Grid-Tie without netmetering

[Engineer]

So you don't have tiering I guess? CA tiering is really punitive, at 30kWh I'm already into Tier 4 which is twice the rate of 34 cents/kWh.

[progro]

Always good to do research, for others researching, Yelp is your friend, some examples:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/solarcity-ro...arch_key=47992
http://www.yelp.com/biz/solarcity-phoenix

You can research nearly any company.

[SunEagle]

We also have some apples and oranges in the mix here. I'm in a 1600 sq ft home and never paid more than $6000 for a vehicle (and that was a nice 65 Corvair). The last three cars I've bought cost me $4200 in total for all three. My lease or buy decision points will not be the same as others.

Sort of back on topic, leasing solar would have been a terrible choice for me but maybe not for others. What I've learned with both cars and solar is that too many people make the wrong choices because they don't look at the details and trust what someone else is telling them.

I have to agree with you. People can be easily fooled by a slick salesperson.

Anyone want to buy a bridge?

[azdave]

We also have some apples and oranges in the mix here. I'm in a 1600 sq ft home and never paid more than $6000 for a vehicle (and that was a nice 65 Corvair). The last three cars I've bought cost me $4200 in total for all three. My lease or buy decision points will not be the same as others.

Sort of back on topic, leasing solar would have been a terrible choice for me but maybe not for others. What I've learned with both cars and solar is that too many people make the wrong choices because they don't look at the details and trust what someone else is telling them.

[rsilvers]

$61k MBZ E Class $405 tax included.....etc.

So $14,580 to own it for three years. I have to say, that is a great value if it is for three years.

For an E-Class with a package that brings the MSRP to $63,000, TueCar says you can buy it for $56,000. Not sure what tax rate is, but let's say 5%. Call it $59,000 out the door.

Purchase with 3.11% APR would be $1719 per month with $5000 down for 36 months. So that is $61,872. Worth $25,000 after 3 years. So if you buy it, it cost you $36,872 for three years.

Seems like Mercedes should be leased.

[silversaver]

All leases have a "residual value amount" that is factored into the lease prices. So if a Toyota is more reliable, it will have lower lease payments as a result.

The only reason to lease is if you are a business owner and can benefit from the tax deduction. And even then, it is only a maybe on leasing.

Please give one example with a new car right now, even including any incentives, where it is a better deal for a non-business-owner to lease than buy. You won't be able to find one. Once you give your example, I will show you how you can buy the car for the same or a lower cost of ownership over any number of years.

$0 down lease: $47k MBZ B Class $229 tax included (before $2500 clean vehicle rebate), $61k MBZ E Class $405 tax included.....etc

PS. I alse have a Smart ED for $26 tax included, $0 down.

My solar were installed back in 2013 for $2.84/Watt before any incentives.

Please, I'm not here to show off what I got, I'm just tired to argue about lease/purchase and which is better. You spend your money your way and I don't really care. Yes, it is simple math.

[azdave]

Sorry. I should not have mentioned that using someone else's money (leasing) is always a better deal for the person letting you use their money.

[randomuser]

A friend of mine picked up a lease return Leaf last year. When he got it, he said it was able to go 60-65 miles on a charge. After a year, the battery has degraded to go about 50-55 miles a charge. It looks like many EVs are in the process of getting a battery upgrade this year or next year. It sort of feels like the annual cell phone improvement speed from 5 years ago. I think once all EVs come out of the factory with 200 mile range, that works for me as a local commuter car which I can keep long term. After 10 years/120K miles, if the battery degrades to 120 miles, that's sufficient for me and a car I'd buy.

[ButchDeal]

electric vehicles last a long long time. Best option is to purchase the 3 year old one from the lease.

[randomuser]

Aw, you guys are sucking me in with the car talk. After getting solar installed, with the near term goal of getting an EV car, I'm looking at cars now. To me, it doesn't seem to make any sense to buy an EV. Technology is changing so fast and the manufacturers seem to have incentives to sell/lease cars in my state, CA. Lease prices seem decent. There's a website which shows the best EV lease prices and the Chevy Spark is ~$45/month for 3 years after the CA $2500 rebate. The price to buy is ~$21K before the $10K total federal and state rebates. I just don't see how purchasing is better than leasing. This is from someone who has never leased a car before but I just don't see buying an EV as a better choice over leasing one.

[NYHeel]

Message boards always have annoying people like myself that go off on long tangents.

[ButchDeal]

My fault, tried an analogy that went awry

[NYHeel]

Problem with solar leases is they are taking the SRECs and tax credit giving very little credit for them.

Really they are using your roof for their own benefit as if Verizon needed it to put up a cell tower.

This is the problem with leasing solar. They take all the incentives for themselves and don't give you much back for it. If there were no incentives at all then leasing might make more sense. Obviously it would depend on the terms, but fundamentally it should be similar to buying with more restrictions.

[NYHeel]

Amazing, I asked about net metering and we turned this into a debate on leasing cars

Well the answer to that question is easy. Yes, solar net metering. It's good.

[NYHeel]

In my mind I often decide between buying used and leasing new. I decide on leasing new for two reasons. One I need bigger cars for carpooling my kids and bigger cars typically cost a lot more. Second, I'm not a car guy. Meaning I'm not a mechanic or mechanically inclined when it comes to cars. Mechanics in my area are very expensive and while I have one I generally trust I hate not having a clue and having to rely on my my mechanic. Typically I like to know as much as possible about most things I spend money on. For whatever reason, I never got cars. Have no clue what's going on under the hood. If my car broke down on the highway I wouldn't have a clue how to fix it. So with that said, I like to deal with newer cars that have less likelihood of malfunction.

Now I have a commuting car that I only put on about 3500 miles a year. I bought that car back in 2008 because I figured I wasn't going to put on a lot of miles. The lease terms also were terrible for that car. Now it's a paid off 8 year old car with less than 32,000 miles on it. So buying makes sense sometimes and leasing makes sense for me sometimes. To each their own. It just annoys me when people assume that you're throwing money out the door by leasing over buying new. I agree that I'm probably throwing money out the door by getting a new car over a used one (whether it's a lease or a purchase) but that's my conscious decision.