options with 175-225KM range is more then enough, even taking winter range loss into effect.
So, we are considering options. I like the Bolt, she isn't enamoured with them, but seems to be warming. I don't like the price - still ~$40K even in the used market. We both hate the Leaf - even the new "kinda a little more normal" body style is weird-ish. I like the Kia Soul EV (and my sister owns one and loves it, and it fits the bill so far as requirements) but my wife hates the body style. She's sorta interested in something like a Model S, but the prices even for 5-6 year old ones with high mileages (and questionable future reliability and upkeep costs) are in the stupid range. We've looked at the Hyundai Ioniq and it seems like the #1 possibility right now - ~160-225KM range (perfect for her needs, she can swap with my Volt if she needs to go further on very seldom occasions) and the used market is priced right...when they pop up - but they sell almost instantly. The only thing I don't like about the 2017-2018 Ioniq is the air cooled battery - in the 2019's Hyundai went liquid cooling like the big boys. But, so long as it wasn't abused with hot and frequent fast charging it seems like the batteries in even the air cooled models are faring well, and since we'd only be effectively slow charging here at home (like 16A, not even 32A) most of the time, degradation would be little to nothing with our usage patterns.
So, here we are.
