Grid-Tie without netmetering

[rsilvers]

We only buy new cars, but are keeping them for 10 years or so. My mother still has my 99 Mercedes SLK that I bought new and it still is in great condition somehow. That car ended up being a great value. Close to no money on repairs.

[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.

[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.

[ButchDeal]

My fault, tried an analogy that went awry

[NYHeel]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[DanKegel]

I just bought a 3 year old Leaf for $12,500. It's important to not buy one that's lost more than one battery life bar (out of 12). Mine was down one bar. I'm getting ~65 mile range with AC and not being careful, ~90 mile range driving carefully and avoiding hills. I do expect it to degrade over time, so I'm babying it a little. I think I bought because I'm from that generation; leases really are getting sweet these days. And I agree, used 2017 Leafs with the bigger battery are going to have more useful life left in 'em after the lease is over.

[Engineer]

We're going to buy a Bolt when it comes out - and plow the Solar credit refund into it. Sometime after that will get another EV and so will be all electric. Just rent a car if we take a rare long trip.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[progro]

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

http://www.yelp.com/biz/solarcity-rocky-hill-3?search_key=47992

http://www.yelp.com/biz/solarcity-phoenix

You can research nearly any company.

[rsilvers]

I use about 80 per day. My neighbor is 101. Al Gore used 523 a day in 2006.

[Engineer]

Awesome. I prefer electricity, but in California they want you to use NG which I dislike. What do you and your neighbor do that uses so much, heating/cooling?

[rsilvers]

Nothing. We even keep the AC either off or on 76. We don't have electric heat pumps or heat and we have LED lamps. Just large houses.

[Engineer]

Bingo! My POCO considers me an environment destroying monster, but I'm not doing much either. A few things adds up.

[J.P.M.]

That specific system that Ian leased was a some25at unique offering with special buyout terms due to some favorable legislation that allowed for very early depreciation on the leased equipment. I believe Sunpower was the only company to take advantage of it and expired soon after Ian signed on.

If I'd seen a deal like that, even as much as I think leases are a rip off, I'd have jumped on that one. Ian should have bought a lottery ticket the day he made that deal.

[organic farmer]

... 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.

Leaving the cost of leasing aside, we went for the lower priced system. As did most of my neighbors. So far only one neighbors has been suckered in by the slick salesman.

[cebury]

If I'd seen a deal like that, even as much as I think leases are a rip off, I'd have jumped on that one. Ian should have bought a lottery ticket the day he made that deal.

And Sunpower looked favorably on the deal. The 3/watt was in CA PGE territory, but Ian had great local subsidies that dropped it down to $1watt. I don't know if he's in SRP territory but they aren't so favorable on PV anymore.
All the other non SP vendors quoting me were shocked when I showed them the competing proposal and full contract terms as standard rates were somewhere around $5+/watt for nonSP. There were very few on this forum who were familiar with it. Expired in 2011.

[Ian S]

And Sunpower looked favorably on the deal. The 3/watt was in CA PGE territory, but Ian had great local subsidies that dropped it down to $1watt. I don't know if he's in SRP territory but they aren't so favorable on PV anymore.
All the other non SP vendors quoting me were shocked when I showed them the competing proposal and full contract terms as standard rates were somewhere around $5+/watt for nonSP. There were very few on this forum who were familiar with it. Expired in 2011.

I'm with APS and at the time they were giving $1 a watt subsidy but it was probably going to be reduced. It was summer 2011 and I'd had quotes from several installers and was most interested in the prepaid lease. A local installer (Perfect Power) recommended by a friend had offered their in-house prepaid lease using Suniva panels. I was still hemming and hawing when the sales rep came back and said that Sunpower was offering a new deal that he thought I'd like. And wow, did I!! It was far less than anyone else and I soon learned that SunPower were top notch panels. Several folks here had difficulty believing the numbers but the lease terms were clear so I went with it, signing the lease in early October 2011. It wasn't long after that that Perfect Power got into financial trouble and I had a scary few months where I wasn't sure the system would ever materialize. But it did and went live on May 18, 2012. It's been over four years and because the lease actually started in 2011, I have less than two years to go until my early buyout in April of 2018. I've got that date in my Google calendar.

And yes, J.P.M., I should have bought a lottery ticket on the day I signed the lease!

[progro]

To get off the topic of car leasing for a little while

Wanted to follow-up regarding the call to my POCO Eversource. Actually spoke directly with their solar group and explained the system I was planning on building.

5 275W panels with micro inverters.

I said I want to add additional panels in the future as my time/funds permit and they gave me some advice:

1) If I add additional panels, I'll need to submit a new application which is $100 each time since I'm generating more wattage than the original application.
2) Should I go with a DC/AC (Sunny Boy type) inverter I could add on to the maximum that the inverter would allow without additional application fees/approvals.

So even though my initial configuration would only be 1.3 KWh, I could continuously add panels up to the maximum input of the inverter anytime I wanted too.

He said all they care about is the local permit inspection passing and after approval will install the bi-directional meter within a few days. They could
care less who does the install whether its the homeowner, a solar tech company or electrician. He said in the end its all the same since it needs approval
from the town inspector.

They were very helpful and said my installation is very straightforward and would be approved quickly as long as the inverter had UL approvals
and the 240V breaker amperage was appropriate.

He said people that hook up their systems without approval will just be charged for generating excess power since the meter is not bi-directional - he
laughed and said happens more than you would think.

Going to decide this weekend and would like some advice on the micro-inverter vs a Sunny Boy type inverter.

Thanks!