The great car debate

I am currently driving a Subaru Legacy station wagon, with just over 100,000 miles on it. I would like to be driving an electric car (or be all on my bike or the bus - but I've shown I can't do that with two little kids in tow and my work schedule).

The subaru is paid off, finally, but now we are entering the stage where it just is going to go bad, bit by bit. We have a weird noise and a weird jerking-action on tight turns when the car is warm, and today I took it in (again) to see if the shop could figure out what that is. They think it might be the rear differential - which will cost me $600 just to take apart and might cost $2000 to fix. Ouch, on a car that is only worth about $4500 at this point.

I really want to buy an electric car and just park that subaru as our "spare" car. I can buy one of these Xebras for under $10,000, and it would work for my "neighborhood" driving, which is most of my driving. I could get around town on all electric power, but I would be limited to under 30 mph. And the subaru would have to keep running, for times when we needed to go farther than 30 miles from home or go faster than 30 mph.

If I wait a bit longer, I could buy a Nissan Leaf when it comes out. It's still affordable, for me, priced at 25,000 and getting a tax break. It would go freeway speeds, and it's still all electric. And it's bigger, so I could really carry both kids in comfort and maybe get my full grocery run at the same time. Folks who have reserved one could get them in December.

Or there is the Chevy Volt or the Prius plug-in hybrid. They are both more expensive, but they have the advantage that if you run out of electric charge, you can keep going on gasoline. With the Prius, they estimate that you can go 13 miles on just electric charge, so that would get me to work and back again with zero emissions. But - that won't be out until next fall.

I don't want to wait until next year to get a new car. I don't want to still be burning gasoline to run back and forth across town, especially with the new schedule that will hit me this September with both kids in different schools. But I also don't want to spend $10,000 on a NEV (neighborhood electric vehicle) this year and then decide that what I really want is a Nissan Leaf next year.

What to do?