The up coming new Leaf, really looking forward to seeing these. 

http://www.carscoops.com/2017/03/future-cars-2018-nissan-leaf-keeps.html

I'm liking the way my Leaf drives, the ride and handling are pretty decent.  The cruise control works really well and makes it easy to keep the speed steady and avoid occidentally speeding.  After bring it home from Auckland (stopping in Te Kauwhata for some free electrons) yesterday, I took a spin to Hamilton today and grabbed some more free electrons (geddit? sciency pun there).

Linuxluver:

 

afe66: Then there Was The unfortunate speeding incident when someone said electric cars like leafs not have any power. Policeman was puzzled why the hot white hatch had 4 people in their 40's...

I know! :-)  

Even worse in a Tesla.......you have to collect your eyeballs out of the luggage tray in the back window after a "test drive". 

 

GVI has a 2nd hand Tesla Model S P85D:

Looks pretty nice IMO.

PhantomNVD: Very nice... only 37,000 on the clock too!

But how much $$$?

(And 2,500kgs! 😳)

I asked - only $120k, a bargain!  You know you want it!

If only I had that sort of money kicking about spare.

CarJam reports it is ex-Japan, arrived here in April,

https://www.carjam.co.nz/car/?plate=KSJ690

Early impressions:

The Leaf has more than enough power to handle open road driving at the speed limit (anything faster would be illegal and therefore wrong) and I have no complaints about that, but it is outright fun around town - that insta-power from 0 km/hr is freakin' awesome! I do have to be a bit more careful about planting the boot on wet roads though - it's not hard to get some wheel spin with the EV torque so readily available.  Around town you need to be careful, put your foot down and you are VERY quickly speeding by a sizeable margin.  It seems that the 0 - 60kph happens in an incredibly short time and after that you are risking a ticket, I've been quickly activating the cruise control so the car can dawdle along at 55kph and keep me from getting in trouble with the five-oh.

I know that many 'car nuts' are not so keen on driving an EV, preferring some noisy V8 instead, but as prices come down and performance goes up I could see the fun factor making more of the petrol heads consider being EV fans instead.

The 2018 Leaf with the 110kW (compared to 80kW on current Leafs) would be quite the hot hatch I would think.  I'd love a Leaf with 110kW motor and ~60kWh battery - I wonder how far off something like that would be?  I suspect that it wont take very long to see mainstream EVs with 60kWh, maybe in 3 years or so?  I'm kinda thinking about how limiting 24kWh can be at times and it seems to me that 60kWh (2.5x times the energy storage) would be getting up around 'enough' for a very large majority of the driving public.  With 60kWh you could fairly easily get 250km while driving a bit lead-footed and 350km wouldn't be hard when taking it easy - that would make it really easy to travel short to medium distances without needing to recharge on the way and longer distances with only needing to stop after 3 hours of driving when you really could do with a break anyway.  Maybe the Leaf could end up as the Japanese hot hatch of the future?

I might wait until I can get a 2 or 3 year old 60kWh EV for a reasonable price and at that point trade in my wee beastie.  That should give me a few years to save up the necessary money for a cash purchase.  In the meantime it looks like there are charging points going in all over the country so 24kWh is still usable for a decent amount of travelling around.  I'd be happy for the next car to be another Leaf if they get the specs up to what I want, great little cars IMO.

MarkH67:

 

Linuxluver:

 

afe66: Then there Was The unfortunate speeding incident when someone said electric cars like leafs not have any power. Policeman was puzzled why the hot white hatch had 4 people in their 40's...

I know! :-)  

Even worse in a Tesla.......you have to collect your eyeballs out of the luggage tray in the back window after a "test drive". 

 

 

GVI has a 2nd hand Tesla Model S P85D:

 

 

Looks pretty nice IMO.

 

I'm wondering what the charging situation is for an ex-Japan Tesla here in NZ, they have the same proprietary Tesla port used in the US so incompatible with NZ Superchargers. I Suppose with the correct US/JPN market adapter it could use a CHAdeMO here.

@Markh67 - yeah go easy on the accelerator tiger!

I had a 2.4L hatch (Toyota Blade), which I thought was quick off standing start, but Leaf feels much quicker again. I also like the futuristic whine as it accelerates...

If you want a used Tesla, it might be better to import it from the UK. They start around $76,000 NZD for an 85, and $80,000 NZD for a P85. I would take the regular over the performance. Better range, and you really don't want to be doing launches that much, will quickly wear on fairly expensive tires.

Here is the link (use incognito mode if you have already chosen a region there, they seem to want to redirect you away from it if you come to the page from NZ): https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/used

JoshWright:

 

 

 

I'm wondering what the charging situation is for an ex-Japan Tesla here in NZ, they have the same proprietary Tesla port used in the US so incompatible with NZ Superchargers. I Suppose with the correct US/JPN market adapter it could use a CHAdeMO here.

 

Tesla cars in NZ can use the Tesla Superchargers, the Tesla destination chargers, CHAdeMo chargers with an adaptor, a convenience charger that plugs into a standard socket or a special charger that they have installed in the garage at home.  This makes them the easiest EV to charge in NZ.  The Tesla superchargers are about 2.5x as fast as CHAdeMO chargers.

Done Japanese to English conversion on Nissan Leaf Gen1 yesterday. Have Gen1 and Gen2 clusters in "Exchange Pool". Swap takes ~20 minutes. (Will edit and upload Video this week).

In person - Greenlane, Auckland.

With refundable deposit we can Courier you English Cluster within NZ (you can calculate yourself what it cost with NZ Post online calculator). You would need to return yours to us within 5 work days. You'll get your deposit back when your Japanese cluster is returned to us.

Inquiries and availability - over the phone.

RUKI:

 

Done Japanese to English conversion on Nissan Leaf Gen1 yesterday. Have Gen1 and Gen2 clusters in "Exchange Pool". Swap takes ~20 minutes. (Will edit and upload Video this week).

 

In person - Greenlane, Auckland.

 

With refundable deposit we can Courier you English Cluster within NZ (you can calculate yourself what it cost with NZ Post online calculator). You would need to return yours to us within 5 work days. You'll get your deposit back when your Japanese cluster is returned to us.

 

Inquiries and availability - over the phone.

 

Your market is going to be limited to the number of people who feel capable of taking the dash cluster out of their car. 

:-)

Do you have a link to a video (yours or someone else's) of that being done? That might help build confidence.... 

I had my Jap import leaf dashboard updated to English by the GVI guys. Took about 10 mins via the OBD port using some custom script/process they have developed. Cost $180 but was well worth it IMO - now have a fully english Leaf!

Linuxluver:

 

...

 

Your market is going to be limited to the number of people who feel capable of taking the dash cluster out of their car. 

:-)

Do you have a link to a video (yours or someone else's) of that being done? That might help build confidence.... 

 

Have not edited Video yet. Yesterday young men without any previous experience did it in 10 minutes.