At least it was possible to do. Doesn’t sound ideal.

Just call and ask. Then next week, go in and check. Let them twist for a bit.

Get a personal loan, pay off the car with that, and trade it in to a Chevy dealer or CarMax. Get a job back in the walkable city you were used to. It may take five years but you will be able to pay off that 10 grand loan. Every month you wait to get rid of the car is another month it depreciates. I’m sorry the relationship didn’t work out, but that happens. Just learn and move on

My wife owned a Juke for 7 years and 155,000 miles. AWD was good in the snow. She loved the “frog like” look. Only missing it because a red light runner crashed her. It took the hit well and my wife was physically ok. They don’t sell them anymore in the USA. She would buy the Juke EV in 2 seconds if it has AWD. So, there is some Juke love out there. Only complaint I have is that snow piles in the recessed headlights, so you have to clear the lights in a storm. Not ideal.

I suggest a Nissan Leaf and take off as many badges as you can. They are cheap and plentiful. I removed all of the badges on mine. No one thinks Nissan is a high dollar car and it doesn’t have a catalytic converter to steal.

Well, that is a factor but hard to pin that down for five to eight years in the future. A related factor is increasing insurance costs. As more EVs go through the claims process, insurance companies will sharpen their pencils and jack up rates due to the threshold of a vehicle being totaled being lower due to depreciation. That said, when it comes time to put down money for a car, I prefer the ride of an EV.

I don’t believe the first 3 items are mandatory. For example, I am not in California, but I did not upgrade my electric panel, I plugged the EVSE into an existing 240v outlet, and my power company has no idea that I own an electric car. I also pay an additional $100 a year for EV registration over a gas car. Cali is not alone in that extra registration fee. It does seem odd that there are “state incentives” to buy electric vehicles but the state also charges you more.

I have zero oil changes. I can plan to have a full “tank” every morning if I want.

Looking to the future, yeah, electric will increase, but gas will still be more expensive for most of the country.

For my car budget, I am only saving roughly $1000 a year by driving an EV over ICE, but the initial cost of the EV is $5000 - $8000 more for the EV than the ICE equivalent. So, EV only saves money if I own it longer than 5-8 years, for my use case.