I've had a uk 24kw leaf for probably 3 years. Bought from UK because I wanted English dashboard as then you couldn't get dashboard language conversion.
Get the basic version with money spent on battery size rather than features such as led lights cruise control etc.
Buy from an EV specialist. The system health will be artificially high if still using numbers from Japan. They will know what EV cables etc you need.
Factor in an electrician visit to place an external power point. Thing of ergonomics of plugging in each day in selecting plug location.
I've had a 24kwh leaf for a year now, just lost a bar and dropped down to 10 bars / 77% SOH. I still get close to 100km on the open road and 120+ around town. For my normal daily usage it's never a problem, and I have another car for longer trips. My second car has done 1200km in the last year and I'm on my 3rd tank of gas since Xmas, some of those trips were just to give it a run every now and again or I would've used the leaf. I find I only reluctantly use the petrol car now (Corolla).
As a second car for around town use they are perfect, as an only car the limitations are a bit harder to deal with. The load space with the seats folded down is not the most useful, worth having a look at before you buy. The back seats are high, which is no good for tall passengers in the rear, and longer trips need to be carefully planned around where the chargers are which is inconvenient.
Drive a Leaf, Drive a Prius, load 4 people into both, fold the seats down and compare space, then buy the one you like better and don't worry about the rest. That's my 2c
We've recently been car shopping. Mrs MDF was convinced to try a Leaf - we did the research, found one that seemed to have really good SOH etc., verified with leafspy, loved the test drive and low-down torque and prospective running costs.
Unfortunately Mrs MDF ended up with a splitting ear ache after each test drive. Apparently the dealer had had one other person with similar symptoms in the last 5 years and from google it seems to be an infrequent, but not unknown, complaint. So no EV for us just yet.
There is a tone the leaf makes at low speed to warn pedestrians, and a button to disable it. I think they messed up with it personally as many people can't even hear it due to the level and frequency of it. I wonder though if that was the cause of the earache and if it would be worth trying again with it disabled. I'm not sure if all leafs have this, but mine is only an S spec and it does so I assume it's a common feature.
There is a tone the leaf makes at low speed to warn pedestrians, and a button to disable it. I think they messed up with it personally as many people can't even hear it due to the level and frequency of it. I wonder though if that was the cause of the earache and if it would be worth trying again with it disabled. I'm not sure if all leafs have this, but mine is only an S spec and it does so I assume it's a common feature.
Yep, tried with and without. Teh interwebz suggests something to do with the frequency of the motor.
SomePostman: Thank you all for your informative thoughts. Based on this and a lot of reading and talking to a couple of people I know that own a leaf, I think this is the direction I'm going to go. I will keep the Civic for a few more years and by then some EV with bigger range may be more affordable. Normally cars are such bad investments but I was contemplating I'd benefit far more from $15k saving me on petrol than how much I'd earn from any interest in an account.
One option would be to buy a no-thrills 'S' and concentrate on getting the best battery SoH. Plus i could put an Android head unit in.
I'm not sure there's almost any extras that I'd 'have' to have...
Cruise control... Mostly going to be stop start traffic LED lights... Apart from being energy efficient is there any gain? Auto lights... Nice but wouldn't really pay extra for 10 air bags... Probably the only thing I'd consider paying extra for but this car is only likely to ever be involved in fender benders 360 camera seems cool but I'd imagine it would be a pretty loaded car for that Bose audio... Would be nice but not going to change car I'm eating up to get it?
I've heard "b mode" is a good way to drive, which you don't get on the S base model, but I'm not sure I'd miss it? What things would you say I should look for?
If you wanted, you could work out your annual fuel consumption & maintenance of your current car, and compare to projected maintenance, electricity (and RUC costs from 2022) for a leaf. You could then work out the payback period.
You also should consider which vehicle you find nicer to own, and the loss of utility from moving away from a 7 seater.
Regarding the "S" spec, it is quite nice that it has a standard double DIN head unit that can be swapped relatively cheaply & easily to one with modern features.
Can't do that on higher specs without loosing functionality such as a charge timer etc.
There is a fairly good leaf guide below. Note that it uses incorrect generation terminology. The second generation leaf is the 40kWh & 64kWh cars that came out in 2019. The convention that mid cycle refreshes aren't considered a new generation is fairly consistent across the auto industry.
I think the "S" trim misses out on a heat pump as well, so it uses a less efficient resistance heater.
My understanding is both the entertainment unit (on high spec leaf's) and the dashboard can be converted to english for a fee.
With regards to the features, as with most cars, they are nice to have's. The LED headlights are more energy efficient, brighter and have a whiter colour tone than halogen headlights. I think they are quite common on ex-japan leaf's.
You are correct that people who tick the perimum audio & 360degree parking camera boxes generally have quite loaded cars. That said it appears that leaf's in japan are highly custom, so lots of weird combinations exist.
It seems that side airbags, dark interior, having English conversion done (Dash / entertainment), nice looking wheels, Good SOH and an NZ charger command a price premium. But many other features like LED headlights are largely just luck if they are on the car you like. Also be aware that the dealers move wheels around between cars on their lots.
Thank you all for the replies, it's been incredibly helpful. I am n was thinking to go for a x spec mostly for the B mode and more efficient heater and just try to find one with the best battery... But since thinking about it more maybe I would really benefit from the 360 camera as my wife isn't the greatest with special awareness and has nudged a few things or scraped into drains. The current car is looking a little worse for wear from this. Anyone have any experience with them?
What would you guys pick? A 2016 x spec with 84k km and 84% battery
Or
2013 G spec with 10 air bags, Bose and 360 camera, 62k km and 79% battery?
Same price.
I need to stop analysing every option and make a decision lol
Also need to factor if a NZ legal charger is included, if the 2013 is post mid-cycle refresh (no massive plastic lump in boot, foot operated parking break - I think the bose auto only came out after this?), if English conversion (entertainment & dash) has been already been done.
Then all the normal car stuff like colour, exterior condition etc. Personally I prefer the dark interior.
Everyone's situation is different, but I did some back of the envelope calcs a while ago for my household, and I think we could save in the region of 5-6k/year (fuel vs electricity) with an EV. So from that perspective, if we got 3 years out of a $15k car, it's paid for itself. Every day after that its effectively making money.
An EV is probably our next big purchase.
Do some maths and check your numbers, battery cost might not be a factor if it's already paid itself off.
Re B mode - that’s something I use all the time when I drive my wife’s Leaf, and something she would use only by accident! Try it out to see whether you like/care about it.
Personally, I love it, and find I really miss it (and expect the car to respond as if I had it) when driving my own car. Would prefer the dial-the-quantity approach offered by the new Leaf, but still better than nothing. That said, I find the brakes of the Leaf somewhat grabby (a common issue with EVs).
One thing I thought I’d use a bit was eco mode, but I loathe it! Takes the fun out of driving a car with all that low-down torque, and is perhaps more there for those interested in extreme economical driving. I’ve given this up and just enjoy the drive... economy and cost of running is still so good anyway...
A couple of years ago, I drove dunedin to chch in eco mode and drive mode at the suggestion of one-off the flipthefleet founders and we found that there wasn't that much difference in economy between the two modes when driving on the open road. We thought this was because cruising on doesnt involve that much braking to allow regeneration.
On heat pumps. How cold is it where you live? How far are you driving each day? In my 2014 resistive heater leaf, running the heater in winter costs 20km range.
Climate timer is really useful in winter where it preheats the car if its plugged in so warm and frost-free.
I'd still go for bigger battery health over extra such as led lights and 360 cameras.
andrewNZ: Everyone's situation is different, but I did some back of the envelope calcs a while ago for my household, and I think we could save in the region of 5-6k/year (fuel vs electricity) with an EV. So from that perspective, if we got 3 years out of a $15k car, it's paid for itself. Every day after that its effectively making money.
An EV is probably our next big purchase.
Do some maths and check your numbers, battery cost might not be a factor if it's already paid itself off.
You must drive an awful lot of km. Fuel cost for a leaf sized car doing 20Mm per year is around $3k. Not sure on the cost of electricity but if you factor in road tax at the current light vehicle rate that drops the difference to $1600. Maybe add on a thousand for servicing gets you to $2500, so that’s six year payback period of the battery lasts that long. I’ve been looking at a leaf as a replacement for a seven seater whose extra seats we no longer need but I just can’t make the numbers stack up. I can get half the fuel savings by going from the existing car to a leaf size hatchback, without the worries about battery life or road tax, and without needing to compromise on features like multiple airbags, climate control, non-band-expended radio etc. I know EV is the right environmental choice and I like the idea of the technology though
A couple of years ago, I drove dunedin to chch in eco mode and drive mode at the suggestion of one-off the flipthefleet founders and we found that there wasn't that much difference in economy between the two modes when driving on the open road. We thought this was because cruising on doesnt involve that much braking to allow regeneration.
Eco mode retards the acceleration of the car, as opposed to b mode which provides increased resistance when lifting the foot off the accelerator. In open road driving a doubt either of them do much (I tried a similar experiment to yours and found negligible difference), but in urban driving the former just ruins the driving experience while the latter provides a genuinely different approach to driving.
shk292: You must drive an awful lot of km. Fuel cost for a leaf sized car doing 20Mm per year is around $3k. Not sure on the cost of electricity but if you factor in road tax at the current light vehicle rate that drops the difference to $1600. Maybe add on a thousand for servicing gets you to $2500, so that’s six year payback period of the battery lasts that long. I’ve been looking at a leaf as a replacement for a seven seater whose extra seats we no longer need but I just can’t make the numbers stack up. I can get half the fuel savings by going from the existing car to a leaf size hatchback, without the worries about battery life or road tax, and without needing to compromise on features like multiple airbags, climate control, non-band-expended radio etc. I know EV is the right environmental choice and I like the idea of the technology though
Yes, it does depend on the EV vs what it's replacing.
In my case I went from a 2007 V36 Nissan Skyline to a Tesla Model 3. With Meridian's EV plan I pay 11c/kWh, so for the first 10,000km and 1606kWh I spent at most $176 on charging it. The same distance in the Skyline would have been around $2860 based on that cars efficiency at the time. Obviously the Model 3 costs more than the Skyline to buy and this particular point is hard to quantify since I likely would never have spent that much on an ICE vehicle due to second hand options but for an EV without second hand options in that vehicle class it wasn't an issue for me.
Maintenance wise I'm not expecting much. Being that a Model 3 has proper battery thermal management it's unlikely I'll ever need to replace its battery.
This might be wishful thinking but when RUC does arrive for EVs I think it's very unlikely that it will be done using the current rates. If it did, it would make a hybrid a much more economical prospect from a tax point of view than a pure EV which would be madness.
What would you guys pick? A 2016 x spec with 84k km and 84% battery
Or
2013 G spec with 10 air bags, Bose and 360 camera, 62k km and 79% battery?
Battery SoH every time over whistles and bells .
B mode is nice, and I live in Dunedin so get to use it for 50% of every trip!😛 But saying that it only recharges back an extra 2% of my battery going into town - so that's saving me 0.5 KW in power costs at most per recharge. So realistically I save at most 10c when I recharge the battery because I used B mode :)
Expect you SoH to drop 2-3 points a year regardless of use so factor that in.
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