Availability of used (off-lease) 2013s?

I had been expecting a flood of gently-driven, USA-made (lizard battery) Leafs to be glutting the market by now as they rolled off their 3-year leases. Sure, they are available, but did something change in the market such that I seem to see an overhang of 2012s and not so many 2013s.

If I had to guess, it'd be a combination of:
1) 2012s have a lot of uncertainty (battery replacement) and so linger in the market
2) 2013s are being snapped up
3) Did more 2013 owners end up keeping their cars at the end of the lease?

Arlington said:

Did more 2013 owners end up keeping their cars at the end of the lease?

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This would be my guess. Possibly many of them extended the lease for a year as that gives them the opportunity to skip MY2016 and go for the Leaf Gen2 (MY2017).

We LOVE our Leaf. Our Leaf is off Lease as of September 6. 2016. As long as they offer us the $5,000 discount our current plan is to keep the Leaf. Did I mention that we LOVE our Leaf? In the 2.5 years and 33,000 miles we have only lost one or two miles of range, if that much.

I think that more people are extending the lease than are keeping the car, because of the high purchase (residual) prices on them. That glut of 2013 cars will occur in 2016 and, especially, 2017.

LeftieBiker said:

I think that more people are extending the lease than are keeping the car, because of the high purchase (residual) prices on them. That glut of 2013 cars will occur in 2016 and, especially, 2017.

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This is setting up to be a very interesting 2016/2017 for Nissan if the 2013's coming off lease have been "deferred" with the lease extension. This means that the deferred 2013's will then be coming off lease concurrent with the 2014's. There were 30,200 2014 model Leaf's sold compared to just 22,600 model 2013's. Recent posts to MNL seem to indicate Nissan is backing off the large lease end cash reduction incentives to purchase, as well as not allowing the lease extensions. There could be glut of 2013/2014 Leaf's available just as the Bolt comes to market and gasoline is still below $2. A windfall for savvy consumers will be a financial disaster for Nissan.

I just turned in my 2013 after extending for about 6 months.

This is setting up to be a very interesting 2016/2017 for Nissan if the 2013's coming off lease have been "deferred" with the lease extension. This means that the deferred 2013's will then be coming off lease concurrent with the 2014's. There were 30,200 2014 model Leaf's sold compared to just 22,600 model 2013's. Recent posts to MNL seem to indicate Nissan is backing off the large lease end cash reduction incentives to purchase, as well as not allowing the lease extensions.

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They have now decided to allow lease extensions on 2012 and 2013 MY Leafs, with a choice of 12 or 24 months past the original lease expiration date. Most of us seem to be opting for two years, because it's supposedly month to month anyway, meaning we get to keep our cheap leases until we find another EV we really want. This also makes it more likely that said new EV will be a Nissan. In my case, probably a leftover 2016 SV. It would also stand to reason that Nissan may up the buyout offer on the 2013 to match the highest one offered on the 2012: $7500. With a slightly lower residual to start with from the extensions, that might be enough to convince me to buy my car. Maybe.

It seems like the initial consensus here is that the 2013s are being kept by their lessees (somewhat unlike the 2012s which seem to be in greater abundance on the used market despite their having been fewer of them made)

pkulak said:

I just turned in my 2013 after extending for about 6 months.

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What were your benefits/consequences of doing so (same payments, added mileage allowance, lower residual?)

I therefore consider myself lucky to have bought my MY2013 when I did (an Aug '12 made, MY13, that did the auction-resale thing in October 2015, which, yes, we love).

Arlington said:

I had been expecting a flood of gently-driven, USA-made (lizard battery) Leafs to be glutting the market by now as they rolled off their 3-year leases. Sure, they are available, but did something change in the market such that I seem to see an overhang of 2012s and not so many 2013s.

If I had to guess, it'd be a combination of:
1) 2012s have a lot of uncertainty (battery replacement) and so linger in the market
2) 2013s are being snapped up
3) Did more 2013 owners end up keeping their cars at the end of the lease?

Click to expand...

There are no original (lizard) batteries in 2011- 2014 leafs. Lizard batteries were not till late 2014 considered as 2015. I don't believe they are more durable than earlier batteries but may have slightly more capacity. If you are looking for lizard battery cars, plenty of 2011's are getting new lizard replacement batteries, and even now some 2012's. Of course, 2015's have them.

2013 Leafs did not become available until February 2013 IIRC. So the "flood" may just be starting to occur as 3 year leases tend to be more common with the Leaf especially in California, where 2 year leases don't qualify for the $2500 rebate.

Evoforce said:

There are no original (lizard) batteries in 2011- 2014 leafs. Lizard batteries were not till late 2014 considered as 2015

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There is a definitional problem of what constitutes a lizard, but the MY2013 batteries (made in USA starting Feb 2012 and installed in MY2013 starting in July/August 2012) areclearly different and better than MY2012 batteries, and would constitute another reason why US-made MY2013 should be preferred to Japan-made MY2012.

Best indication is that the design-change (and chemistry change) that would become knowns as Lizard --or much of it-- was actually implemented during the tooling for US production of batteries in Jan-Mar 2012 and started being installed in MY2013 produced in July 2012 or early August 2012. This was accompanied by an upgrade in the warranty. We also see the change from 4 temp sensors to 3 temp sensors during this changeover to MY2013.

It is a pretty well established fact that the module changes were introduced in production MY2013s before you started seeing them in the replacement program:

I disagree with your considered time span of (lizard battery) production. Lizard batteries were supposed to be more heat tolerant than previous batteries and were supposedly introduced for the 2015's. It has been reported that batteries produced late 2014 were of the heat tolerant chemistry. In Arizona, none of the batteries are holding up any better including lizard to our hot climate. I now have two 2011 leafs with lizard batteries. The 13 month old lizard is not doing any better than the original. The other battery is too new to show signs yet. I suspect that the 13-14's had a slightly larger energy density including the 2015 lizard battery. My best guess on the 15's is that they have about 7% more overall in pack energy density. I say this because of the maximum percentage charge (87-90%) I can get on the new lizard batteries in my 2011 cars as opposed to the original batteries (95-97%). Anyway, I think we are off topic maybe we can discuss this further in a battery thread.

Arlington said:

It seems like the initial consensus here is that the 2013s are being kept by their lessees (somewhat unlike the 2012s which seem to be in greater abundance on the used market despite their having been fewer of them made)

pkulak said:

I just turned in my 2013 after extending for about 6 months.

Click to expand...

What were your benefits/consequences of doing so (same payments, added mileage allowance, lower residual?)

I therefore consider myself lucky to have bought my MY2013 when I did (an Aug '12 made, MY13, that did the auction-resale thing in October 2015, which, yes, we love).

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You mean, benefits of extending? Well, they gave me two months for free, then the payments were the same. I didn't have crazy low payments ($290 a month), but it was still a good deal and let me wait for some other options to hit the market before I decided what I was going to move to.

pkulak said:

You mean, benefits of extending? Well, they gave me two months for free, then the payments were the same. I didn't have crazy low payments ($290 a month), but it was still a good deal and let me wait for some other options to hit the market before I decided what I was going to move to.

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That's exactly what I wanted to know, except what's the new term? Month to month with a monthly mileage allowance or was there an annual term? 2 free months is either 4% or 8% off paid "up front". If all it did was get you to a 2016 (and its 20% bigger battery) or 2017 (and 200mi?), it seems like a good no-money-down way to stay in an electric car while things get better.

But at some point those 2013s are going to come flooding onto the market and it'll be good for people like me, who like buying lightly-used, rapidly-obsoleted tech (I love my iPhone 4S ;-) I understand that newer ones are even more awesome, but by historical standards both a 4S and a 2013 S are techno-awesome things)

The lease extension gives the same annual mileage and is month to month, although it doesn't say so in writing. It's a very ,very short document. In states where sales tax is paid, if you paid yours up front like me, the extension will include a monthly sales tax charge for the lease. In my case that's an extra $10 a month.