Looking at buying a 2015 Leaf

As the subject says I am looking at buying a 2015 Leaf in the next couple of days and I have some questions.

Key Stats

Live in Orange County, CA
The Leaf would be replacing my wife's 2002 Highlander. The wife usually drives about 20-30 miles daily. Doesn't work but we have two kids so she winds up doing a lot of errands during the day, swim practice drop off, grocery shopping, picking up from school etc. Was looking at replacing her car with a simple EV for use around Orange County. We also have another ICE vehicle for longer trips etc. I was looking at the Nissan Leaf because I have always been fairly impressed with the car ever since I watched "Revenge of the Electric Car". The Leaf and the Tesla seem to be the only cars designed from the ground up to be EV's.

Since Nissan is making some changes with the Leaf they seem to be significantly discounting the 2015 Leaf's, $5500 Nissan Rebate Cash and 0% APR for 72 Months. On top of this the CA and Federal Rebates/Tax Credits. So I was thinking it was time to finally make the plunge into a electric car. We are looking at the SV model since it seems to have all the major features we wanted.

It seems that the earlier model years that Nissan had some battery issues with the Leaf. However from what I read Nissan has made some adjustments and by the 2015 that should have been fixed. Is that accurate?

NissanConnectEV, it seems that this application uses 2G wireless by AT&T. However I read that AT&T was turning off 2G service in North America by the end of 2016. The Nissan website was less than helpful about this. Is the NissanConnectEV Application really that important?

Chargers, the vehicle would be garaged normally. We have easy access to a We have a lot of options with chargers and it seems like a lot of them have basically the same features. One charger that stood out for me was the Juice Box because of the wifi access and you can configure automated charging times. I know that NissanConnectEV will also do charging times but I am worried that the Nissan App will stop working when AT&T turns off the 2G network. Anybody have thought on the Juice Box?

What needs to be serviced on the Leaf? Obviously no oil changes, tune-ups etc. What are the regular items that need to be maintained on the car besides tires?

I am sure I will think of more but that is what I have at this time. Thank you in advance for responses.

I'm an owner of a 2015 and I'd say the #1 think to consider is buying a car that hasn't been sitting on a lot for a long time. Look at the manufacturing date on the inside of the car door and buy the freshest car you can find. Better yet, buy an OBD reader and get an APP like Leaf Spy and take battery readings. There's plenty of other things to consider as well. I've got a consultation service that can help you out. Its 100% free as I ramp it up and get referrals.

www.theevconsultant.com

I'll dive in to a few of your questions right now...

1. I just had a client get a 2015 S model with QC for $24K Out the door. That's $14K after the tax credit and rebates. I wouldn't pay more than $26K out the door for a 2015 SV right now.

2. The 2015 has a new battery chemistry that has been coined "lizard" for its supposed heat resilience. Most numbers are showing that it is slightly better than earlier packs, but it will still have some degradation, especially in CA. I'd say you can probably still expect the pack to lose about 4-6% per 20K miles (this is what I've experienced in the Bay Area). This however is an improvement over earlier Leafs. Hence the reason to buy the freshest car on the lot. You don't want to buy one that has been sitting there degrading.

3. I don't own an SV, but I think they've updated the Nissan Connect App for newer 3G/LTE networks. You can get around some of this buy buying a charger for your house that has WIFI built in, like the juice box or the charge point home units.

4. There isn't really anything that needs to be serviced. You need to take the car in every 7500 miles for a tire rotation and a battery test (required for warranty). Other than that, there isn't much to do. Do not buy the service plan they will try to sell you. The eco tires do tend to wear out a bit faster though. Most people get 30-40K out of them max, but they aren't very expensive to replace.

As I said, check out my site and we can do a consult.

And on one final note. Just so you know, if you buy a car today, you can file for your $7500 tax credit with you 2015 taxes in April of next year. If you wait till tomorrow, you won't see that money until April of 2017. Not sure how big of an issue this is to you, but could be relevant.

Thank you for the response(s).

As far as Federal Tax Credit. I installed Solar Panels in 2015 so I have basically maxed out what I could get back from my 2015 from the Federal Govt for Tax Credits. From a tax planning perspective I would rather get the Tax Credit in my 2016 taxes. I am aware that I can roll over my solar panel tax credits to 2016 but I would rather not deal with this.

Thank you for the information on the Charge Point charger. That looks like it would be the charger that I use.

I will look into how long the car that I am looking at has been sitting on the lot. That is a good point not to buy a car that has been sitting on the lot a long time with the battery degrading.

Just a few other items to note. You do know that the 2016 SV has a 30kwh battery (with a different design and greater warranty). At this point you are not going to be able to get a deal on a 2016 SV because the dealers still have so many 2015 models on the lot. My guess would be that in a few months this will change and the 2016 models will come down a bit in price. Right now you're looking at roughly a $8K premium on a 2016 SV compared to a 2015 SV, so I don't think this is worth it in my opinion. However, you need to realize that a 2016 SV with a 30kwh pack, will likely degrade only to about 24kwh capacity after about 80-100K miles, so you'd still have a lot of range left if you keep the car long term. If you choose to buy a 2015 SV, I would do so under the impression that you'll drive it for 3-4 years and sell it to make way for a newer gen EV. This was my approach in buying mine.

Also considering you are buying in the 2016 tax year and have a full year before you claim your tax credit, you might consider keeping all of your sales tax receipts for the year and going for a sales tax write off. If you itemize your taxes you can write off either your sales tax or your state income tax (whichever is greater). If you have a big purchase in 2016 (that being the Leaf), you can keep all of your receipts for everything else, tedious as it is, and then you might find that you paid more in sales tax and can take that write off. This worked for me one year when I bought a new car early in the year. The easiest way to do this is for you and your wife to just take a picture of every receipt with sales tax on it and then just save all the images in some cloud based application. All of your online purchase receipts with tax can just be moved to a separate email folder. At the end of 2016 you'll have some calculator work to do, but it may be worth your time.

As I said before, do your best to buy the freshest car on the lot. You really don't want one that's been sitting there for over a year. You'll realize 3-4% battery capacity loss from day one.

For those of us fortunate enough not to have a State or City income tax, we can use the General sales tax table and add the tax paid on large purchases to it if itemizing.

Here are some answers to you questions with a little different perspective:

Required maintenance listed in owners manual consists of annual battery check (every 12 months regardless of mileage--first two are free); tire rotation every 6 months or 7,500 miles; multi point inspection and replace cabin air filter every 12 months or 15,000 miles; and brake fluid change every 24 months or 30,000 miles. You can choose for yourself how closely to follow these guidelines. Everything but the annual battery checks can be done by independent shops or mechanically-inclined owners.

SV and SL models have charge timers which can be programmed with both start and end times so you may not need WiFi interface to EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment) for controlling charging times.

Remote access (EV Connect) is nice and I hope Nissan offers a cellular modem upgrade for a reasonable price when AT&T discontinues 2G service, but you can work around it by programming charging and climate control timers in the Navigation/Display system.

The battery in my 2015 has lost some capacity in 11 months and 17,000 miles, but deterioration is significantly less than the original battery and the replacement battery in the 2011 so the "lizard" battery is a definite improvement. If you buy a 2015, look for one with a recent manufacture date or negotiate additional price reduction for a car that has been sitting on the lot for several months. A 2015 Leaf should handle your 20 or 30 miles per day without issue (and without needing to recharge during the day) for a long time. My round trip commute is 52 miles and I was able to make it even with the original battery in the 2011 deteriorated until it was replaced under warranty.

Gerry

Thanks everyone for the responses.

I purchased a Nissan Leaf SV with alloy wheels. We got the vehicle for right around $25k with 0% APR financing for 72 months.

Should work great for my wife and her daily errands. The Leaf is a lot of fun to drive especially in city driving. Took it out yesterday for a good 60-mile drive and it felt great. It is fun to hit the peddle off a stop light and look in my rear view mirror and see all the ICE cars still sitting at the stop light.

Still got to figure out the charging setup but so far the Level-1 trickle charging seems to work just fine for my needs.

Hi Gbrance,

Do you mind confirming that the price you paid for the 2015 SL was before the federal and state tax rebates?

The reason I ask is, I bought a used 2015 SV on Dec 28, 15 for $17.6K. It was at 700 miles, so it was kind of close to being brand new. But it looks like I overpaid for the car.

Best

It was $25k before Tax/license so the out the door price was about $27k which subtracting $10k gets fairly close to what you paid which was $17k.

That's a reasonably good price for a 2015 SL. You paid for your SL what I paid for my S w/QC back in 8/14!

Bought 2 last year:

2015 SV+QC ==> $25200 (Tax, license, title, carpool sticker.... included) - $10000 (federal+ state rebate) = $15200 is my final price

2015 S+QC ==> $21600 (Tax, license, title, carpool sticker.... included) - $10000 (federal+ state rebate) = $11600 is my final price

Hoped this help.

That is an awesome deal! Where are you located to get such great deals?

Nissan of Buena Park; Southern California.

key5000 said:

Bought 2 last year:

2015 SV+QC ==> $25200 (Tax, license, title, carpool sticker.... included) - $10000 (federal+ state rebate) = $15200 is my final price

2015 S+QC ==> $21600 (Tax, license, title, carpool sticker.... included) - $10000 (federal+ state rebate) = $11600 is my final price

Hoped this help.

Click to expand...

Wow, that is a nice price. Just verifying, but is CA Sales Tax included with your final price? If so, that's the lowest I've ever seen...

Correct, that is my total FINAL price with 0% for 72 months.
Since that price is so good therefore I came back after 4 weeks to get a second one.

2015 SV+QC: $350/mo for 72 months (with $10000 rebates)
2015 S+ QC: $300/mo for 72 months (with $10000 rebates)