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Lease deals get all the hype, but most people still want to own the car after they’re done making all those payments on it. If that sounds like you, and you’ve been waiting for the interest rates on auto loans to drop, you’re in luck: there are a bunch of great plug-in cars you can buy with 0% financing and at pre-tariff prices this April!

UPDATE: a new-age muscle car and the best #vanlife deal in the biz!

As I was putting this list together, I realized there were plenty of ways for me to present this information. “Best EVs ..?” Too opinion based. “Cheapest EVs ..?” Too much research. “Best deal ..?” That’s usually subjective, but as automakers and dealers rush to raise prices in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs, two brands – Ford and Nissan – stand apart.

In the end, I went with alphabetical order, by make, so you’ll find out more about Ford and Nissan’s approach to the new market reality when you get to them. And, as for which deals are new this month? You’re just gonna have to read the article. Enjoy!

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Acura ZDX

2024 Acura ZDX; via Acura.

Manufactured in Spring Hill, Tennessee, the 2024 Acura ZDX uses a GM Ultium battery and drive motors, but the styling, interior, and infotainment software are all Honda. That means you’ll get a solidly-built EV with GM levels of parts support and Honda levels of fit, finish, and quality control. All that plus Apple CarPlay and (through April 30th) 0% financing for up to 72 months makes the ZDX one the best sporty crossover values in the business.

Chevy Blazer, Equinox EVs

GM-EV-rivals
2025 Chevy Equinox; via GM.

Both the Chevy Blazer EV and Equinox EV are manufactured at GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Coahuila, Mexico, and each offers their own takes on the five-passenger family SUV. Despite any incoming tariffs, the crossovers you’ll find on dealer lots today still represent a solid value, with the cost of base model Equinox LT FWD models with 319 miles of EPA-rated range dropping to just $27,500 after you apply the $7,500 Federal tax credit (for now, still a thing).

Chevy BrightDrop

Chevrolet BrightDrop ZEVO; via GM.

We recently highlighted a Costco offer that stacks a $25,500 manufacturer rebate with $3,000 in “regular” Costco Member Savings, $2,750 in “LIMITED-TIME” Manufacturer to Member Incentives, plus an additional $250 for Costco Executive members.

That’s more than $30,000 off the MSRP of one of the best, most capable commercial vans on the market – ICE or electric. And that’s before you factor in the 0% interest financing (72 mo.) being advertised on Chevy dealer websites.

Chrysler Pacifica PHEV

2023 Chrysler Pacific (it’s the same); via Stellantis.

When the plug-in hybrid version of the Chrysler Pacifica minivan first went on sale all the way back in 2016, it seemed to imply that the old Chrysler Corporation was going to race ahead of the other Big Three US carmakers.

That didn’t happen, but the Pacifica is still the king of cupholders, while the van’s stow n’ go seating, and all the other practical, clever details that add up to remind you Chrysler invented these things – and through April 30th, you can get 0% financing for up to 72 months on 2025 MY examples of this made-in-Canada plug-in hybrid and cover up to 32 miles of your daily driving needs on the clean, pure power of electrons.

Dodge Charger EV

Dodge Charger EV; via Stellantis.

The new electric Dodge Charger (soon to be available in four doors) remains the retro-tastic, electron-powered muscle car no one asked for. This month, Dodge dealers hope a $3,000 rebate plus 0% financing for up to 72 months will be enough to get you to give the car a chance.

Ford Mustang Mach-E

Ford Mustang Mach-E
Ford Mustang Mach-E; via Ford.

As I mentioned at the top of the article, both Ford and Nissan have taken steps to push back against the Trump tariffs – and in Ford’s case, that means big discounts, employee pricing for all, and free chargers for EV buyers.

In addition to employee pricing, 2024 Mustang Mach-Es continue to offer 0% APR financing for up to 72 months. That offer appears to be stackable with $2,500 in bonus cash, too, and Tesla owners and lessees can also score $1,000 in conquest cash for up to $3,500 off.

GMC HUMMER EV

GMC HUMMER EV Pickup; via GMC of Rochester.

The biggest of the Ultium-based EVs, these Hamtramck, Michigan-built machines are seriously impressive EVs, with shockingly quick acceleration and on-road handling that seems to defy the laws of physics once you understand that these are, essentially, medium-duty trucks. If you’re a fan of heavy metal (and plastic), you’ll definitely want to stop by your local GMC dealer and give the rugged GMC HUMMER EV a test drive.

Honda Prologue

Honda-$99-Prologue-offer
Honda Prologue; via Honda.

Manufactured alongside its GM siblings at the Ramos Arizpe plant in Coahuila, Mexico, the hot-selling Honda Prologue pairs GM’s excellent Ultium platform with Honda sensibilities and Apple CarPlay to create a winning combination.

If you’ve been holding off, we’ve got good news: there’s still a few remaining 2024 models in dealer inventory out there. To make room for the 2025 models, Honda is offering 0% APR for up to 72 months on the remaining 2024s.

Click here to find a 0% interest (72 mo.) deal on a 2024 Prologue near you.

Hyundai IONIQ 6

Hyundai-cheaper-EVs
2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited; via Hyundai.

The ultra-efficient Hyundai IONIQ 6 is one of the most compelling Model 3 competitors out there – but that could change if the Korean-built sedan gets hit with heavy tariffs. To make sure that doesn’t happen, Hyundai is investing tens of billions of dollars into a US manufacturing base, creating new American jobs and ensuring (kinda) that it can continue to deliver real value to its customers.

The fast-charging IONIQ 6 offers up to 342 miles of range on its most efficient version, while even the shortest range models offer 220 miles of range. Through April 30th, Hyundai is offering a rare 0% interest deal on remaining 2024 examples of its slippery sedan for up to 48 months.

All the Kia EVs

2025 Kia Niro EV; via Kia.

Kia has something for just about everyone in its EV range, from the fun, compact, and underrated Niro EV to the practical three-row EV9 to the supercar-baiting performance of the Kia EV6 – a car that made its global debut on a drag strip running alongside a Lamborghini, a Porsche, and an AMG Mercedes GT.

Through April 30th, you can get 0% interest on just about every new EV you’ll find on your Kia dealer’s lot (minus 2025 Kia EV6 models). Click the links below to find yours.

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

2025 Outlander PHEV; via Mitsubishi.

One of the first three-row plugin cars to hit the market, Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV has always presented a strong value proposition with up to 38 miles of electric range from its 20 kWh li-ion battery and room for seven (in a pinch), making it a great “lily pad” vehicle for suburban families who want to drive electric but still worry about being able to find a charging station when they need one.

That might change when the tariffs take full effect, however – so if you’re looking for an affordable 7-passenger plug-in with a great safety rating at a reasonably affordable price, act fast.

Nissan Ariya

2024 Nissan Ariya; via Nissan.

I’ve already said that the Nissan Ariya didn’t get a fair shake. If you click that link, you’ll read about a car that offers solid driving dynamics, innovative interior design, and all the practicality that makes five-passenger crossovers the must-haves they’ve become for most families. Now, Nissan is slashing prices across the line as their competitors are raising theirs, making the case for the Ariya even stronger than before.

With great discounts available at participating dealers, Supercharger access, and 0% interest from Nissan for up to 72 months on both 2024 and 25 MY Ariya EVs.

Subaru Solterra

2025 Subaru Solterra; via Subaru.

Built in Toyota City, Japan, the Solterra EV is a capable, dependable crossover with room for five and Subaru’s reputation for reliability and longevity to boot. With 0% financing and big discounts on both 2024 and 2025 models, the Solterra might be the best deal on your local Subaru dealer’s lot.

Toyota bZ4X

Toyota-$10,000-discount-bZ4X
Toyota bZ4X; via Toyota.

Built in Toyota City, Japan, the bZ4X EV is a capable, dependable crossover with room for five and Toyota’s reputation for reliability and longevity to boot. With 0% financing and big discounts on both 2024 and 2025 models, the bZ4X might be the best deal on your local Toyota dealer’s lot.

Volkswagen ID.4

Volkswagen-ID.4-upgraded
VW ID.4; via Volkswagen.

One of the most popular legacy EVs, the ID.4 offers Volkswagen build quality and (for 2024) a Chat-GPT enabled interface. To keep ID.4 sales rolling, VW dealers are getting aggressive with discounts, making this fast-charging, 291 mile EPA-rated range, 5-star safety rated EV a value proposition that’s tough to beat.

This month, get a Volkswagen ID.4 fresh from the company’s Chattanooga, Tennessee assembly plant with 0% financing for up to 72 months plus a $5,000 customer cash bonus on remaining 2024 models to stack with it.

Disclaimer: the vehicle models and financing deals above were sourced from CarsDirectCarEdge, CarFaxUSNews, and (where mentioned) the OEM websites – and were current as of 08APR2025. These deals may not be available in every market, with every discount, or for every buyer (the standard “with approved credit” fine print should be considered implied). Check with your local dealer(s) for more information.

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Tesla Autopilot less safe, Optimus freezes, electric Mustang goes 250,000 miles

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Tesla Autopilot less safe, Optimus freezes, electric Mustang goes 250,000 miles

On today’s road-ready episode of  Quick Charge, Tesla released data hinting that its Autopilot ADAS solution may be less safe to use than before. We’ve also got some news from inside the Tesla diner experience, plus a 250,000 mile Ford Mustang Mach-E that still has more than 90% of its battery capacity left!

We also cover Lucid’s plans to reinvigorate American EV manufacturing WITHOUT help from Washington by forging stronger bonds between automakers, mineral miners, and battery recyclers – plus: Optimus breaks down.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (most weeks, anyway). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.


If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. 

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

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91% of renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, but Trump just defunded a vital US grid upgrade

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91% of renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, but Trump just defunded a vital US grid upgrade

Renewables continued to dominate fossil fuels on price in 2024, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The big takeaway: Clean energy is the cheapest power around – by a wide margin. So it’s pretty bad business that the biggest grid upgrade project in US history just got kneecapped by Trump’s Department of Energy to stop the “green scam.”

On average, solar power was 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel in 2024, and onshore wind was 53% cheaper. Onshore wind held its spot as the most affordable new source of electricity at $0.034 per kilowatt-hour, with solar close behind at $0.043/kWh.

IRENA’s report says global renewables added 582 gigawatts (GW) of capacity last year, which avoided about $57 billion in fossil fuel costs. That’s not a small dent. Even more impressive: 91% of all new renewable power projects built in 2024 were cheaper than any new fossil fuel option.

Technological innovation, strong supply chains, and economies of scale are driving the cost advantage. Battery prices are helping too: IRENA says utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) are now 93% cheaper than they were in 2010, with prices averaging $192/kWh in 2024.

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But it’s not all smooth sailing. The report flags short-term cost pressures from trade tensions, material bottlenecks, and rising costs in some regions. North America and Europe feel more squeezed than others due to permitting delays, limited grid capacity, and higher system costs.

Meanwhile, countries in Asia, Africa, and South America could see faster cost drops thanks to stronger learning rates and abundant solar and wind resources.

One big challenge is financing. In developing countries, high interest rates and perceived investor risk inflate the levelized cost of electricity of renewables. For example, wind power generation costs were about the same in Europe and Africa last year ($0.052/kWh), but financing made up a much larger share of project costs in Africa. IRENA estimates the cost of capital was just 3.8% in Europe but 12% in Africa.

And even if projects are affordable to build, many are getting stuck in grid connection queues or stalled by slow permitting. Those “integration costs” are now a major hurdle, especially in fast-growing G20 and emerging markets.

Tech is helping with some of that – hybrid solar-wind-storage setups and AI-powered tools are improving grid performance and project efficiency. But digital infrastructure and grid modernization still lag in many places, holding renewables back.

“Renewables are rising, the fossil fuel age is crumbling,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “But leaders must unblock barriers, build confidence, and unleash finance and investment.”

IRENA’s bottom line is that the economics of renewables are stronger than ever, but to keep the momentum going, governments and markets need to reduce risks, streamline permitting, and invest in grids.

Electrek’s Take

Speaking of unblocking barriers and investment, the opposite just happened today in Trump World. The Department of Energy just canceled a $4.9 billion conditional loan commitment for the 800-mile Grain Belt Express Phase 1 transmission project, the biggest transmission line in US history.

It’s a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line connecting Kansas wind farms across four states. It will connect four grids, improving reliability. It will be able to power 50 data centers and create 5,500 jobs. Phase 1 is due to start next year.

The new grid will also connect all forms of energy, not just renewables, and it’s super pathetic that Invenergy had to stoop to put up a map on the project’s home page today showing how it will transmit fossil fuels, the “existing dispatchable generation source,” and felt it had to leave renewables off the map entirely. Sorry, Kansas wind farms, you get no mention because this administration doesn’t like you.

Chicago-based Invenergy plans to build the 5 GW Grain Belt Express in phases from Kansas to Illinois. The company says the project will save customers $52 billion in energy costs over 15 years. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) complained to Trump about the project, calling it a “green scam,” and got the government loan canceled based on a lie, claiming it would cost taxpayers “billions.” This was Invenergy’s response on X:

As usual, Trump was swayed by the last person in the room, and Hawley shot an entire region in the foot when an upgraded grid and more renewables are needed more than ever. Hopefully, this project can continue despite the ignorant shortsightedness coming from the Republicans (who ironically released an AI Action Plan today).

It beggars belief that this political party is this isolated from the rest of the world – well, besides our besties Iran, Libya, and Yemen, who aren’t part of the Paris Agreement either – and being that the US is the world’s No 2 polluter, the world will suffer for its arrogance.

Read more: FERC: Solar + wind made up 96% of new US power generating capacity in first third of 2025


The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. 

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

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Elon Musk with a straight face: Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of US population by end of the year

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Elon Musk with a straight face: Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of US population by end of the year

Elon Musk claims that Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of the US population by the end of the year and we can’t stop laughing.

Today, Tesla released its Q2 2025 financial results.

Earnings are down 23% on falling electric vehicle sales and lower margins, but Tesla’s stock is not crashing because CEO Elon Musk is promising a return to earnings growth through autonomous driving and humanoid robots.

We previously reported on how Tesla’s Robotaxi effort is a major shift in strategy for Tesla, which has been promising unsupervised self-driving in its customer vehicles for years.

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Instead, the Robotaxi service consists of an internal fleet operating within a geo-fenced area, currently only in Austin, Texas, and powered by teleoperation and in-car supervisors with a finger on a kill switch at all times.

“I believe half of the population of the US will be covered by Tesla’s Robotaxi by the end of the year.”

He added that he believes that regulatory approval will be the biggest hurdle, even though Tesla’s current service requires a Tesla employee in each car, which is a major hurdle to scaling.

Musk and Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of self-driving, both claimed that the Bay Area will be the first market where Tesla plans to expand its Robotaxi service. However, Elluswamy added that the program will initially have a driver in the driver’s seat.

This makes sense considering we learned last week that Tesla has yet to apply for the proper permits to operate an autonomous ride-hailing service in California.

Electrek’s Take

This is laughable. Who believes that? How can Elon say that with a straight face when Tesla only has a joke of a system that requires supervision at all times?

For context, Tesla currently only operates in a little over half of Austin, Texas. Here’s the list of all the metro areas Tesla would need to launch Robotaxi by the end of the year to cover half of the US population:

Rank Metro Area Population Cumulative Total
1 New York 19.15 M 19.15 M
2 Los Angeles 12.68 M 31.83 M
3 Chicago 9.04 M 40.87 M
4 Houston 6.89 M 47.76 M
5 Dallas–Fort Worth 6.73 M 54.49 M
6 Miami 6.37 M 60.86 M
7 Atlanta 6.27 M 67.13 M
8 Philadelphia 5.86 M 72.99 M
9 Washington, DC 5.60 M 78.59 M
10 Phoenix 4.83 M 83.42 M
11 Boston 4.40 M 87.82 M
12 Seattle 3.58 M 91.40 M
13 Detroit 3.54 M 94.94 M
14 San Diego 3.37 M 98.31 M
15 San Francisco 3.36 M 101.67 M
16 Tampa 3.04 M 104.71 M
17 Minneapolis–St. Paul 2.62 M 107.33 M
18 St. Louis 2.80 M 110.13 M
19 Denver 2.99 M 113.12 M
20 Baltimore 2.83 M 115.95 M
21 Orlando 2.76 M 118.71 M
22 Charlotte 2.75 M 121.46 M
23 San Antonio 2.60 M 124.06 M
24 Austin 2.42 M 126.48 M
25 Pittsburgh 2.43 M 128.91 M
26 Sacramento 2.42 M 131.33 M
27 Las Vegas 2.32 M 133.65 M
28 Cincinnati 2.26 M 135.91 M
29 Kansas City 2.19 M 138.10 M
30 Columbus 2.14 M 140.24 M
31 Cleveland 2.16 M 142.40 M
32 Indianapolis 2.12 M 144.52 M
33 San José 1.99 M 146.51 M
34 Virginia Beach–Norfolk 1.76 M 148.27 M
35 Providence 1.68 M 149.95 M
36 Milwaukee 1.57 M 151.52 M
37 Jacksonville 1.60 M 153.12 M
38 Raleigh–Durham 1.45 M 154.57 M
39 Nashville 1.43 M 156.00 M
40 Oklahoma City 1.42 M 157.42 M
41 Richmond 1.30 M 158.72 M
42 Louisville 1.28 M 160.00 M
43 Salt Lake City 1.26 M 161.26 M
44 New Orleans 1.23 M 162.49 M
45 Hartford 1.20 M 163.69 M
46 Buffalo 1.11 M 164.80 M
47 Birmingham 1.10 M 165.90 M

This is ridiculous. The lies are becoming increasingly larger and more brazen. We know what that means.

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