How long will/did you keep your LEAF?

I'm just curious how long 2011/2012 LEAF owners/lessees plan to keep your vehicles counting from the day you purchased. If you have already sold your LEAF please answer with how long you kept it. Truncate your answer down to the nearest whole year.

Also, it might be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts about how they arrived at their plan and whether their current thinking has changed since the vehicle was first purchased and why.

Should really add an "indefinitely" option, and maybe take out some of the high-year options. Past 10 years, I doubt many people plan that specifically, but I know quite a few people, myself included, that simply keep a car until maintenance is too expensive to justify keeping it running- which is always an unknown quantity.

I put down the 15-year option because that's my guess for the leaf, but no way I can really know that yet.

As for the how I arrived at that plan, like all my vehicles, I purchase it for the lifetime of the vehicle. Selling a used vehicle in order to buy another vehicle, from a simple transportation perspective is simply a huge losing investment, comparatively. To many people, driving in a newer, more comfortable, better equipped, etc. vehicle is worth that investment, and that's definitely cool, I don't begrudge anyone that - but for me personally, it's just not. Now there's definitely a logical further step to that; A slightly used vehicle would be an even better choice from that perspective. And maybe I'll choose that route next time, but for this time, there weren't a lot of slightly used EV's around Arkansas in late 2011

So in short, I'll drive it 'till the wheels fall off

2011 SL bought Jan 2012. Will return on Dec 2015 and move to next EV between BMW, Infiniti LE, Tesla, Volt, Audi A6 in that order.

Ian B

Cant wait to see what Santa brings me for Christmas 2015.

I put 21+ years. While I do not expect our 2011 LEAF to provide transportation for that long, I think I would like to keep it around as a collector's item. Who knows, maybe there wil be lots of battery upgrade options for the LEAF that we can use to extend its life!

We have the 8-year 100,000 mile extended warranty in case anything electronic dies during our LEAF's early life. Beyond that, we expect to be able to use the car for 11-15 years, but we hope to be able to stretch it out to 17 years like Stoaty's model promises!

I put 11-15 years because:

1) I tend to keep my cars until they aren't useful to me. One car I gave to my parents after 12 years, my Camry is 11 years old and will be used for long trips for another 5-10 years.

2) With a 40 mile roundtrip commute and 50 miles one way most Saturdays (can charge at destination) the Leaf will be useful to me as long as I can drive at least 50 miles with it.

3) The battery aging model predicts that I will hit 70% capacity at just under 10 years. If it is accurate, I will be able to drive almost 70 miles at the 10 year mark.

Stoaty said:

3) The battery aging model predicts that I will hit 70% capacity at just under 10 years. If it is accurate, I will be able to drive almost 70 miles at the 10 year mark.

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[broken_record]Range drops faster than capacity[/broken_record]

I will keep my Leaf for 3 years, because that's the term of the Lease. At this point, I have no idea what will make sense for me in 2015. Maybe a new Leaf will be appealing enough to buy. Or maybe I will have 5 kids by then, and a Leaf will be practically useless. Or maybe my Leaf will still be performing like new, I'll still only have 2 kids, and Nissan will cut me a break on the buyout price

Gasoline cars are a mature technology. In recent years I've been keeping gas cars for 10-12 years.

EVs are a new and rapidly evolving technology. I keep computers about three years and I think that is currently appropriate for EVs as well. I love my LEAF, but plan to turn it and get a new EV at the end of the three year lease.

Ray

Three years, for me. In my climate, even racking up less than 12,000 miles a year, I expect the battery to be end-of-life in five years. In fact, even though I've always been a one-car household, I may make an exception in this case and get a second car before the LEAF lease expires. The second car will not be a LEAF, and once the LEAF is gone I won't get another Nissan.

The nail-in-the-coffin for me was Andy Palmer's statement that Nissan will never add a TMS to the LEAF, and that they think they can solve the heat degradation problem through chemistry improvements, alone. Maybe. Someday. But I don't want to own (or lease) another car with an inferior (at least for my climate) battery design while Nissan figures out a solution.

I chose 3 years (warranty expiration) but I've kept my vehicles from 6 months (crashed) to 12 years (and still going). My motivation to change isn't based so much on a timetable but when some combination of a lot more/better car for similar money is available, or some feature I can't live without happens (fixes a superb martini and dispenses it as I arrive home and shut off the vehicle for the night?). For me, "more/better" in a LEAF would be overcoming the annoyances (repetitive start messages, for example) and the major issues (range, overly-complex NAV interface). MY13 in SV or SL trim is a step in the right direction with faster charging and the heat pump, but I'm hoping the vehicle available when my owned 2012 warranty ends will be a large step forward in range and usability. If not, as I've said elsewhere in the forum, I like my car.

We've thought we'll keep our 2012 at least 5 years because we plan to retire in 5 years and will be moving to a place where we won't have charging facilities available (condo).

My husband drives it now for a daily 50 mile round-trip commute. It's perfect for that! We'll be moving in the next few months, however, and that will turn into a 4 mile round trip commute. Wow... he may be able to charge it once a week at that rate! LOL. We should have very low mileage in 5 years -- so, unless our charging option change and we can take it to the beach with us, someone is liable to get a sweet deal on an amazing car!

Personally, I hope we can take it with us. I definitely don't want to give it up!

I wish I was able to make more than one choice. Depending on where things are in a year I may turn it at the end of the lease or buy it out. Hard to say right now. If I turn it in it will be at the end of the 3 year lease if not and I buy it out I will probably keep it until it completely breaks down or close to it. My Leaf replaced a 1988 Nissan Pathfinder I had since new. So I had the Pathfinder 22 plus years and I can see having the Leaf just as long.

I chose 9-10, but it really hinges on battery replacement cost for me. My RT commute is about 25mi, so I can use the car for quite a long time, but if I think the battery is going to get lots worse with no affordable replacement, I'll jump ship at the end of the lease for a RAV4EV or maybe even a Volt.

Lease and done here. Not because I dislike the car - I may very well buy or lease the 2014/5 model to replace it. But even the 2013s are a bit of an upgrade so I have high hopes for the next iteration. The ELR is top of the list though as a Volt range would be good enough for 90% of my days anyway and there's only two of us. Assuming I can get into the thing and it can drive over a quarter in the road without scraping that is. If not, of current offers I'd stick with the Leaf rather than pay the FFE premium. Tesla? Who knows. Still wait and see there for me.

I chose 21+ years because I kept the previous car 25 years and would have kept it longer if I hadn't hit a deer with it.

However, there are a number of assumptions:

• I won't be tempted to trade it in a few years from now for a longer range EV (ideally, a longer range EV would replace my 4WD Jeep, if I could afford such a car, which seems unlikely—no model X for me!)
• Nissan will still be supplying parts, service, and battery packs (how can we possibly know this?)
• I will still be 1) alive and 2) able to drive in 20 years. Hard to know that at my age (few months shy of 60) but my parents still both drive capably in their upper 80s, so it is possible if I don't croak.

davewill said:

but if I think the battery is going to get lots worse with no affordable replacement, I'll jump ship at the end of the lease for a RAV4EV or maybe even a Volt.

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I am really hoping we will have the battery replacement cost information long before the end of the year so those with leases coming up in the next year or two can make a more informed decision. Oh and I put 21+ years for now.

Why do I only get to vote once? I had two LEAFs.

I put down 21+ years, but it's really hard to say as I have a 12 yr. old daughter and a 6 yr. old son. At some point we're going to cycle through cars and give them the older (presumably less expensive to insure) cars. We still own our 1993 VW EuroVan and have a 2002 RAV4-EV that shows no sign of slowing down (though we are loosing more public charging spots for it daily.)

I agree with the sentiment that the choices above 10 should really be combined into a '10+' category -- it all depends on when it becomes to expensive to maintain. Given that we're not talking about a gas engine, my guess is the expensive things that will most likely fall apart are either the electronics or the batteries. Since the batteries are LIon, that's a big unknown - but check out any 10+ year old luxury car and many of the electronic toys are simply busted.

I have a 24 month lease. Here in Tucson, I think it prudent. I traded in my purchased 2011 SL for a leased 2012 SL after losing a capacity bar at only 6771 miles. Fortunately NNA sweetened the deal so I did not take a big hit.

6 years - that's the life of the loan and I don't expect to get the 'hey your car is worth more used than new so want to come buy a new one and we'll cancel the loan' letter like I got for my first Saturn. I wish I'd leased. I would have a lower monthly payment and could get a new Leaf every 3 years. Seems like a win/win. My last Saturn lasted 10 years but I was wanting a new car long before the end of that.