My FIT EV: 6 years and 120,000 Miles later

Posted on Jul 21, 2019

Now that it's time to return my leased Honda FIT, after owing it for 6 years and having driven over 120,000 miles,  I thoughts it to be a good time to summarize my overall experiences & to build up on my earlier experience : http://indudas.blogspot.com/2013/12/my-fit-ev-2-months-and-4000-miles-later.html 

The Battery Performance

One of the most important feature of an electric car is its battery and it's degradation. 

Surprisingly the battery performance for Honda FIT EV turned out to be excellent. I saw almost no degradation even after driving it for over 120K miles.
My experience is detailed here

but in summary I :

• drove a 100+ miles commute every day.
• charged vehicle to 100% twice; once overnight, other time during the day at work
• about 2% of the time, drove vehicle beyond 0% charge, when it reduced the power etc. but still let me go on for another 5-6 miles.
• about 50% of the time, drained the vehicle below 40% battery level.
• never fast charged (car doesn't' have that feature)

2013 picture

2019 picture

The maximum range still shows 105-110 miles on a good day and drives closer to that, i.e. No observable Battery Degradation at all in 6 years

But before you jump on that conclusion for other EVs, please remember the battery chemistry and cooling systems are different in different cars. Below are some data that I gathered for most of 2019 models with my 2014 FIT:

Make	Model	Battery Chemistry	Cooling
Honda	FIT EV	Lithium Ion	--
Nissan	Leaf	Lithium Nickel Cobalt Manganese Oxide	air cooled
Chevy	Bolt	Li-Ion (nickel-rich)	air  Liquid cooled
Hyundai	Kona EV	NMC (Nickel, Manganese, Cobalt) 622	Liquid cooled
Tesla	Model 3	Lithium Ion (2170)	Liquid cooled

The $$ Math:

This car I got from Honda through special leasing program that they had running, which gave me the lease for $259 a month for unlimited miles and including free maintenance and insurance.
Later, after 3 years, they reduced the rate to $199 per month.
So, altogether:

•     Upfront fee (tax, title etc.): $2200.00
•     Maryland rebate: -$1,000. 00
•     Lease (first 3 years): $259 * 36 = $9,324.00
•     Lease (year 3-4) : $199 * 36 = $7,164.00
•     Maintenance: $0

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    Total:  $17,688

Gas Savings:

If instead of leasing this car and then driving 120,000 miles, I would have gone to own same car but non EV variant (2013 ICE Honda Fit), then:
Total Gas required to drive 120,000 miles: 120,000/31 = 3,871 Gallon of gas.
Assuming an average of $3.5/gallon over last 6 years, this means
3871 * 3.5= $13,548 of gas put in the to drive that 120,000 miles.

Electricity consumed

This car's EPA rating is 82 mpge, which means once fully charged , the car can drive 82 miles.
So, for 120K miles, i needed to charge the car = 120000/84 = 1463 times.
Each time, since the car has a battery pack of 20 kwh, it would cost me : 20* 10 cents ( in reality my electricity rate is about 6 cents/kwh since I have a pilot program rate from Pepco) : $2.00
So, for 1463 times, It probably costed me : 1429 * 2 = $2,926 to drive that car 120,000 miles.

Saving Gas vs Electric

So overall saving for driving the electric car vs a similar gas car was:  $13,548 - $2,926 = $10,622

Maintenance & Insurance Cost

Let us just stick to the very basic cost for a gas car to be as generous as possible for them

• Oil & filter Change (every 5000 miles, cost $25/each) = 24 X 25 = $600
• Tire change (once at 60,000 miles): $500
• Brake pads etc. change $500
• Fluid change (transmission oil etc., engine flush etc.) : $500
• Minimum Insurance $500/year = $6000

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     Total:  $8,100

All these service was covered by Honda and also either not applicable or required minimally in an electric car, meaning total savings: $8,100

Conclusion

So in summary, I spend $17,688 to own the car for 6 years and it resulted into $18,722 of gas & related savings.

In other words I  owned & drove a brand  new compact car for 6 years and made about $1,000 on the way 😃😃

And don't' forget the environmental benefits ( the 48 metric ton of CO2 saved or equivalent of planting 48 trees of 40 years lifespan) !!

Is the EV community working against itself ??

Compare 2 identical cars; one Electric vehicle (EV) and one gas engine (internal combustion engine or ICE), preferably from same manufacturer if possible. Upgrade them to same features and upgrades and then compare the prices and gas vs electric car saving if you drive them average , say 12000 miles a year, what will you find ?? As most of you would have probably guessed, ICE car will be cheaper and more economical to own even in 5 years time-frame, even though driving EV is way too cheaper. Why ?? Because EV is just damn expensive.

Now, add to it the federal $7,500 tax rebate. If you make $50,000 or less, you might even be able to consume this whole $7500 rebate, but that's a different story. Let us assume, this rebate is directly cost saving. What does the figure looks like now ?? ICE car will still out weigh the EV.

Now, add the different standard manufacturer promotions savings from time to time. Now, the numbers will start looking a little bit better.

But wait, what about an EV Charging stations, EVSE, a so called Level2 Charging station that you install in your garage, so that the car still charge in 3-4 hours but at least is ready full charge when you get up in the morning ? Between the unit itself and the certified electrician's charge, installation expense and permit etc.  ready to fork out another $1500-$2000 for that. So, with whatever little trick you tried bending the numbers in your favor, it just vanishes installing one 240V, 30Amp unit, all it does is to pass current to your car.


I own a Honda Fit EV, which I am leasing, taking advantage of Honda recent's drastically lowered lease price. I love the technology, love the car and love the experience of owning one (my experience here). But I am making this numbers work for me, somehow.

But talk to any EV enthusiasts and you will hear different arguments; Environment friendliness, quite car, no trip to gas station, new & complex  technology etc. Never mind the limitations of a typical EV; slow charging, limited range forcing you to have another car, drastic reduction in range when its too hot or too cold, small sizes, small trunk space etc. etc.  It is as if the whole community is in self denial. They naturally like the technology and want to see it grow, yet not accepting the realities and arguing how it can really survive and grow. And did i mention, an often quoted example of Tesla ?!!

Here are few things that I recommend to EV community:

1. Stop taking about Environments benefits if you ever want to see EV become a mainstream alternatives to ICE.
2. Universally argue for Price reductions; The price needs to be reduced by at least 50% overall (after all gimmicks) for it to survive. Federal Tax incentives is a good way to bridge the gap, but that should not be the only one. Remember the 'general American subsidizing EV'  arguments Republican put forward against  it. It has merits. How the price will lower otherwise; Besides the massive battery technologies i.e. Tesla is building is one way. Other way is simply manufacturer taking risks; otherwise it will be a simply catch22 situation. Remember if Apple would have priced iPhone $1000+, it would have still justified that price point under that time, when a good computer was costing that much, but then could it have been a household product ?
3. Argue for the need for a regular looking car. The dorky look is one of the biggest informercial ever for EV.
4. Change your messaging to employer and businesses. Businesses spending $5k/each new charging stations at their locations is a very skewed economic argument ever. This is surviving so far because employer like the 'green environment-friendly' status and branding. But what it does is to limit the widespread adaption within its organization. If you have 2 charging stations at your work and you find them always full, will you still think about owning your own EV. Or if there are 4 EV drivers already, always vying for a parking spot, will any of them be a good advocate for you to own yet another EV ? What if the employer placed a simple 120V wall charing to say or even 50 spots, at fraction of costs. An employee wont' have to worry about signing up to third party for charging service, wont' have to remove their cars after a couple of hours to avoid huge charge back and can simply leave it plugged in for the entire day, getting enough juice for an average commute daily needs i.e. 40 miles. At an average $1-$2/socket, it will still be cheaper for businesses to leave employees use the free electricity to majority, then to go for extra headache of Level2 charging stations. 

unless the EV community changes its line of arguments, and pushes for an economically superior car, EV will remain a small, niche market only for a few.

   

My FIT EV: 2 months and 4000 miles later

Since the day I got my Honda Fit EV (Electric Vehicle), one of the most frequent questions beyond the obvious one regarding its not really sipping any gas, has been whether it has been worth it; economically speaking.

Of course, it made sense to me when I got it i.e. exactly 2 months ago, but does it still made sense ? I decided to run the numbers.

The Basics:

Let me start though giving the details of the car first:

• Make and Model: 2014 Honda Fit EV
• Type: 5 seater small station wagon (EPA Class) 100% electric vehicle
• Ownership: Lease
• Lease cost: 0% down (paid only sales tax, as with any vehicle lease out of which got $1000 refunded by MD state) , $259/month for 3 years
• Lease terms:
• Unlimited miles
• Collision Insurance included at $0
• $0 maintenance
• Free Home Charging Station

Now, to see if this lease cost made economic sense, I should compare total cost for this car with the total cost of any other EXACTLY similar non-electric car with exact same lease terms. Fortunately FIT EV has a gasoline sibling, the regular FIT, which runs on gas.

The problem is Honda doesn't' give these features i.e. unlimited miles and $0 collision insurance and maintenance cost on its regular FIT. Browsing Honda site, the most base model regular FIT, with $0 down option the monthly is leased out at $200/month for a 36 months term.

 

but as the fine print shows its only for 12,000 miles /a year beyond which Honda charges $0.15/miles:

So, at my current need of  24000/miles/year lease would cost me an outrageous $200 + 1000*0.15 = $350/month for a regular FIT. 

But since a similar lease term is not available for a regular FIT, its not easy apple to apple comparison for regular FIT lease vs. FIT EV lease.

So, I decides to go with best (i.e. the cheapest case scenario) for regular FIT, to see if I were all lucky to get best deal possible in regular FIT, would FIT EV still be a better option. Meaning what if I got a similar type of regular FIT with similar leasing terms for only $200/month lease.

Next comes the mileage driven. In last 2 months I drove 4000 miles (And yes, going the EV route was exactly for that reason, I drive a whole lot to cover my 80 miles daily commute to work).

FIT EV Calculation:

I have also been getting anywhere from 5.2 to 4.7 miles/kwh. Let us take on average 5.0 miles/kwh

The 4000 miles in that case would translate to 4000/5 = 200 kwh.

My local "effective" energy rate is 11.02c/kwh (the details on one of my previous post)

so, 200 kwh will cost me 200*11.02 cents = $22.04

Lease payment for FIT EV for 2 months: 2 * 259 = $518

Total cost (lease cost + electricity) incurrent in FIT EV: $22.04 + $518 = $530

Regular FIT Calculation:

2013 Regular FIT gas economy: 31mpg

Gas to drive 4000 miles: 400/31= 129 Gallon

cost for 129 Gallon = 129 * 3.35= $432

Lease payment for Regular FIT for 2 months: 2 * 200 = $400

Total cost (least cost + gas) incurrent in Regular FIT : $432 + $400 = $832

Conclusion:

So, Even in the most conservative way (assuming a dealer would give me all the goodies for free while easing a regular FIT that I got in FIT EV, and assuming gas price was $3.35, though that's the lowest in last 2 months) if I would have got a regular FIT, it would have costed me $832 in gas & leasing, while driving and leasing FIT EV costed me only $530, i.e. is a saving of  36.3% 

So, if anyone asks me about my decision to go EV again, I can happily say 'so far so good' &#x263A

Driving Nissan Leaf

After closely following the resurgence of (all) Electric Car in last few years, I thought of trying one; no, not buying but renting one.

Yes, there are just 2 companies which rents the electric cars: Hertz and Enterprise. The problem with Hertz is you would never know which make and model you will end up getting & from which location. Enterprise on the other hand shares its locations where you find one and then you can call the rental center to reserve one for you.

Currently Available (All) Electric cars in the market

As you might know in US there are only a few "pure" electric cars available:

Make/Model  (Year: 2013)	EPA Range in miles	mpge(city/highway/ combined) in miles	EPA Size Class	MSRP (US $)	MSRP after $7500 Fed credit
Nissan Leaf	74	129/102/114	midsize	$28,800	$21,300
Ford Focus Electric	76	110/99/104	compact	$39,200	$31,700
Mitshubishi i-Miev	62	126/99/111	subcompact	$29,125	$21,625
Tesla Model S (60-kw)	208	94/97/96	minicompact	$69,900	$62,400
Honda Fit EV	82	132/105/117	Small wagon	$36,625	$29,125
smart fortwo electric drive coupe	67	122/93/106	2 seater	$25,700	$18,200
Toyota RAV4EV	103	78/74/76	small SUV	$49,800	$42,300

Epa data came from epa.gov, price from edmunds.com & Smart car price from here on 5/10/2013

EPA calculates the range as

Range_epa = 0.7 * ( 0.55 * Range_city + 0.45 * Range_highway)

So in reality your range should be about 35-45% higher than the Range shown above.

Rent

I rented the Leaf from Baltimore downtown location. The enterprise.com doesnt' show the electric car  option but when I called them I was told that I should reserve that as 'premier' car which after corporate discount for home use coupon turn out to be $48/day including damage waiver and other basic insurance.

Range

The car fully charged showed a range of 107 miles (just when I rented) which dropped to 42 after I reached a destination 47.9 miles away loosing 56% of charge. Meaning 56% of charge should have given me 107 * 0.56 = 60 miles of range but it gave me only about 48. But to be fair, it was mostly highway driving.

Next Day I couldnt' charge it very well on my tickle home wall socket. & I mostly drove locally without paying much attention to my charge.
The third day I charged as much I could achieving 86 miles range & then drove to 66.7 (364.7-298.0) miles and the range dropped to 65 miles to 21 miles. This was mostly city driving. So range and actual miles driven were mostly in sync.

So in short, if your city and highway driving is almost half-half mix than you should get within 5-7 miles of the range shown on dashboard i.e/ about 100  miles of driving  per charge (in eco mode).

Charging

Charging on regular 110V household takes for ever; something that Nissan & even other sites very cleverly chose not to express. In my calculation a full 100% charge from an almost depleted level would take around 24 hours.  On a Level 2 charger (fortunately we have plenty of them around the MD/DC area, thanks to semaconnect and blink network mostly free unless the garage charges a parking fee) which gives a 220V and 30A current, this reduces to 5.5-6 hours. DC charger which this particular Leaf was capable of handling thru its quick-charge port, could reduce the charging to about half an hour or less as it pumps 440V DC @50KW, but there are very few ones close-by for me to try and see for myself.

Driving Experience

Car drove nicely with very little to no sound. It has 2 driving mode, regular and eco. In both the modes however you would feel the the scarcity of  power while accelerating. But once I got used to it, it wasn't  something that  bothered me or was a problem overtaking or merging on highways. 

Comfort

The car was comfortable with all the bells and whistles that you expect from a $20-$30K car range including  XM, Navigation, Climate control, cruise control, power everything etc. etc. Its 5 seater is kinda cramped though in the back especially if you are having a child seat. Being a hatchback  design, trunk space was OK too, almost like Toyota Prius.

Economy vs. Savings

The fuel economy data for owing an electric car is well published, nevertheless I wanted to do my own calculation. So here it goes:

This car:
Our electricity rate :  11.79 c/kwh (My Pepco May 2013 bill, generic rate available at  peak rate consisting of distribution, transmission +generation * tax)
Leaf Battery Bank Size: 24 kwh
$ amount to fill Leaf: 24 * 0.1179 = $2.83
useful miles it can drive on full charge : 100
fuel economy: 2.83 cents/mile

Gasoline car:
mpg assumed: 35
Local Best Gas Rate; $3.50 (5/10/2013)

cost to drive a mile: 10 cents/mile

Nissan gives a 100,000 warranty on battery. Assuming that's the life of battery is, 

Savings over lifetime = (10-2.83) * 100,000/100 = $7,170
Not doing the Oil change should bring about $700-$1000 savings as well as any state income tax credit for EV, but I am cancelling that out since level2 charger installation also costs money.

Since after Federal Tax Credit, Leaf price is almost in the price range of any regular gasoline car, the above gas savings (not to mention the maintenance cost) can be treated as pure savings.

Conclusion

In conclusion this is a good daily commuter car if your work is not very far which could save one a solid gas money. Having a 100+ miles range takes away the 'range anxiety' that is generally associated with electric car. After your work, you can still do plenty of running around before heading  home and you will have enough juice left. A level 2 charger is a must though otherwise you wont' be able to drive everyday. For a little DIYer type, creating a Level 2 charger point is not very complicated; just pull a 220V line from your main using a AWG-10/2 copper cable to your garage & a 30W circuit breaker and connect it to a Level 2 Charger kit available for about $1000 at amazon. 

But for my specific case in which I have a daily commute of 90 miles city (or 102 Miles if I take a longer but faster highway route), I can just about it with this Leaf. 

So, guess my search for a good Electric car (or a job little closer to home), is still not over :(