A New Nissan Ariya For $31,000?

Last Updated on: 30th July 2025, 12:28 pm

The other day someone who is not a Republican told me that electric vehicles cost $187,000. The person also is a progressive Democrat and was implying that fossil fuels are not that bad. The person said you can just get a hybrid. Of course, fossil fuels are the primary contributor to climate change and burning them generates a huge amount of toxic air pollution that harms human health and contributes to premature deaths. Hybrids use fossil fuels and therefore are definitely not a solution. Perpetuating the same problems, just a little less, cannot be a solution.

It only took about 5 minutes to find a brand new all-electric vehicle that costs far less than $187,000. It even costs much less than $40,000. The EV is a new Nissan Ariya located at a Nissan dealer in the San Francisco Bay Area. The price of $31,000 is before any government incentives. As of July, there still is a federal EV tax incentive and California may have its own EV incentives. So, depending on the buyer’s tax situation, the new Nissan Ariya might actually be purchased for less than $31,000. To be clear, it may be beneficial for an EV buyer to ask an accountant about how to deal with any government incentives and of course to ask the dealer before making the purchase. 

Even at the “full” price of $31,000, a new Nissan Ariya might be a good choice for some buyers. There appears to be a lot of confusion in the minds of many people about the cost of electric vehicles. A day after someone tried to tell me that EVs cost $187,000, I was talking to a Chevy Bolt owner who told me his 2018 Bolt is a great car and one of the best for the low price of about $15,000–$20,000. Somehow he also believes that EVs “cost too much.” He said they usually cost $40,000. Well, no. They don’t all cost at least $40,000. As we see with just 5 minutes of online searching, a new Nissan Ariya is much less, and before incentives! Potentially, the cost could be lower than $30,000.

Additionally, it seems perhaps not that many adults understand what total cost of ownership is. In some cases, but not all, electric vehicles can cost less to purchase and operate. Further, with gas and diesel vehicles, the full price of all the costs for human health problems, premature human deaths, and the environment are not factored into their costs. Using gasoline and diesel fuel causes a lot of harm to human health and the environment, and the social and environmental costs are not typically considered for internal combustion vehicles.

Of course, fossil fuels also have the cost from billionaire oil tycoons and huge corporations making mega donations to politicians to manipulate laws in their own favor. They don’t care if members of the public get sick or die from toxic air pollution exposure, heat exposure, polluted air, polluted water, contaminated food, etc. They also don’t care about whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and shorebirds that die in oil spill disasters. Many of us everyday people do care and we can vote with our dollars by not using fossil fuels, or drastically decreasing that use.