AthLeaf said:
The Leaf is a throwaway car :?: If it is, I dont want one... Whats up with that :?: :?:
I'm not sure why everyone is so big on leasing. We are planning to buy ours. And for almost nothing... Assuming a $30,000 purchase price, - $7,500 federal and $2,500 state credits (i.e. $10,000 free money), - $12,000 trade on current Mazda3 = $8,000 total to purchase the car.
The degree to which it is a "throwaway car" is still yet to be determined by us the early adopters.
It will likely be 2 or 3 years more before we know definitively to what degree it is a "throwaway car".
But the much more rapid battery deterioration than Nissan originally stated should be expected, and then their unwillingness to even sell replacement batteries does point in that direction strongly.
The one thing many people failed to recognize is that the battery capacity degrades with time, no matter how little you use it or how well you treat it. Unless you have the means to keep the battery temperature below 75F to 80F 98+% of the time. And that is pretty impractical except in a few places in the world. Not very practical in Atlanta.
If your commuting needs are fairly short, the LEAF may work for six to eight years without battery degradation impacting you.
In my case, I've only drive 20,000 miles in about 3 years, and the round trip commute to downtown is only 34 miles. So in my case the LEAF will likely be usable for at least six to eight years.
But there is also a chance that battery degradation after the battery gets to 70% or less of original capacity could accelerate. We just don't know yet. It is certainly the case that the different battery chemistry in laptop and cell phones (similar to the Tesla battery chemistry) tend to survive a few years, and then become relatively useless quickly. But laptop and cell phone batteries don't control battery temperature well. Their batteries get real hot, and many stay charged at 100% charge a lot of the time. The Tesla controls temperature some, and like the LEAF they want you to not charge to 100% much.
The LEAF does hardly anything to control battery temperature, just a little air flow past the case when the vehicle is moving, which actually makes the situation worse in hot weather and reduces range in cold weather.
The LEAF battery doesn't appear to be anywhere near as bad as laptop or cell phone batteries, or that "disposable", but the long term real world experience data isn't in yet. Only three years of real world experience.
There is a chance that my six or eight year old LEAF with only 50,000 to 65,000 miles on it may have a near useless range for me and require battery replacement. Who knows what that will cost :?: Currently probably somewhere between $8,000 and $14,000. Some say less in the $4,000 to $5,000 range but I'm very skeptical of that. Most people will not be willing to put that many $ into an eight year old car that is worth less than $4,000 to $5,000. Of course battery cost may come down. Maybe, but not certain :? .
And the technology is changing with more competition on EVs. The improvement of 6kW charging is a significant improvement over the 2011 / 2012. There are rumors of Nissan offering a larger battery capacity at some point. That would be a big improvement for many people, although a costly one.
So many people do consider the LEAF to be a "throwaway car". In 2011 two out of three people were buying instead of leasing. The 2011 lease costs were pretty outrageously high compared to the current lease costs. So at this point around 85% of people are leasing instead of buying.
In Georgia which allows the current $5,000 tax credit (at least till July 1 as far as I know) to be done on leases too, and with the need to get both the $5,000 against your state income tax liability if you buy, along with the $7,500 federal tax credit against the federal tax liability, that takes a fairly high income to apply both if you buy. So many people are leasing. Just need to be sure the dealer is passing through the $7,500 on the lease deal. But you've still got to get the $5,000 when you file your state income tax. If you don't have that much liability, you can file for the remainder in following years.