Sell now or at end of lease

[bruin nut]

After 34 ½ months I swapped out the Rav 4 EV yesterday. The car has been truly remarkable. I've not had one single issue with any part of the car. I had 32 k miles of carefree and smog free driving. I ended up leasing a silver Toyota Mirai. I had cancelled my order 8 months ago but now there's many more stations and the on-the-ground experience of owners is universally positive. I already liked the looks (I know I'm in the minority), solid Lexus like build, the driving dynamic, the tech interior, free fuel for 3 years, and especially the range.

The car is hand-assembled in the LFA factory and it really shows. I refueled at the Torrance station last night. I was at ½ tank and it took me 4 minutes. The range and speed of fueling is a big plus. A big negative, of course, is limited infrastructure. But that is much better than the first of the year and will be getting even better going forward.

As for the RAV, my dealer took it at a clean swap with no money changing hands. That was $500 better than CarMax.

:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[TonyWilliams]

What was the residual on your Rav?

If their was an EV version of Mirai that had 215 mile range and Supercharger access "free forever", would you still choose hydrogen with its best planned infrastructure (about 69 stations in California, likely nothing anywhere else)?

 

[bruin nut]

What was the residual on your Rav?

If their was an EV version of Mirai that had 215 mile range and Supercharger access "free forever", would you still choose hydrogen with its best planned infrastructure (about 69 stations in California, likely nothing anywhere else)?

As to your first question: my residual + 2 remaining payments was 20,800. The dealer called it a wash. CarMax offered $21,500.

As to your second question: I would unequivocally choose the EV.

Today I drove 130 miles to 3 different locations, all work-related. I then re-fueled at the Torrance station. My tank was at 65%. It took about 5 minutes to top it off.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Today I drove 130 miles to 3 different locations, all work-related. I then re-fueled at the Torrance station. My tank was at 65%. It took about 5 minutes to top it off.

So, that took approximately 3kg of H2, or about $45 worth, correct? (Paid for by Toyota for 3 years / $15k max)

How about us doing a range test on this car?

 

[ghever]

That does not put the title in your name and I was not aware a dealer will let you transfer title to another owner without first going to my name, is this not correct?

Yes, it would transfer to YOU, and the. You would sign it over to whoever you sold it to.

You don't use a dealer for this... this would be done through Toyota Financial.

So if I want to sell my Rav4 whose lease ends in 10 months, I probably need to wait until month or so before to sell to you since otherwise $1000 over residual wont cover my 10 months X 476??

I'd love to unload my car instead of returning it, but I think residual is around $16000 and I am not sure anyone will want it for that much since it will have around 75,000 miles...

 

[ghever]

regarding the Mirai, I would max out that free fuel thing in less than 2 years with the driving I do.. and spending $8000 per year on gas would be a little cost prohibitive for me. I know cost should go down in those 3 years, but EV is way better option.

Maybe its time for me to visit CarMax to appraise my car now, if they can offer me $21,000 maybe it will be worth it for me to just get out of the lease before my mileage goes up to 75,000... at 57,000 it probably sounds a little better.

Good news is this car has given me no issues over the last 30,000 miles after having to replace the drive motor/ECU twice.

 

[TonyWilliams]

regarding the Mirai, I would max out that free fuel thing in less than 2 years with the driving I do.. and spending $8000 per year on gas would be a little cost prohibitive for me. I know cost should go down in those 3 years, but EV is way better option.

There's no reason to believe that hydrogen delivered at 10,000 psi and -25C temperature at convenient locations is magically going to become lower cost.

It's a commodity, and has been for over 100 years. The price is well known.

A few thousand hydrogen cars won't change that dynamic.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.417.5195&rep=rep1&type=pdf

 

[dstjohn99]

Let me see, put electricity directly into my car?...OR

Use electricity to manufacture hydrogen, either from natural gas or use renewable electricity to split water and collect hydrogen. Then process the hydrogen and compress for storage. Transfer the compressed hydrogen to a truck that burns diesel for transportation to a distribution facility. Transfer the hydrogen from the truck to the distribution facility tanks (a VERY FEW locations may have it delivered by pipeline). Now transfer the compressed hydrogen to a car where it... wait for it... is consumed in a fuel cell and converted to electricity to power an electric car. The benefit being I can drive hundreds of miles across country to a location that does not have hydrogen available, then refuel in minutes rather than hours and drive back - if only there were filling stations as widespread as the electric grid. At $1B each I'm sure every politician is scrambling for this money rather than repair our roads, build more L3 EV stations or resolve our water issues.

IMHO the only way hydrogen will EVER make sense is if there is so much renewable energy that the excess is used to create hydrogen from lemonade (according to Toyota), so the energy (hydrogen) can be stored for later use where it is practically free due to the huge supply and limited demand. I don't think anyone is working on this business model currently.

Just my opinion. Sorry if I offend.