Buying a Spark EV in Maryland

[Dusty]

Hello Everyone!

As of last Tuesday, I'm a proud and happy owner of a new Spark EV. This car is so great in so many ways, I'm sure there will be lots of other Marylanders following suit if the word ever gets out. But the process hasn't been entirely painless; I made some mistakes and wasted some time along the way. If it's OK with everyone here, I'd like to document the experience with the hopes that others who find this message can avoid some pitfalls and save some money, too.

First of all, I live out Rt 50 east of Washington and I contacted the local Chevy dealer last January to get put on a list for available Spark EVs. They never once contacted me to let me know they had one in stock. About 2 weeks ago, after noticing the cars were trickling into inventory, I enlisted a buying service (TrueCar) through USAA (my insurance company). I got 3 responses, all from dealers who didn't have the car, one of which was the local Chevy dealer.

The local Chevy dealer has a sister Chevy dealer in Rockville. I took their TrueCar estimate out to Rockville last Saturday, test drove one of their 5 Spark EVs, and consented to buy it. The first price they showed me was MSRP minus the $1200 Chevy bonus cash, which was about $1000 more than the TrueCar estimate. After lots of haggling, they dropped the price about $300 and I left. On the long drive home, they called to drop the price another $200. No thanks.

When I got home, I noticed the local Chevy dealer was showing a Spark EV in stock. I emailed the salesman there to learn the car was not in stock. On Sunday, I had my brother-in-law fill out their web form on the car and they responded the car was in stock. Evidently, they weren't contacting me because they didn't want to honor their TrueCar estimate.

Monday morning I called the Chevy dealer in Frederick. They advertise no-haggle prices but didn't have a Spark EV with the fast-charge option. I asked how long it would take to get one and they answered, "How about this afternoon?" While I was on the phone with Andrew L. at the Frederick dealership, the Rockville dealer called again with their bottom line offer - $24,900, roughly equivalent to the TrueCar estimate. No thanks, again. When I relayed this exchange to Andrew, he offered $24,600 which was in line with their advertised internet price. I said let's do it.

To make the sale, the Frederick Chevy dealer traded one of their Spark EVs with the Silver Spring Chevy dealer. Andrew also found me a loan that was 1/2 a point less than what I negotiated with USAA. Unfortunately, by the time Frederick received the car that afternoon for detailing, its battery was too low to deliver to me that evening, so I had to wait until Tuesday. The car arrived, I signed the papers and now it's mine!

Given my experience, I suspect if Frederick will deliver new Spark EVs east of Washington, they would do likewise to Baltimore and Hagerstown. And I see the two sister Chevy dealers have a total of 9 Spark EVs in stock if you want to test drive one of these great little cars. Just don't mention TrueCar and perhaps you'll fare better than I did.

In addition to the $7500 federal tax credit, Marylanders buying a Spark EV are offered three incentives from the state. The big one is the excise tax rebate which totals $2375 (form VR-334). The application needs to be submitted by the dealer after the title has been issued. Right now the program is out of money for fiscal year 2015, but should get another $1.287 million July 1st. Hopefully there aren't too may leftover applications before I get mine in.

Another incentive rebates half the cost of installing charging equipment up to $900. You can find the details here http://energy.maryland.gov/Transportation/evserebate.html. Drivers of plug-in electric vehicles are also exempted from HOV-2 restrictions in the state. As far as I know, that only pertains to I-270 and Rt 50 but that could be a lot of Spark EVs considering the size of these roads. The permit is free, the form number is VR-335, you apply after getting your title and they send you a sticker for the back of your car.

Finally, you might be eligible for an electric rate discount from either BG&E or Pepco if you agree to home-charge late at night. I don't know the details yet, still have to install my Level 2 charger, but will update this thread if I learn anything useful.

Hope this helps...

 

[mczajka]

Congrats! Hope to meet you at one of our future events: www.mdvolt.org

I got mine about a month ago. Last weekend I did a road trip from So. MD to Mt. Airy. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Carney]

Very helpful; thank you!

I have my eye on one at Criswell Chevrolet right now; it's exactly what I want - an electric blue 1LT with fast charging. Now if I only I can talk the wife into it...

 

[Dusty]

Congrats! Hope to meet you at one of our future events: http://www.mdvolt.org

Hey Mark… I poked around your site and particularly liked the meet up at Linganore. I'm curious, with so many EVs in one place, who decides who gets one of the two charging hookups? Anyway, I'm sure we'll meet up someplace after I get used to all this and overcome some of my range anxiety.

Dusty

 

[Dusty]

Now if I only I can talk the wife into it...

Yeah, my wife isn't too happy about the new car even though she needs it more than I do. Aside from the economical and environmental benefits, switching to electric requires change and for most people, that's pretty scary. But she'll come around one day, probably after her first trip into the city using Rt 50's HOV lane. Sweeeeet!

 

[Carney]

Now if I only I can talk the wife into it...

Yeah, my wife isn't too happy about the new car even though she needs it more than I do. Aside from the economical and environmental benefits, switching to electric requires change and for most people, that's pretty scary. But she'll come around one day, probably after her first trip into the city using Rt 50's HOV lane. Sweeeeet!

She personally likes little zippy cars (used to drive a Cabrio) and is okay with going electric, but would prefer the Volt because it's bigger (safer, better as a backup kid-hauler) and she likes the gasoline backup since she fears my being stranded (I can be absent minded).

Also she's against all debt and leases, even in near ideal situations like this where you can get a 0% loan or an insanely cheap lease, so we'd have to tap savings and/or liquidate some assets such as stock, which I don't like since that means forgoing interest coming our way. Looking at our Mint.com account I can see how it would be tough to squeeze a monthly payment of any kind into our budget (both are current vehicles are paid for) but then I think sheesh - I make nearly $90K, she pulls in another 30 or so, the kid's in public school, we have dirt cheap rock-bottom phone and TV service and shop at the cheapo grocery store (ALDI) and get nearly everything secondhand. TMI, I guess, sorry.

 

[Dusty]

Your family sounds a lot like ours, especially the Aldi part...

The thing that made buying the Spark EV so compelling was the tax credits. My wife and I are both self-employed and we can deduct the $7500 from our estimated payments, with the first deduction of $2500 happening in a few days. By next January, we'll have recovered the $5000 down payment with enough left over to cover monthly payments for more than a year. In the meantime, we'll be saving more than $100 month in operating expenses even after you factor in the cost of insurance. And using the Spark EV will take the pressure off our current vehicles which will extend their usability. Last year I spent more than $2000 on my Toyota in repairs and maintenance, a lot of which "Li'l Sparky" will never need.

As far as taxes, I think I read somewhere about someone temporarily increasing their dependents to get the $7500 back sooner. Not sure if that's OK or not, but it could be worth a call to find out.

Dusty

 

[mczajka]

Dusty, Good question. It's always a challenge at events, but we just end up sharing. I actually never used them. Fortunately for that area, there are 2 new FREE charging stations in the town of Mt. Airy. I drove up very early that day from So. MD. (left at 6 AM) Took 210N to 295N to the GW Parkway. I drove through Potomac up to the Kentlands/Gaithersburg and charged at an apt. complex for 4 hours. Only one resident uses these and they charge a small fee, like $.20 per kwh. I was able to casually have breakfast at Whole Foods and walk around. I mostly had a full battery again. I then drove up to Mt. Airy and charged there for 1.5 hours while I had lunch. When I got to the event, I was pretty good on charge. We were there for about 4 hours. We had a Volt owner who came in late who needed to charge, so we move a car so he could do it.

Coming home, I went right back to Kentlands/Gaithersburg, charged for a couple hours, then had a great sushi meal. I left there at about 8:30 PM. It took some planning, but I was never low enough to have any major range anxiety. I could have stretched it much more, but I'm still learning how the car performs in the heat.