It's almost impossible to drive an EV so much as to go over the lease miles, due to range restrictions and charging times. A LEAF can be had for $200 a month.
12,000 miles per year is < 33 miles per day. That's certainly doable when the range of the car is ~80 miles per day.
For the car to be 'free' you would certainly need to be driving it that many miles per day. Say I drive a pickup that gets 15 MPG. If I drive 1,000 miles per month (I don't, but that's the amount generally allowed for a leased vehicle -- 12,000 miles per year), and if those 1,000 miles can be driven in the Spark, then I'm buying ~67 less gallons of gas per month. At $3/gallon, I'm saving $200 per month in gas, and at $4/gallon I'm saving $268 per month in gas. The money I'm saving on gas for my pickup pays for the Spark. We shouldn't forget the $999 down payment, but over three years that's just under $28/month. And then there's the cost of electricity. There's an annual fuel cost of $400, or $33 per month (based on $.12 per kW-hr and 12,000 miles--however, where I live that's going to be about $10 cheaper per month, but I'll use the $33 for these calculations).
My cost: $199 + $28 + $33 = $260/month
My savings: $268/month (at $4/gallon of gas).
I only drive my pickup around 8,000 miles per year, which is ~45 gallons of gas per month. So my savings are only $180/month at $4/gallon of gas, making the cost of the Spark ~$80/month, or $2880 for the 3 year lease.
At this point I can work over the numbers even further so that car is even cheaper saying that over half of my miles can be deducted for business, saving me over $800/year in federal income tax. That brings me down to around $14/month, or $504 for the 3 year lease.
Excellent points, thanks. It makes me wonder, do leases let you "buy" an extra mileage allowance up front? Assuming it's not too expensive, that might add further savings.
Otherwise the commute I have in mind is 90 miles per day x 5 days per week. So the mileage limits wouldn't work.
