LakeLeaf said:
I see today that the competition - Telsa - now says that if you buy one of their cars and three years from now if it's value has declined faster then a high end Mercedes S class, they (well, Elon Musk) will buy it back.
Now if Nissan would only step up to that challenge on a car comparably priced to the Leaf - like their own Altima!
Tesla is, as I understand it, guaranteeing a 43% residual after 36 months, including (I think?) the phantom depreciation caused by the $7,500 tax credit.
If you buy a Tesla S with an ~$80k price, it looks like you are guaranteed to have your car not lose more than~$38,000 ($45,600 less the $7500 tax credit) in value, over three years.
The absolute worst case for any LEAF owner over three years would probably be a buyer who paid ~$31,000 (~38,500 less the $7,500 tax credit) and sold it three years later for ~$15,000, or about ~$16,000 in depreciation costs.
Higher sales tax, registration fees, insurance, and maintenance, also raise the S's costs significantly higher, than this simple comparison.
Many LEAF buyers will do much better than that worst case, since they didn't pay $31,000 after lower purchase prices and all incentives are taken into account
With my discounted price and $5k CA rebate, I figure my own maximum loss due to depreciation on my LEAF over three years will be ~$6k, which will could be only slightly greater than the cash benefit I will have received from my LEAF, by using kWh rather than gasoline.
I could never have bought and driven any new ICEV over the same three year period, for anywhere near the low total cost of ownership, that my LEAF will give me.
But I expect the largest cost benefits from LEAF ownership will accrue from year three forward, since at some point, the yearly savings from avoiding gas purchases and higher ICEV maintenance costs, will probably actually exceed the LEAFs losses due to depreciation.
So, I may well decide to hold on to my 2011 LEAF
for a long time...