Poll: What did your Leaf replace?

Mod note: Conversion to poll....

Many thanks!

We replaced our Hyundai Accent - about 30mpg.

But the more difficult thing for you to estimate is how do you add in changes in driving habits/choices. For example, we use the Leaf more than we did the Hyundai (and thus drive our minivan and truck less - 20mpg and 10mpg respectively).

Not an easy calculation to do really as I expect there is likely a very wide variance between owners.

Slow1 said:

We replaced our Hyundai Accent - about 30mpg.

But the more difficult thing for you to estimate is how do you add in changes in driving habits/choices. For example, we use the Leaf more than we did the Hyundai (and thus drive our minivan and truck less - 20mpg and 10mpg respectively).

Not an easy calculation to do really as I expect there is likely a very wide variance between owners.

Click to expand...

Excellent point.
I phrased it poorly.

I'm looking to measure the market, and from that, draw rough ideas about the primary efficiency gains.
I know of a number of Leaf owners that also installed Solar as a result of getting their Leaf.
These types of things make the calculations far too complicated, however, it is a very interesting, and telling, data point.

Replaced a 2009 Kia Rio, about 33MPG avg (lots of highway driving, so got the better end of it's MPG)
Basic car, but a great little commuter... Never had any mechanical issues with it..

Also, we use the Leaf a bit less than we used the Kia, because we generally used the Kia for longer trips as well.
Now we're using the Subaru for that...

But with commuting alone, I'll still get well over 20k in the Leaf per year..

desiv

Perhaps one way to address this is to ask:

1) What vehicle did you replace and what MPG did it get?
2) How many annual miles did you drive the old vehicle
3) How many annual miles are you driving the Leaf

Slow1 said:

Perhaps one way to address this is to ask:

1) What vehicle did you replace and what MPG did it get?
2) How many annual miles did you drive the old vehicle
3) How many annual miles are you driving the Leaf

Click to expand...

All excellent questions!
Would love to hear about any details like that in the comments.
Very difficult to structure a poll to capture all that info

Slow1 said:

Perhaps one way to address this is to ask:

1) What vehicle did you replace and what MPG did it get?
2) How many annual miles did you drive the old vehicle
3) How many annual miles are you driving the Leaf

Click to expand...

I had a 2003 Nissan 350z. It got 27 MPG highway.
I used to put about 12k miles before I got transferred to my current job that is 108 mile round trip commute.
I've had the Leaf for almost 10 months and I have 32k miles on it.

It has saved me tons in gas and my employer supplies charging at work and I take advantage of LADWP's free quickchargers all over the city.

I didn't replace my previous daily driver (2006 Audi A3 2.0T) but it did pretty much take over as my primary car. I put 10k/year on the Leaf and about 2k/year on the Audi, most of it on just 2 or 3 trips. Before that I was putting 15k/year on my daily drivers. The reason I don't drive as much now is if I can't do it in the Leaf, I think twice about whether I should do the trip at all.

Audi gets around 25 MPG mixed city/highway but in stop/go traffic it will dip below 20 MPG.

I replaced my 2005 Honda CR-V with my 2014 LEAF. The Honda averaged around 25 mpg on my daily driving (interstate+city roads). My daily commute is around 36 miles round trip.

Slow1 said:

Perhaps one way to address this is to ask:

1) What vehicle did you replace and what MPG did it get?
2) How many annual miles did you drive the old vehicle
3) How many annual miles are you driving the Leaf

Click to expand...

As well as, the LEAF is actually a hatchback and NOT a sedan; in the US we're not all that fond of hatchbacks like many in Europe are but this makes my '06 Mazda GT 5-door fall under your 'other' category. In any case, I've seen somewhat similar polls years ago when the LEAF was first introduced but always good to see what they latest trend is. Our '12 LEAF is 39 months old now with 28,800 miles or about 8,900/year. So,

1) 2006 Mazda3 Grand Touring 5-door hatch with 2.3L/automatic rated 22/29 MPG; could get about 31-33 on highway trips
2) Had it for a bit over 5 1/2 years at 59,500 so 10,625/year
3) About 8,900/year; all commuting and errand trips

Still need to either drive my other (ICE) car which has better range and/or rent for longer trips and/or bad weather so expect its mileage to stay fairly consistent. The difference (about 1,725 less miles per year; or about 84% of the previous car's annual mileage) is a bit misleading with Mazda3 to LEAF swap as we always had a bigger utility/travel vehicle in the mix and just took the Mazda3 for 'moderate' trips.

More interestedly, for those who have had more than just 1 car before the LEAF, tracing back each replacement can be interesting as well -- some car buying decisions involve conditions at the time (gas prices, family needs, commutes, etc.) others are simply non-rational ones 'because I can'. So, here are the predecessors to our LEAF:

'70 Toyota Corona ($250 beater) -- > '81 Toyota Corolla (2 door, stick, roll down windows, no A/C, not even a glovebox lid) --> '88 VW Fox GL (4 door, easier for car seat, A/C, 'deluxe') -- > '93 Ford Taurus SHO (4 door, bigger back seat, all the toys, rocket sled) -- > '98 VW New Beetle TDI (close to 50 MPG, heated seats, stick again, longer commute = need better MPG) -- > '06 Mazda3 GT (kids outgrew Beetle back seat, more utility for college runs, fun to drive) -- > '12 LEAF (very predictable commutes for 3 drivers, loved the EV tech, nice incentives despite high initial cost)

Thinking about 'when', etc. the LEAF would be sold or traded; with resales values expecting to get even worse once the next gen EV's can get 200 miles on a charge prompts me to take a wait and see approach and its not our typical 5 to 7 years yet to swap/sell yet -- perhaps someone (maybe Nissan, look what Tesla did with their roadsters) will offer a retrofit with double range batteries once the current one expires; that would 'enhance' the resale potential of these still first gen LEAF's unless our road salt gets to it first! Even if Nissan simply wants you to buy their next gen for us 'early adopters', they might offer incentives; time will tell but we're pretty happy with it so far.

For many years I was using either my 2005 F-350 diesel or 2005 Chevy delivery van to commute 1500 miles per month. Both average 15 mpg on the commute.
I leased a 2015 Leaf 8 months ago and it handles the 70 mile daily round trip beautifully, usually L2 charging to 100% once a day at the shop. At the end of the round trip, it always has 20- 22% battery left, depending on traveling speed.
The F-350 is now used occasionally only for hauling horses, etc. and the van is now used just for deliveries.
We use our 2015 Nissan Rouge for longer trips @ 30 mpg, and we use the Leaf for local runs as well.
For just my commute @ 18,000 miles a year, fuel use was at least 100 gallons per month.
My Leaf uses approx. 325 kWh per month @ 4.6 miles per kWh average.

Went from a 2004 Mazda 3 to a 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV to a 2015 Nissan LEAF S.

Even the diminuitive i-MiEV convinced me that electric vehicles are the future!

Technically my LEAF replaced an '86 VW Golf with more than 230k miles; it usually got around 37-40 mpg. I killed that car with a deer and that moved up my purchase of the LEAF by several years.

But the car I was actually driving when the LEAF was purchased was a '96 Jeep Cherokee that gets around 23-25 mpg. So the miles went from that car to the LEAF. Two days ago I put gas in the Jeep for the first time since September for a drive over to Canyonlands NP. It doesn't get used much nowadays.

I drive the LEAF much more than I would if I was still driving just the Jeep — for the first three years I took over a one-day-a-week carpool because my car runs on "sunpower" and its fuel costs nothing (my carpool partner has since retired). I also will make discretionary trips in the LEAF that I might not if I was paying for gas in the Jeep. The LEAF battery degrades whether I use it or not and the main cost per mile is tire wear (~2.6¢/mile under my driving conditions).

1994 Mercedes Benz C220 4 door about 30mpg ? I wanted in the Carpool lane for free so I didn't have to pay $300 a month on toll charges on the 73 !

I sold a Honda Civic EX to buy a ZEV electric "motorcycle" that turned out to be Junk, while also driving a '95 Camry four that got right on the poll margin (28-35) in MPG. I sold the Camry to lease the Leaf, but then got an ICE motorcycle (small engine, old but low miles) to be able to actually ride a motorcycle again. The math in this case suggest "other."

Nine (9) pages on this topic already, here:

• What was your previous car before Leaf?

My 'Other' in this survey was a 1987 Mercedes 300D, running on 100% "WVO" biodiesel.

3 months ago my Leaf replaced a 2010 RAV 4 that got 27 mpg. I put 170,000 miles on it.

mbender said:

Nine (9) pages on this topic already, here:

• What was your previous car before Leaf?

My 'Other' in this survey was a 1987 Mercedes 300D, running on 100% "WVO" biodiesel.

Click to expand...

Was looking for this thread, of course that one was free form and this one is a poll ... none the less, it appears that not one make/model stands out but I'm sure Nissan is taking note ... early adopters are as always a bit different. The LEAF is still nowhere nears a 'mainstream' Prius or Civic, etc. so owners will come from all makes and models