Any regrets owning your leaf?

I'm about to drop the hammer on a leaf lease. But like any one new to a different technology I'm nervous about making the jump.
Is their any folks ( already have gone through this) that might have down anything different when moving to this source or transportation? I'm in southern Ca. The Ev infrastructure is good and getting better. I'm a consultant in the field and drive 40 or less miles a day. It appears that their are plenty charge stations and nissan dealers to charge up. I'm in the process of getting a 50amp line installed in my house for the car. I'm am also looking into to solar for my house.
I have not sold my wife on it yet but she is asking questions. Im going to the Ev meeting this saturday in HB to talk to other folks that have been in my shoes. Any Words would be greatly appreciated
Warmest Regards
Robert

Range is basically the only limitation. Since you're driving 40 miles or less a day you should do just fine. My family is in a similar situation and we LOVE our Leaf. Just be careful, after a few months the car might become your wife's Leaf.

gsleaf said:

Range is basically the only limitation. Since you're driving 40 miles or less a day you should do just fine. My family is in a similar situation and we LOVE our Leaf. Just be careful, after a few months the car might become your wife's Leaf.

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Thanks for the Reply. I'm hoping so. She currentluy drives a dodge ram truck that is killing us on gas.

No regrets other than I wish I could afford a Tesla! Just drove one over the weekend at the Lincoln City, OR Drive Electric Week. Wow! I know now that a gasser could never be in my future. My Leaf is totally fun and a great ride but wow, Tesla has a great future. If Nissan can compare and compete and Tesla can be more affordable...I really think gassers time is up.

I, too have a great infrastucture here in OR and WA. Travel up to Seattle, down to Ashland, out to coast. It's all good. MORE Quick Charge stations will be needed! The Leaf is just a bit smaller than my 10-yr old Prius. I miss the add-ons I did over that ownership, but love the new stuff and look forward to more customizing to the Leaf.

I love plugging in and all the gadgets and screens of info. Unsure about future battery degrading but i am leasing, hoping to purchase. But with improvements in many EV areas, maybe in 3 years I will move on to something better.

Drop the hammer. I waited 2 years to get to this point and am over the moon about cruising around on electrons!

Your driving needs seem like a perfect fit for LEAF.

I'm near the end of a 3 year lease. I have no regrets.

My wife was leery at first. 2 things sold her. First was the bluetooth integration with her iPhone. Pretty common nowadays but it was a first for us.

Second thing that enthused her was being able to turn on the AC remotely and get into a comfortable car.

Now she's waiting for her Tesla Model X reservation.

You also need to consider your elevation gain and freeway driving. If you're going 60 mph up a hill for a few miles and driving 70 on the freeway, you'll really be pushing your range once the battery starts to degrade a bit. If you don't mind being the guy driving 50 mph up the mountain in the slow lane forcing the trucks to go around you then you're fine.

No.

Please stop by the Orange County group's (The Gidlings) DIY table at Huntington Beach for answers to your questions from experienced EVers.

not really - other than overpaying by being one of the preorder crowd but that's not a surprise.

Nigh three years later with zero usable public chargers (and absolutely zero QCs) and about your commute/daily max here in flyover country, I've never come close to running out of range at 80%, let alone 100%, charge and that's running in single digit temperatures with concomitant heat use. You'd have to be monumentally abusive to risk range anxiety at 40 miles/day over quite a few years. I could, albeit with some trepidation, afford to buy a Tesla but chose to replace my Leaf on lease with a purchased Leaf. I either go 30 some miles a day or 500+ so a Tesla is an unneeded extravagance that would still leave me needing a second or rented ICE for road trips. I preferred to pay a net 21k for a loaded SV that will last me many many years of silent, smooth 3c/mile driving. The Tesla would have been faster certainly, but I don't see the point of paying three to five times the price just to get to 60 a few seconds faster especially as I would sacrifice miles/KWh. I'm not a boy-racer. If I routinely needed to go 120 miles in a day I might have thought about it, but I just don't have that need.

The only potential problem has been negated by Nissan's battery (capacity) warranty. I knew that I might overpay as an "early adopter" (mentioned earlier), but the pure joy of driving my Leaf combined with the substantial operational expense savings (gas, maintenance, etc.) has negated that as well. I never counted on charging infrastructure and wouldn't want to "pay" for it anyway.

91040 said:

No.

Please stop by the Orange County group's (The Gidlings) DIY table at Huntington Beach for answers to your questions from experienced EVers.

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I'll be there about noon. I actually signed up early enough to get the free parking pass

I overpaid; that's the only real real regret for me. Early adopter penalty. Newcomers shouldn't have that problem.

Range capacity loss is a bit of an annoyance, but we had enough cushion for most of out intended use it hasn't really been much of a problem.

You might regret getting a level 2 charger and 50 amp circuit. For 40 miles of driving it will take you between 6 and 10 hours of charging from 120 volt socket, depending how hard or soft you drive. If you can charge at work, that makes a level 2 charger even more unnecessary.

My only regret is that i didn't get the quickcharge port (at the time, there were none in the area).. now my dealer has one... so next year when my lease rolls, and i move to a '15.. this time i'm getting it... it's handy when i'm in that area (like I tend to be on the weekends anyways). Other than that. No regrets.

Initially I regretted buying my LEAF versus leasing it. As the battery capacity drops long grocery shopping trips in winter become more difficult.

However, a few months ago that all changed with the unexpected installation of a public charge station in my destination city. Now those 55-70 mile shopping trips have become easy and I can take longer routes and skip 14 miles of dirt road.

The other thing that changed was the introduction of the Tesla Supercharger network. That allows very long trips in a BEV and is a paradigm shift in EV utility. So now I wait to see if the Tesla Model 3 really does get introduced and meet the goals set for it. If so, and I can figure out how to pay for one, I can go to one car — no ICE — for all my trips, even 2200 mile trips to Oregon. Meanwhile, my LEAF will continue to serve my local driving needs for another three to four years while I wait to see if the Tesla Model 3 proves viable. A double range new LEAF would have fairly little additional utility for my purposes as compared to just driving the old one.

So, pretty happy with my LEAF purchase. It wasn't remotely cost-effective but it sure is fun to drive on "sunpower". I dread having to go back to the ICE car for long trips!

I wish I got the premium package. I think it would have added like 20 bucks to my payment. Totally worth it for that around-view monitor thing. And for a city car, you want all the parking assistance gadgets you can get. The '13 SV doesn't even have a backup camera, though I think they all do for '15. When my lease runs out, I'll probably buy a used, loaded SL.

No regrets. Purchased my Leaf 39 months ago, have 40 mile round trip commute, 50 miles one way on the weekend. Had to L1 charge for 5-6 hours before driving the 50 miles back, but about a year ago my sister bought a RAV4 EV and installed an L2 EVSE. I didn't get QC and don't regret it for my driving pattern, but if buying now I would probably get QC. I think an L2 EVSE is a very good idea, if getting by on just L1 you won't have as much flexibility. I would also get 6 kw charging.

Also no regrets for me (†), and mine was in for a warranty repair for 3 weeks! I've had mine for 4 months and 3600 miles. It's just so much more fun to drive an electric. I doubt I'll ever go back to an ICE.

I recommend you get the 6Kw charger and the QC port.


(†) ok, I have one tiny regret: I still wish I was a person who would spend $85K on a car, because the Model S was really a fantastic drive. Lacking that, I'm glad I have a Leaf.

Very few people who lease get regrets, most are actually pretty happy since they can get a sense of technology and just send it back and don't sweat the battery crapping out on them.

I don't regret buying a 3 year old leaf with battery capacity loss for a song. It is a great city car and really has a great drive feel. I also look forward to selling it really cheap in two or three years and getting a different ev that is two or three years old. The leaf is a great car because it is has an electric drive train that is powerful and virtually maintenance free, has access to the diamond lane.

I regret that I have to have some work (recalls, for example) done at Nissan dealers. Because they are all terrible here.