Featured If you plan to buy an electric car, you should do it this month (Dec 2017)

If you plan to buy an electric car, you should do it this month

If you're living in the US, and thinking about but still on the fence with leasing or buying new plug-in car, now would be a very good time to buy one. Aside from getting potentially great deals on them, because not many people want to buy a new car in winter time (at least in areas where snow shows and sticks around), and with it being the end of the calendar year, dealers may be motivated to push their remaining stock out before the new year.

Plus you won't have to wait very long to get the tax credit if you buy it new compared to buying one in January, then having to wait till next year. Used plug-ins don't qualify for it, but you still benefit indirectly because that tax credit also lops a sizable chunk off the resale value, aka it's artificially cheaper too.

Another reason, as mentioned in the article, is that the current US administration may decide to kill the tax credit off early. It's possible it may survive intact, since it's working as intended and will phase out soon for several automakers anyway, notably Tesla, GM, and Nissan.

But they might just decide those tax cuts to the rich and corporations have to be paid for somehow, and the plug-in tax credit is a very easy political punching bag, with critics painting it as a tax credit only for the rich, who then drive around in those fancy and expensive Tesla-mobiles that joe and jane middle class could only dream of owning.

If you want to get one, but don't have reliable charging, consider a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt, Ford Fusion Energi, Honda Clarity (not the pure electric or fuel cell version), or Toyota Prius Prime. You can run them on gas, but if you find opportunities to charge them, they're very fun to drive on electric.

Hoping this doesn't get tossed into Fred's House due to the nature of the content. But I hope to see more plug-in vehicles being offered by many automakers, and more people worldwide buying them and seeing that they don't have to be completely shackled to Big Oil and OPEC anymore.