Reply With QuoteIt's only the longer journeys that can be a problem, Nissan used to offer the loan of another car for up to 5 times a year for longer runs, not sure if thats still the case.
i'm seriously thinking of going electric as hardly do any miles anymore and my big 3.0d lump just can't be justified anymore. been looking at the nissan leaf and struggling to find a bad word to be said about them obviously range would be the biggest issue but like i say i'm only doing a 2 b stuff so shouldn't be an issue the gen 2 leaf should do around 90 miles per charge if driven properly and cost approx £3 a charge! no tax and ultra reliable seems like a no brainer, anyone got one ?? any down sides i'm missing ?? looks like i can pick up a really well specced one for around 9 - 10k
It's only the longer journeys that can be a problem, Nissan used to offer the loan of another car for up to 5 times a year for longer runs, not sure if thats still the case.
Leaf is great used purchase. The depreciation on a new one is steep, so good value used purchase.
I wouldn't hesitate to have one in a 2 car household. Wouldn't have one as the only car, purely because of the range.
A friend had one, and loved it. No issues at all with it.
We bought an Kia Soul EV just over a year ago, well we leased it. We decided to lease as the technology is moving on so fast and batteries improving, we thought we go that route. We chose the Soul slightly better range than Leaf and Mrs preferred the car in general, better equipment and nicer to drive, we also tried the BMW i3 and a couple of others.
We have done 10,000 miles in a year and the electricity has cost us about £250, we get just over 4.1 miles per KWH. The Soul has a 30kw battery, but usable is less than that so Range is around a hundred miles. The on the move charging is ok, but some people have some bad habits of leaving cars on chargers even when charging has finished. We have only used outside chargers twice and 80% capacity in less than 30 minutes. You can extend the range careful driving and use less electrics,my mrs has everything on heated seats and steering wheel, radio heater.
Pluses, never going to a petrol station, especially with kids in the car. Pre heating the car, knowing you always will have max distance. Acceleration is great quiet and easy to drive my Mrs says she will never own an Normal(ICE) again. Have a look at the speak EV forum, can provide a lot of information, or opinion you have specific questions drop me a pm.
I've been running an Env200 van for the last two years.
It's basically the standard nv200 van with the Leaf 24kwhr drivetrain.
I've had no issues, no problems, saved a fortune in diesel and really enjoy driving it.
Thank you .. might be a couple pms coming your way over the next few weeksOriginally Posted by AndyMilts
I've had a leaf for a couple of months now. On a PCP £209 pm and £209 deposit. £15k miles per year. Fully spec. I love it. Any questions feel free to PM.
That sounds like a good deal - where is that from, may I ask?
I found it via EVForums. It was from Wessex garage in Bristol. The basic deal was £179pm but only 5k miles per year. The forum is full of offers if you look and with the new Leaf coming out relatively soon there might be more good deals.
Look at Chorley Group (up north but not necessarily a problem).
They were doing some deals on two to three year old Leafs from £115 per month.
They also have new ones at good prices from time to time.
There was a garage over on SpeakEV offering lightly used Leafs for £149 deposit and £149 a month if I remember correctly.
They can certainly be had even new for less than most people spend on fuel each month.
If I didn't have a mix of driving more skewed towards a couple of long distance trips each month, I'd still be in a full EV. For now, a plug in hybrid covers 75% of my daily commute and I've got an engine for the odd times when I need it.
We had a leaf for 2 years, utterly loved it and saved a fortune in fuel costs. As you say the biggest hitch was depreciation, for an over 30k car (not including rebates etc.) to be worth 6k (nissan trade in value - was looking at infinitis or a x-trail) is horrific. A shrewd 2nd hand buy will beat this though and I can heartily recommend doing so. Try to avoid the leased batteries as they will cost you a chunk of change every month and are marketing spin preying on peoples paranoia about battery degradation or a sop to lower headline PCP payments.
Over the 24k miles we had the car we lost zero capacity on the battery, it's replacement, a 10 year old hybrid has lost 1 bar of battery capacity in 90k miles so you would be extremely unlucky to have a bad battery in the foreseeable future. If it does go bad the replacement / repair cost is less than or on a par with any of the myriad things that can go wrong with a similar vintage ICE vehicle (gearbox, turbo, DMF, etc.) and in the interim you are saving money hand over fist on fuel.
The only reason we didn't buy another leaf or similar is that we needed a bigger car for family duties and at the time our travel needs had changed requiring something that could cope with longer journeys.
I have my eye on a tesla model 3 suv once they are available 2nd hand but that's a good few years off yet.
i'd say go full electric as soon as you can
forget range anxiety there isn't any need to be anxious - check out Robert llewellyn's excellent youtube channel videos 'Fullychargedshow' all about the average miles anyone does every day being well below the range of current electric vehicles, etc...
also he does a trip from oslo to london in a tesla (1200 miles plus)
Check out the map of chademo fast chargers in UK and Europe. Then take into account an overnight charge from anyone's mains also helps too.... only a wee bit of extra planning involved but nothing on the scale of being a pilot and needing to memoriize where the nearest two airports are in relation to every airport for example...
If you go for a Tesla - add the map of Tesla superchargers to that too. (Teslas are chademo compatible too but will take longer to charge of course)
I've only just got a hybrid - and most definately won't change the car unless its to a full electric in a couple of years time.
Last edited by Xantiagib; 6th June 2017 at 15:19.
My wife bought a Leaf a couple of months ago. Great little car, we've had no problems with range but take my car if we think it might be close. It replaced a Cooper S so is saving us a fortune in fuel costs. Good fun to drive too, very nippy accelerating.
Our household is fully electric. We got our leaf second hand and have a charger at home (installed for free at the time) - its perfect for us as we use it mainly within our town and charge it once every few days. £2-odd to fully charge overnight, and no road tax to boot! For long trips we take the Tesla (also bought second hand!) with 200+ miles of range.
The future is electric (except for watches - thats staying mechanical)
It's certainly hard to recommend buying a new Leaf outright when the retained value after a single year is circa 33% and if the comment above is any judge just ~20% after 2. This does rather suggest that the trade and buying public don't have a great deal of faith in the concept just yet. A typical conventionally fuelled vehicle could retain what, 55-65% after 2 years so it is some difference roughly triple in fact. I guess if you can deal with the range issue, somewhat strained motorway performance and can find a reasonable PCP deal like that mentioned above then it may not be all that bad an option for urban short hop journeys. The Tesla 3 may indeed improve greatly on many of these drawbacks. Eventually.
Last edited by Padders; 7th June 2017 at 00:44.
I'm also thinking of going electric but have a 70 mile a day commute to put into the equasion. As a result I'm not sure if it'll be right for me at the moment.
Will be interesting to see exactly what the range is in real life with the Tesla 3.
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A Leaf with the 30kwhr battery will see you do a 70 mile commute with ease.
The 40kwhr Zoe could do two days without a charge at a push
The Kia Soul, BMW i3 and Hyundai Ioniq will also allow you to do the journey without issue.
In fact, there's probably only the 24kwhr Leaf where you'd have any problems and then only in winter.
The depreciation isn't as bad as it sounds. It may have a RRP of around £30k but with government grants, deposit contributions etc they're leaving the showroom at under £20k OTR.
two year old cars are selling in the £10-£12,000 range so whilst depreciation is high, it's not as horrendous as it first appears.
The cheap lease deals are still the way to go on new cars though, but buying is certainly a good option second hand.
Longest single trip we did was 60 miles round trip following a friend in a mini cooper s, no motorway and mostly A roads at 60mph. IIRC we arrived home with over 30% remaining so 70 miles daily shouldn't be an issue. I also did a 'sympathetic vs drive like you stole it' test on a trip from bedford to cambridge (mostly dual carriageway) and found there was barely a 10% difference.
As for 'strained motorway performance' a leaf will do an indicated 100mph and will beat my colleagues chipped audi tt off the line up to 40mph and has decent 50-70 acceleration which I'd not call strained when most of my motorway journeys are restricted to 50 or 60 due to traffic and variable limits - depends where you are I guess.
A friend of the family has a Leaf as a driving instructor and has had noo issures with it - he too remarked that the depreciation is terrible and on older/high milers there is the battery-life concern.
Had a BMW i3 for a weekend - nice to drive, but lacks any sort of occasion. So they're cars for people not really interested in cars in my view.
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