Want to jump the queue for a mid-size electric vehicle? Get ready to pay big time

So, you want to buy an electric car? If you live in Vancouver, good luck with that. Expect to get in line and wait a very long time unless you can afford to pay far more than you hoped or expected.

There’s a racket being run at auto dealerships that might get you an electric vehicle sooner than the current two-year wait cited for many mid-sized, longer-range vehicles. But only if you are willing to stretch your wallet for the fully loaded model and other financing conditions that will push the cost well past an already daunting list price.

My husband and I recently got the rundown from an honest salesperson at a dealership I won’t name, for obvious reasons. In relating our experience to friends, I have heard this is something that is happening at other dealerships as well.

We own an aging Subaru that still runs fairly well most days. But as my husband Mike likes to say, any car in the back half of its life is going to start to cost you.

Ours has admirably supported that theory; over the last few years, it has rewarded our loyalty with alternator troubles, failing suspension components and a routine water pump and timing belt replacement. But the last straw was a broken turbocharger pipe that shot exhaust inside the car, driving home the very nature of gas-powered vehicles, which are, at their core, disgusting polluters.

We fixed the car and it’s running well, for now. But knowing something else will inevitably conk out soon, we started to shop for a new vehicle. We decided the next one should be fully electric. At the top of our list were the Hyundai Ioniq, Kia EV6, Volkswagen id.4 and Subaru Solterra.

We have our eye on those because they have a longer range than many of the smaller EVs and can fit our leggy poodle-cross in the back. We didn’t consider a Tesla, which might be more readily available because of the cost and … Elon.

All of the four we are considering, we were told, had two-year waits, at least for the base models. Our honest salesperson was upfront about that. He explained manufacturers are making and shipping the top-line models first and he had no idea when the stripped-down versions would start to arrive.

If we were in a real rush, he said, we could probably get a fully loaded model sooner, with conditions.

First, he said, we had to finance our new car through the dealership, which means paying a minimum of six months interest. We weren’t thrilled about that, but we were even less thrilled by the second caveat: we had to throw in our old car as a trade-in.

Here’s where our man’s honest side really kicked in. The dealership would give us $1,200 for our 2009 accident-free Subaru, which has lower-than-average mileage and has been well-maintained. When we asked what we could expect selling privately, he told us the truth: about $9,000.

We started to do the math, and it wasn’t pretty. All of these cars sell for upward of $45,000, which already seems high to us. Then add another $8,000 for the souped-up model, $7,800 lost in the trade-in and interest payments of about $2,000, and we were looking at upwards of $15,000 to jump the queue.

We thanked him for the information and grumbled all the way home. For the record, we will not be sucked into an upgrade. The base models are more than fancy enough for us, and none of these vehicles is remotely cheap.

If we do ever buy an EV, it will be the first new car ever for us, and we’re already reeling from the sticker shock. The government rebates — on these models, $5,000 from the feds and $4,000 from B.C. — definitely sweeten the pot, but we’re hearing the cost of some of them are going up next year by amounts that may price them out of full subsidy range. We don’t know for sure, but given the economic times, it seems likely.

Meanwhile, we’ll keep sinking more money into repairing the old Subaru while unhappily filling it with gas and biking around town when possible. It’s not our first choice. But right here, right now, the array of options normally available to Canadians is scant, and there is nothing to do but wait.