Four EVs that Offer an Affordable Alternative to Tesla

Tesla’s success has been well covered by the media of the past month or so, but not everyone is willing to pay the $60,000 to $90,000 price need to buy the Model S in order to own a decent EV. CNNMoney has written an interesting slideshow based article on four Electric Vehicles that can provide an affordable alternative to the Tesla Model S. I have provided a brief summary of the article below.

Paying for EV’s on a long term lease is actually a very popular method of purchase at the moment, and considering that the manufacturer is able to take the $7,500 federal tax credit for the sale it immediately reduces the monthly payments to a reasonable level.

All of the following EV’s are available on a 36 month lease of $199 per month, with an initial down payment of $999.

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The Fiat 500 is one of the most popular small cars out there. The 500e offers a range of around 87 miles, and leases for almost the price as the petrol version. The only downside is that at the moment it is only available in California.

The Chevrolet Spark is the smallest car that Chevy produces, and whilst it only provides a pitiful 84 horsepower and 83 foot-pounds of torque, the EV version puts down 130 horsepower and 400 foot-pounds of torque, making it quite a bit more powerful.

The Smart Four-Two is popular around the world, especially in built up areas, due to the compact size of the car that makes it doddle to drive around the city and park in tight spaces. The EV version, known as the Electric Drive, only offers a range of 68 miles, a bit less than most other EVs, but 68 miles is still more than most Americans drive each day, so for general daily use the smaller range should have no effect. The Smart Electric Drive is also one of the few EVs that is available all over the US.

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Finally the Nissan Leaf, the grand-daddy of EVs. It seats five, is fairly quick, and as one of the oldest models in the EV market it has earned a fair deal of respect and praise as a decent family car.

By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com