Nissan Leaf EV, a good idea?

financialfreedomxo

Petriix said:

EVs are awesome, but they're so much more expensive than a regular car that you are unlikely to save any money on the total cost of ownership. You'd be better off buying a cheap, second hand, economic diesel; something with a small engine so low emissions and cheap VED (tax).

This kind of defies the purpose of getting an EV for me lol. But if I do purchase one, I will probably keep it for 10 years plus. Eventually the savings I get from keep it that long with be worth it surely? 

financialfreedomxo

Herzlos said:

That's pretty much the extend of the cons - you need to charge after 100ish miles, but you can charge pretty quickly and it's good to take a break anyway. If you can stick under the battery range and only charge at home/work, you may find that the Leaf is costing you less to own than just the fuel from your previous car.

That said; I'd only consider it if I had a private driveway and could get a charging point fitted. That way you've got a car that's fully fueled every morning and never need to go to a petrol station.

Do you have an EV? If so, how much would you say a full charge costs you? 

treeroy

How are EVs better depreciating than ICE ? Surely they depreciate quicker because the tech is evolving so quickly and models becoming outdated much quicker. 

Quick look on autotrader indicates that a 3 year old Leaf is worth £9,000. with a £30,000 RRP that is 70% depreciation in 3 years.
The similar nissan Note three years on is worth £7,000 and they cost around £17k when they were new i believe? which would make it significantly less depreciation...

ElefantEd

financialfreedomxo said:

ElefantEd said:

We're on our second Leaf (did 120k miles in the first one), and have upgraded to the 30kW version. Best car-buying decision we've ever made. Very cheap to run and maintain, and a smooth drive.

So long as you have the option of home charging and don't want to regularly drive hundreds of miles, it's a very good option. The range suffers in the winter by 10-20%. Also, the official range figures are imaginative. A 30kW Leaf has a real range of about 120 miles (summer) rather than the quotes 150ish. But if you normally drive less than 100 miles a day it's a no brainer. You can do longer journeys, it just takes a bit of planning, and will take longer than the same trip in an ICE car.

Thanks for the reply. I'm mostly hoping to use it for a short commute to work. About 50-60 miles max a day. So that's quite good to read. Do you find that your insurance has reduced as well? When you go for maintenance, what exactly do they look into? 

Insurance is pretty cheap - but it is for me anyway (driving for 35 years, no claims, live in quiet rural area with little crime etc). Maintenance is also cheap. Basically just brakes (and the pollen filter). All we've ever replaced are wipers and tyres. The brakes are the only problematic bit, they seem to rust up (don't think it is actually rust, but they squeak and bind a bit) sometimes - partly because you don't use them that much.

So long as you can charge at home - have a drive or a garage where a charger can be installed you could use a second hand Leaf for years without a problem.

Financially, we bought our first Leaf for £14.5k (6 months old with 3000 miles on the clock). The alternative was a smaller cheaper petrol car (eg Nissan Micra) at about £5k. It took about 3 years for the overall cost of running the car to break even - after that the Leaf was cheaper. But we were doing about 24000 miles a year, obviously a lower mileage would mean the pay back period was longer.

oldagetraveller1

financialfreedomxo said:

Petriix said:

  But if I do purchase one, I will probably keep it for 10 years plus. Eventually the savings I get from keep it that long with be worth it surely? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUINNMHZxXc

10 years plus could be a bit optimistic!

ElefantEd

Nissan's data suggests otherwise: https://insideevs.com/news/351314/nissan-leaf-battery-longevity/

Though obviously if the range dropped too much it would become effectively useless. But for many people even a 40 or 50 mile real range would be plenty.

My experience was that after 5 years and 125k miles, the battery had just dropped to 10 bars (out of 12), soreal range had gone from 85 miles to about 70ish (24kwh Leaf). This is of course only one data point.

DrEskimo

treeroy said:

How are EVs better depreciating than ICE ? Surely they depreciate quicker because the tech is evolving so quickly and models becoming outdated much quicker. 

Quick look on autotrader indicates that a 3 year old Leaf is worth £9,000. with a £30,000 RRP that is 70% depreciation in 3 years.
The similar nissan Note three years on is worth £7,000 and they cost around £17k when they were new i believe? which would make it significantly less depreciation...

The first Leafs and Zoe's were very heavily discounted. That £9/10k Leaf could have been bough for around £15k.

Same with the Zoe. When the 41kWh battery owned models were released in early 2017, they had a RRP of about £25k, but in reality discounts made it easy to pick one up for £16/17k. The discounts reduced (along with the PICG) so as they got older they got more expensive. The last of the 41kWh models were about £19k to buy new.

As a result, the resale of used models was strong. I bought my early 2017 model last Feb and it was advertised at £15,800! I got it down to £14,500 with discount and using deposit contributions and 18m on I have been offered £14,000 in trade value. I've never seen one advertised below £15,000....

The whole stuff about the technology moving is nonsense. The technology doesn't move that quickly, and the older models are not suddenly useless. It's taken years for models to be released and available in quantity. We know exactly what is coming in the next 3years. The mileage and charging speeds are not increasing that dramatically.

gzoom

@Finanicalfreedom The 2015 Leaf I had on PCP was the cheapest and most reliable car I had ever owned or ever will own.

There is nothing to 'service' on a Leaf apart from tyre changes. Charging costs will be £5ish for 30kWh at 15p per kWh, or half that amount if you go for E7 tariff or something like Octopus Go with 5p per kWh overnight.

A Leaf will return 4 miles per kWh, so you are looking at 4 p per mile with expensive electricity or 2p per mile on a cheaper overnight charge.

Range is the biggest issue with the Leaf, get at least the 30kWh version. The 24kWh battery version will struggle to do 50 miles in winter.

The Leaf is also not a good Mway car, its got poor aerodynamics which means at 70mph my currently much larger EV (Tesla Model X) is actually more efficient than  my old Leaf was at the same speed. Poor aero + small battery means Mway range is abysmal.

However as a city run around they are great, and will keep going for years and years.