1. Why did you want to go electric/want a leaf
I'm retired and I often drive for fun, entertainment, relaxation. I'm also an environmentalist. So since recreational driving is optional, I wanted a car that I could drive for fun that would have much less environmental impact than the usual 20 mpg ICE car that I had been choosing. We also have solar panels on our roof and we were making over 2,000 kWh per year of power excess to our household usage. I wanted to leverage that free, clean solar power to drive the majority of my recreational and family errand miles.
I really want an electric sports car. My car ownership history includes an early Datsun Z, two RX7s and most recently a BMW 328i Coupe/Sport. I was able to drive the electric MiniE project car and I found it an absolute hoot to drive. I really want something like that, but I can't buy one, or even lease one at this point in time. So I settled for the only BEV available, the LEAF, even though I didn't find the styling or the "family appliance" design attractive.
I am also a technogeek, and I was fascinated enough with the new-ness of the EV powertrain to be strongly attracted to driving an EV.
And I was and still am attracted to the idea of being an early adopter, expressing my individuality and helping to provide information to the car buying market and to Nissan and other manufacturers about what average new adopters learn from living with their first EV.
When I first read about the LEAF, I hoped that we could make our 96 mile r/t commutes to LA in the "100 mile" EV. But I soon learned by further reading and research that I couldn't expect the car to go farther than about 70 miles on the freeway, so I dropped that illusion well before I ordered the car.
2. What changed?
The LEAF became our primary car. Our family moved closer so we no longer had twice-weekly 100 mile r/t commutes to babysit our new grandchild. The five of us fit in the LEAF well for local jaunts out to dinner, etc. In short, the versatility, economy and usablility of the LEAF made it the first choice for most of our driving.
To my shock and surprise, I found that my utility's (SCE) TOU EV rate plan combined with domestic solar PV net metering yielded an electric bill of ZERO, even with charging the LEAF (after midnight), PLUS an excess load of about 1,600 kWh last year due to extra family living with us temporarily. I expected some of our driving to be covered by our solar power, but I didn't expect all of our driving plus our household usage to be completely free of cost.
I found the performance of the LEAF to be surprisingly good at low speeds and accelerating from rest, and I enjoyed the low effort steering and the quietness of the riding experience. I find the handling to be uninspiring, but I slowly began to embrace efficient driving and maximizing energy efficiency.
The early adopter experience became a gratifying social experience, with valued new friendships formed via a local LEAF owner group and a great online support system (MNL).
3. The good, the bad, and the ugly
Good: Rock solid reliability, very useful, flexible interior design, especially roomy and open front cabin, zero cost driving due to the combo of home solar PV and TOU rates for night time charging, support and friendship of fellow early adopters, rewarding technical connection with the car and charging behavior through monitoring all electrical usage and generation via a TED system, driving something very new and different and being able to share my experiences with interested friends and strangers.
Bad: Disappointment in early range loss has taken part of the bloom off the joy of the first year of blissful driving.
Nobody told me to expect measurable driving range reduction after the first 14 months of ownership (actually, "lesseeship", since we leased). I realized that battery capacity would decline, but I had a distinct opinion that I MIGHT see measurable range reduction after between two and three years of driving, but that it would be minimal. Since Nissan predicted 20% range loss after 5 years, I expected no loss for more than 2 years and then perhaps up to 5% loss at the end of my 39 month lease. Instead, I started seeing reduced Gid readings after 13 months and a driving range test showed me that I have lost perhaps 13% of the range of my car when new. I now accept that capacity loss is a given with lithium batteries, but I strongly believe that Nissan should have prepared us for the expected timeline of range loss, and that given the 80% charge recommendation for long battery life and the recommendation to charge the car at the Low Battery Warning, if we follow all of those recommendations, effective driving range to the first battery warning is around 50 miles, even on a new car.
Ugly: I recently realized that I don't find enough driving fulfillment in calm, zenlike high-efficiency driving, and that in succumbing to the zen of the EV, I've allowed myself to ignore the uninspired, tippy handling and numb steering feel of the LEAF. I drove a friend's new Subaru BRZ, a new lightweight, affordable sports car tuned for handling and balance, and I just felt more like my old self, the self that enjoyed the mechanical feel of a well tuned sports car. The LEAF, even with its reasonably good torque and low center of gravity, is still essentially a numb driving appliance. I am remembering that I accepted the LEAF as an approximation toward the sports EV that I really wanted. Some of the newer EVs, notably the BMW ActiveE (which is still a project car, and one that has suffered quite some mechanical foibles) and the Honda Fit EV, are sportier than the LEAF, but still not real sports cars.
The ugly truth is that I find myself thinking longingly about returning to an ICE sports car for my personal driving, and getting a PHEV with good EV range for the family hauler.
Ugly? Yes, but there it is. The EV makers haven't made a serious sports EV under $100k yet, and I want to pay about one third of that price, so you might see me in an ICE again one of these years.
4. Do you still believe e-cars are going to make it and why?
Yes, they must. At some point, gasoline is going to become so expensive and oil so hard to find that the question is not "if" but "when". We need an alternative, and I think that battery development will eventually lead us to EVs with the right combination of price and range to satisfy average drivers. At this point, strong enthusiastic owner support and continued governmental support are needed to get us over the hump of battery prices and range limitations, and the resistance of the general public and counter insurgence of the oil establishment, and we need widespread L2 and QC charging infrastructure to reassure tentative buyers. I can't understand the shockingly bad performance of Ecotality to install a public L2 and QC charging infrastructure in California.
Like some here, I wish that the positive enthusiasm of the early adopters on this forum hadn't turned so completely negative on the range issue. I think that's a bad sign for the viability of the infant EV market. In my opinion, Nissan should have been tuned directly into this forum at the highest levels in their EV group from the very start of deliveries, instead of putting a contracted service bureau in place as a buffer to keep themselves separated from customer concerns. And Nissan should have been highly responsive to the earliest battery capacity concerns and enlisted owners to help find answers and mutually beneficial solutions within the first weeks of issues arising.
Nissan has a lot of lost ground to make up now, a hole that they dug themselves. I think that if they AMAZE and DELIGHT affected owners very soon, that there is enough goodwill towards the LEAF as the first mass market EV that much of the rancor among current owners will diminish. As it stands, though, we have irate and angry LEAF owners in Washington State that want rid of their LEAFs, even though they have no individual issues with their cars. THAT is a bad PR problem,
However, I'm concerned that the constant and vocal complaining regarding battery degradation will have a negative effect on early adopters--even in cases where climate is not an issue. 
