this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Did you include the loan payment, assuming you have one?
What about the lease payment for the solar panels?
You can even buy solar panels at Harbor Freight these days. At the moment, nominal 100 watt panels for $95 each. If you can drive the screws and find somewhere to stick them, there's no need to sign up for a predatory lease. To level one charge (i.e. 120v at 15 amps, 1800 watts) you'd only need 18 of the things, maybe call it 20 to have some fudge factor built in, that's $1880 plus probably some bits and bobs for a frame and wiring, inverters, and so on.
That'd only be 151 square feet of panels. Your local code authority will probably have less to say about it if you have a solar carport plugged directly into your car and nothing else versus nailing them to your house's roof, as well.
Don't get debt for a depreciating asset!
Take those loan payments and put them in a savings account. Then buy the car.
I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm in the same situation of driving an EV and have solar panels.
I bought the solar panel system outright with no lease/loan. It is very much paying for itself and the full payback of the solar system continues to get shorter as electricity prices rise. When installed I had an 11 year payback. That has dropped to a 9 year payback now. I'm in a mostly red state that is is 20 years behind California in solar deployments. This means most of the rules that benefited early California solar buyers are still in place in my state. Full 1:1 net metering, option for discounted Time-of-use rates available only on EV charging.
As I'm posting this I'm pushing a KWh back to the grid and getting the full value of that KWh. I can draw back that KWh later tonight after the sun goes down. Even better, with the EV TOU I charge my EV not on sunlight, but instead after midnight and pay 75% only the cost of the KWh. All this banked money/energy I end up using later in the year when the home heating costs go up.
I know this won't last forever. As my state catches up to the rest of the advanced blue states and we have a solar surplus during the sunlight hours I'll be in the same situation as California solar users. However that still looks to be potentially 10 years out.
No you misunderstood. My power comes from the electric company. Their power comes from solar.
Loan is based on cost not type of vehicle.