LOL, no. I sat in one of those and took it on a 10 minute test drive. I'm a bigger guy; I have wide shoulders and a size 14 wide foot. (The mini was so small that my feet smothered the gas and brake pedals at the same time no matter how I sat in the car.) I looked like there should be 10-12 more clowns coming out behind me. The two friends who tagged along with me did not stop laughing for about two hours after the test drive.

I'm looking at a Prius V (the wagon) and a Mazda 3 5-door. Reading up on the Ford C-Max, I may have to go try one on and see how I fit inside the thing as the new iteration is a lot more reliable and getting better reviews. I need a hatchback to fit in the garage, I need something big enough to transport the telescope and I need something that gets at least 35MPG to do better than what I have now. My credit union has approved me for a .80% new car loan if I get a car before the end of the year, so I may have to jump on that before the rate hike. The current 12 year old car is still running fine and I hate car payments, so I am trying to keep the existing running.

One of the things that really brings these types of discussions home is to talk about a few of my coworkers. They commute 70-100 miles per day to work, five days a week. One drives a Tahoe, one drives an Excursion(!), and another drives an F150. Each of these gets 12-15MPG for what amounts to a basic commuter car. Buying a new Prius in each of these three cases would save them enough gas every month to make the car payment, probably lower their insurance (multi car discounts) and make us that much less dependent on fossil fuels. How many other people are doing this? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? The idea of Tesla and pure electric cars is amazing and I support it 100%. The reality is, however, that replacing thousands of sub-twenty MPG commuter cards with 30-40MPG cars would do so much more right now toward global warming, dependency on the middle east and pollution. For the same 130K for a Tesla, all three of these people could move to a commuter car saving 110+ gallons of gas a month each.

Now, if I win the lottery, I'm getting a model X because TECHNOLOGY FUCK YEA. And 100% agree with you on the leasing of any pure electric car. If something weird comes up in those two years or the weather screws up the LiOn cells and you turn the car in to be someone else's headache.