I'm gonna miss this car

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rav4buyer

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 30, 2013
Messages
106
My lease ends on 9/1. I cannot justify paying another $20K to out right own it. I just leased a 2016 BMW i3 on a two year lease for about $2300 down and $110/month after taxes and fees.

Frankly, the RavEV is a much better car. It drives better, is faster, is more comfortable, is roomier, and has better technology. I'd rather save $300 a month though, since this is my commuter car. The i3 will bridge me to the Model 3 if I decide to go that route.

After about 40K miles though, I will miss this car.
 
It will be a great used car for the next buyer.

I'm curious why financing the $20k wasn't an option, if you like the car? Is it really just the bottom line? I've seen the Spark EV and Fiat 500e for under $100 per month.
 
I was down to about 84 miles on a standard charge. After a few more years of battery degradation it won't be worth it while the 200+ range cars come out costing a little bit more. If anything I would try to take over a lease and buy out a car with a lot fewer miles. The i3 price was too good to pass up.
 
rav4buyer said:
I was down to about 84 miles on a standard charge. After a few more years of battery degradation it won't be worth it while the 200+ range cars come out costing a little bit more. If anything I would try to take over a lease and buy out a car with a lot fewer miles. The i3 price was too good to pass up.
I would be very interested to see what your car says after Tony's reset procedure to see the "rated miles".
 
rav4buyer said:
I was down to about 84 miles on a standard charge. After a few more years of battery degradation it won't be worth it while the 200+ range cars come out costing a little bit more. If anything I would try to take over a lease and buy out a car with a lot fewer miles. The i3 price was too good to pass up.

If you are basing those 84 miles on the guess-o-meter (GOM), you made a big mistake.

It's likely that your car had very little degradation, as any Tesla battery car has shown. You could have very easily reset the GOM.

http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1625

If you're happy with the i3 (and it sounds like you got a good deal on it) I'm sure you'll be just fine. But you actually went backwards with REAL electric vehicle range.
 
TonyWilliams said:
... If you are basing those 84 miles on the guess-o-meter (GOM), you made a big mistake. ...
My GOM will read as low as 75 miles on a standard charge at times because I make lots of short trips. However, I had no strain making a 110 mi trip (extended charge of course) the other day. After the trip, my next standard charge read 92. It's essentially useless for judging the state of the battery.
 
rav4buyer said:
I was down to about 84 miles on a standard charge. After a few more years of battery degradation it won't be worth it while the 200+ range cars come out costing a little bit more. If anything I would try to take over a lease and buy out a car with a lot fewer miles. The i3 price was too good to pass up.
Awww! I'm sorry to hear you thought that was degradation! Your range estimate is going to be based on your recent driving environment or style. After a standard charge, the estimated range display on my 2013 varies from the low 80's after lots of little local trips in the hills here to 110+ miles after doing some long 70 mph freeway trips. But that doesn't affect your ability to take a 100+ mile trip on a standard charge... try it!!

You likely still have 120+ mile extended range on your RAV4! (See Tony's procedure above for getting a good reading on the range and Tony's range charts for range vs. speed.)
 
Rav4 EV Range Charts:

http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=251#p251


100% Capacity (brand new - no degradation)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1mybenqwoajun8/Rav4rangeChartV100.2.pdf?dl=0

90% Capacity (10% degradation)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3bcv212xxsfd2vr/Rav4rangeChartV90.2.pdf?dl=0

80% Capacity (20% degradation)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddfjojy6d29q8zf/Rav4rangeChartV80.2.pdf?dl=0

70% Capacity (30% degradation)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/20y8b9xhdyps3ht/Rav4rangeChartV70.2.pdf?dl=0


Rav4rangeChartV100_1.jpg
 
Well, I was using extended charge every day for half of my lease. My typical range on the GOM was around 100+ when I initially received it, and now it's 84. I drive pretty aggressively. So I say about 15% degradation over three years more or less. It was more a financial decision though.
 
rav4buyer said:
Well, I was using extended charge every day for half of my lease. My typical range on the GOM was around 100+ when I initially received it, and now it's 84. I drive pretty aggressively. So I say about 15% degradation over three years more or less. It was more a financial decision though.

We have charts for 100%, 90%, 80% and 70% capacity. Even at 70%, the RAV4 EV has more range than all the other non-Tesla EVs (until upcoming GM Bolt, Tesla Model 3 and LEAF 2.0).
 
Please try the reset the GOM thing and see what it says. You need to have the car charged to full extended range first.

It'd be an interesting data point for the rest of us in any event.

15% degredation would be more than i've heard about from anyone else, so it'd be interesting to know if that's really true in that use case. (somehow i doubt it). I always scare myself with extended ranges around 90 when i drive in the mountains. While the *milage* range is kinda random that the car generates, the little bars of battery life next to it are pretty accurate. I only drive by those now. (ie. i know how many i need to have left when passing certain points in my trip to not need to charge before arriving).

You can do sort of a hybrid, in that if you charge the car to what you think is 100% or 85% you can mentally divide the range its showing to get a fairly sensitive guage of what the battery state really is (which is the same thing the segments show but there only 16 of them so the resolution is low).

The only time i ever ran out of charge was when i was using the milage on the GOM to estimate something and i learned *not to do that*.
2.5 years later i still havent run out of charge again...

I bought Rav4EV (before they made all the good deals lease-only) and i think i'm keeping it basically forever unless something really bad goes wrong with it (although it probably wont be my daily driver anymore once the Tesla Model III finally appears).
 
n3ckf said:
15% degredation would be more than i've heard about from anyone else, so it'd be interesting to know if that's really true in that use case. (somehow i doubt it).

Yes, I doubt it, too. The statements seem to believe that 100 miles GOM yesterday, and 85 GOM, with brisk driving, equals 15% degradation.

The reality is that the brisk driving is what made the GOM read 85 miles... and has virtually nothing to do with degradation.
 
rav4buyer said:
Well, I was using extended charge every day for half of my lease. My typical range on the GOM was around 100+ when I initially received it, and now it's 84. I drive pretty aggressively. So I say about 15% degradation over three years more or less. It was more a financial decision though.
I'm glad your decision wasn't based on the degradation, because those GOM numbers mean less than nothing. I seriously doubt your degradation is that bad.
 
My original battery had degradation like what the OP mentioned, it's definitely possible to lose that much. I am getting a good 10-15 miles more per charge on my new battery than my last one.
 
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