Our process to settle on leasing the 2019 Hyundai Ioniqu plug in hybrid was lengthy, and included talking to several friends (including one who’s a transportation expert with the State of California), test driving a half dozen vehicles, and walking through the finances at two dealerships. However, the ultimate decision came down to a couple basic principles.
First, we knew we wanted a plug in because we signed up for a 100% green option through our power company, and because so much less fuel is burned. For example, on the electric battery, we get over 100 MPGe, which is meant to be an electric equivalent of the regular MPG metric (I’ll look into that one later). While we thought long and hard about getting a fully electric like the Nissan Leaf, the ranges on those cars still aren’t great, and this car is the only one our family will really use. It’s true that cars like the Chevy Volt can get upwards of 250 miles without a recharge, but there aren’t exactly that many changing stations between, say, Ashland, OR and Sacramento, CA.
One reason to lease is that we hope the ranges on the fully electric cars go up substantially in the next few years. Plus, there are all kinds of benefits to leasing we hadn’t been aware of. Really, the only way that buying a car is a good investment is if you think the car will last far beyond the payoff date. While most of our cars have lived on past 60 months when our debts are settled, they have not generally lasted much longer. With that in mind, leasing was the cheapest in terms of monthly payments and means we can take the car back in at the end of the three years and either buy it, lease something new, or move on with our lives. If the blue book value of the car is lower than what was estimated at the time of the lease, we are not on the hook financially. If, by some miracle, the value is higher, we can either pocket that money or use it towards a down payment on the perfect electric vehicle (yet to be invented). The only downside to the lease is that you don’t pocket the tax benefits, the dealer does since they technically own it. Still, you should be able to negotiate that tax break into the monthly cost of the lease.
One benefit of the plug in hybrid is that most models have a fully electric range of about 30 miles. That means pretty much all the driving we do during the week will be in electric mode since the only place we generally go that’s not accessible by bike or bus is our kids’ preschool (we can take them to their K-12 schools on public transit). On weekends when go on a trip hiking, we’ll still get about 50 MPG even if we end up well beyond the 30 mile range. One thing to investigate when considering a plug in is whether there are reasons the model might switch out of Electric Vehicle (EV) mode when not desired. For example, some cars have been said to default to combustion when using climate control or going up hills.
When it came to which plug in hybrid, there were three options that stood out based on reviews: the Toyota Prius, the Kia Blah Blah Blah, and the Hyundai Ioniq. (Points against the Kia for having the most forgettable plug in hybrid name, which I had to google again when writing this post–it’s the Niro.) We didn’t like the Prius only because it felt very small, especially in contrast to our Sportage. Further, Hyundai and Kia whatever-its-called both had especially good warranties because they’re trying to compete in this market more. For example, there is a lifetime guarantee on the Ioniq battery (this is less of a perk, of course, when leasing since you aren’t likely to have a batter that craps out in the first few years anyway). We settled on Hyundai because the price was better and we liked some of the accoutrements, but we could have gone either way, especially since the Kia somethin’-somethin’ felt a tiny bit more spacious.
While some of the specifics of this post may be out of date by the time you read it, we hope the thought process will be useful to you, if nothing else. And, we’ll have to rewrite this whole thing in three years anyway when the lease ends. (That’s a little environmental blog cliffhanger right there for ya! It’s like the climate action equivalent of an episode of 24.)
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