Why this Arvada family decided to lease an electric car

Josh O’Dell liked driving his pickup to work, but a state program made the logic of an EV compelling.

Josh O’Dell commutes 7.5 miles between his home in the Olde Town neighborhood of Arvada and his job at 108^th and Wadsworth in Westminster. He’s now travels in a leased Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle.

The economics persuaded him, thanks to a state program that went into effect in 2023. The state program allows auto dealers to corral state and federal credits and pass along the savings to drivers.

Odell is leasing the car for two years from a Nissan dealer in Longmont, paying $120 a month. When that lease is up, he has an option to buy the car at what he describes as an incredibly low price.

As for the fuel savings, they are eye opening. He parks on the street in front of his house, which has no garage. Instead, he charges the Leaf usually twice a week on ChargePoint chargers at his work location.

In October, he spent $19 in electricity to cover 645 miles of driving. Had he instead purchased a new Toyota Corolla for his commuting, he would have spent about $60 on gas.

In addition to fuel savings, he expects his EV will require far less maintenance than is required for internal-combustion engines as they have no moving parts. The exception is in tires. Tires on EVs tend to wear out 20% more rapidly, owing in part to the heavier batteries in EVS and their more rapid torque, according to one expert interviewed by Newsweek.

O’Dell is a pickup-driving sort of guy. For a long time he drove a Ram 1500 to his jobs in equipment maintenance, first at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden and now at BAE Systems.

“I put 100,000 miles on it, and I loved it,” he said of the pickup.

Then, Odell and his wife, Katie, decided to get a camper-trailer for trips such as to Yellowstone National Park. That required a heftier pickup, which now primarily sits in the driveway. But as a commuting vehicle, it was less satisfactory. The diesel engine warms up more slowly, and it was harder to maneuver in traffic.

Odell said he had “zero interest” in getting an electric car until he happened to notice the pricing. “The offer was crazy.” Investigating, he found a story by Colorado Public Radio that explained the program.

“I didn’t have to do anything at all to get the (state and federal tax) rebates.”

The car, purchased new, costs around $30,000, but the rebates totaled around $8,500. He will pay a little less than $3,000 across the two years and then be able to buy it outright for $18,000.

If he had purchased a used Toyota Corolla, he said, he probably would have found nothing under $5,000.

The Leaf has one major disadvantage of many potential buyers. It has a range of 150 miles. That would be off-putting to many, but for a 7.5-mile commute, it’s just fine. It takes more planning, more attention to the remaining energy in the battery. And cool weather can deplete the battery capacity by half. But if you have a charger at work, as he does, so much the better.

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