Nissan has announced the price for the new Leaf .$25,280 after the tax rebate. Still a bit pricey until you look at the details. say you fill up once a week, 50 or so miles a day. at current fuel prices would be about 120 to 150 bucks a month. Your electric car would use about $1.50 per day at regular charging rates, or about 30 bucks a month. But if you live in Los Angeles and you have a dedicated meter for your EV and with nighttime charging rates you would be paying about 1.28 cents per kWh. That works out to about 3 bucks a month. Subtract from that, the average expected cost of maintenance for an internal combustion engine vehicle, of about 800 bucks a year. And it gets even better.

So you're looking at $349 a month for the car, minus, say $100 a month difference between the gas and electricity, minus the 66 bucks in average maintenance, you are spending less than 200 a month for a brand new car.

And look at this as an added benefit. If you can afford to put Solar panels on your home now, and were to put 3 to 4 kW's of panels on your roof. You would take care of your transportation and power needs right into your retirement.