Financial Analysis for PSP Electric Vehicle Program
by ineoeni
on September 20th, 2011
Hi everyone,
At the request of some neighbors, I've put together a spreadsheet to help everyone figure out the financial implications of getting an electric vehicle (through the PSP program or otherwise).
The spreadsheet is pretty robust, in order to take into account the myriad of scenarios we are all in. For example:
If you currently own your car, and think you can get another 5 years out of it, but you think you can get $5,000 for it today, you can do sell it and then get the EV.
If you currently own your car, but still owe some money on it, you can still sell it - cover the balance of your loan and get the EV.
If you are looking for a new car because yours is defunct - you can do a straight up comparison with the spreadsheet.
You can also toggle your expectation of gas and electricity inflation (but I wouldn't really recommend it) - you can toggle the specifics of the Replacement EV (the numbers in it currently are for a Volt. If you want to model the Leaf, change the "Electric MIles" to 100% since there is no gas at all.
The only constraint is that I don't model changes in maintenance costs. The case can be made that if you sell an older vehicle today (or even a new gas-powered vehicle) that since the EV's have fewer moving parts, there should be less maintenance, making it even more financially attractive, but in order to stay conservative and since these variables are currently unknowable, they are ignored in the spreadsheet.
Make sure you fill in every field in blue to the best of you knowledge to get the right numbers.
I did not model the Lease because the primary benefit of the lease is going to be through fuel savings. For people interested in leasing, if your alternative is a vehicle that gets 25 mpg, a Volt would save you $3,000 in fuel costs over three years ($83/month). If your existing vehicle gets 15 mpg - it will save you $5,700 over three years ($158/month). Leasing the vehicle considering the downpayment and lease payment seems like a no-brainer in terms of cost, but reducing cost is not the only consideration with these things.
Good luck and if you find any issues with the spreadsheet, or if you have questions, shoot me an email at amankj at gmail.com.
Aman