2013 Leaf: QC vs lower mileage

Hi everyone,

I've done a lot of research and am ready to purchase a 2013 Leaf. I'm stuck on one thing though. Of the two options available, one has the QC port but has an extra 9K miles on it. I know that the batteries degrade with use so the lower the mileage the better, but I can't decide if it's worth sacrificing the QC port in favour of lower mileage. The cost is $800 difference between the two.

There are two options available locally:

- SV trim with QC port and 25K on it
-S no QC port and 16K on it.

We will primarily charge at home, but I can see the occasional "in the field" charging, in which case the faster capability of the 6.6 might be nice. I'm not too concerned about the other trim features that the SV brings.

What would you do? higher mileage w/ QC (+$800) or lower mileage without?

Thanks for the help.

"lower the mileage, the better" is at best, misleading.

there is a HUGE difference from mile to mile depending on the driver. In most cases of low mileage, its time you should be more concerned with. 2nd is the location of the car; hotter is a concern. Then you should get LEAF Spy to check the charging stats. Look at how many charging events you have per mile. A larger average is better for the battery. Suggests less topping off, more miles per events, etc. all of which minimizes mileage concerns.

Its after all that that you should be concerned with what the odometer says

QC, and 6.6, hands down. Mileage isn't as importent as reading the battery with LeafSpy, and where the car was driven initially.

OP, can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

What are your daily driving needs in terms of miles? How much city vs. highway? Will you have the ability to charge at your work/destinations?

DaveinOlyWA said:

"lower the mileage, the better" is at best, misleading.

there is a HUGE difference from mile to mile depending on the driver. In most cases of low mileage, its time you should be more concerned with. 2nd is the location of the car; hotter is a concern. Then you should get LEAF Spy to check the charging stats. Look at how many charging events you have per mile. A larger average is better for the battery. Suggests less topping off, more miles per events, etc. all of which minimizes mileage concerns.

Its after all that that you should be concerned with what the odometer says

Click to expand...

+1 on most of the above. Definitely look at where the cars have resided and their battery Hx and SOH via Leaf Spy.

As for # of charging events per mile, I could've sworn there was a post stating that the L2 count can have extra bogus events if the charging timer was used. IIRC, it was along the lines of, the count will be incremented if plugged in, even if it's delayed by the timer and incremented again, for the actual charging. Anyone else remember that post or can correct me on that? (FWIW, for my weekday @ work charging, I normally use the 12 am to 12 am 80% time trick to charge. If I need 100%, about 1 or 2 hours before I leave, I remotely via Carwing/Nissan Connect trigger the charge now command so that it goes to 100%.)

DNAinaGoodWay said:

QC, and 6.6, hands down. Mileage isn't as importent as reading the battery with LeafSpy, and where the car was driven initially.

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For me, the CHAdeMO inlet (aka QC port) wasn't worth the extra $. See my posts below.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=443435#p443435
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=428381#p428381

However, a '13 S w/o CHAdeMO inlet == slow 3.x kW on-board charger. I love having the 6.x kW OBC instead of a lame 3.x kW OBC: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=404892#p404892.

Agree on the rest.

OP, what's the build month on each of the cars? There's evidence to suggest that '13s with build months sometime past 2/2013 (maybe 3 or 4?) have batteries that seem to be better from a degradation POV.

Depending on where you live, and what CHAdeMO infrastructure is being built out in your area, I would advice on not getting a leaf without the QC.

It seems, many people do not know that 13 and onwards, you could get the 6.6Kwh charger without the QC. There are plenty of 2013 & 2014 leafs out there with that configuration.

To me CHAdeMO did not make sense in 2013 because there were far few/no chargers in my area/on my commute route & secondly it was an extra $1500 option unless you went with the SL trim, but now there are close to 100 CHAdeMO points (one every 30-50 miles) in the SF Bay Area. The CHAdeMO port is of so much use now.

The QC is now standard on 2016 SV models & up. It is no longer an extra $1500 option.

mihird said:

Depending on where you live, and what CHAdeMO infrastructure is being built out in your area, I would advice on not getting a leaf without the QC.

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Yes, depends on that but also their pricing, their reliability and the OP's use cases and whether they have the patience to stop and charge or have an "adventure" if the DC FC is broken or blocked.

mihird said:

It seems, many people do not know that 13 and onwards, you could get the 6.6Kwh charger without the QC. There are plenty of 2013 & 2014 leafs out there with that configuration.

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It's kW, not kWh. Yes, on the '13, one can get an SV WITHOUT QC + LED package to get a the 6.x kW OBC WITHOUT CHAdeMO inlet.

mihird said:

To me CHAdeMO did not make sense in 2013 because there were far few/no chargers in my area/on my commute route & secondly it was an extra $1500 option unless you went with the SL trim, but now there are close to 100 CHAdeMO points (one every 30-50 miles) in the SF Bay Area. The CHAdeMO port is of so much use now.

Click to expand...

It didn't make sense for me in July 2015 when I bought a used '13 Leaf SV after having had a '13 Leaf SV WITH QC + LED and premium packages for almost 2 years. None of the 3 DC FCs that I used back w/my 1st Leaf are free anymore. One them went w/NRG eVgo (see bottom of https://www.nrgevgo.com/ev-drivers/freedom-station-plans/ for flex plan: DC fast: $4.95 session + 20¢ / min.) and the others are on Blink at $0.59/kWh to DC FC for members. No thanks. Since this is way more than fueling my Prius, on longer trips, I'll take my Prius instead.

There are hardly any free DC FCs anymore (not that they were many to begin with) and Blink and NRG evgo are the 2 dominant DC FC providers in the Bay Area.

I know of two that were and are still free, but I don't travel that way often and if I still had a Leaf w/QC inlet, wouldn't want to depend on them on a long trip (they could be broken or in use).
http://www.plugshare.com/?location=13491 - looks like it's been broken for awhile and has been broken for weeks at a time, in the past
http://www.plugshare.com/?location=8428

Besides the exorbitant DC FCing prices, even $1K (premium for a CHAdeMO inlet) buys my Prius quite a bit of gas. If it's $4 gal, that buys me 250 gallons. If I only achieve a lousy 40 mpg in my Gen 2 Prius, that will propel it 10K miles.

I live in the Bay Area too, but in the South Bay.

Wonderful analysis on the usefulness of the QC. Yes, my bad it is Kw not Kwh.

I guess it really depends on your driving lifestyle. I anticipate needing QC only 5-10 times a year at the most, so I could swallow the high /KWh or /session price.

But you are right. Long term, we should have to pay into building out the QCs but $5-10 session fees or $.59/KWh is unreasonably high. At those prices, it will be hard to convince people to use them often/build more QC infrastructure out. The two are intertwined. The more QCs get used, the more a company can risk investing in building them out.

I have another pricing model in mind that might work better. Like bus passes, how about if I can buy a 10 or 20 session pass for $3/ 30 min. session or something. And the pass should work across charging networks.

And of course, the reliability of QCs is an issue of its own.

Thanks for the responses everyone. Def good points to think about. A bit more info:

I'm located in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver, Canada. The vehicle will be primarily used for my wife's commute, which is 29km (18 mile) round trip, plus errands/activities in the evening. Our typical daily driving should rarely exceed 65km (40 miles) during the week, and then possibly a bit more on the weekends with day trips into Vancouver. There won't be any ability to charge the vehicle during the day at her work, but with such a short commute I won't think it will be necessary.

We have a second vehicle, which we would use for longer weekend excursions that would exceed the range of the Leaf.

It seems that we will be fine with just charging at home every night and that would meet our daily needs, but I'm just concerned that I'm missing out on the importance of the QC upgrade.

The kicker is that I just bought the 2013 S (no QC), but the dealership does offer a 7 day exchange, so I could technically go back for the other option. It would just mean an extra $800 and possibly a bit of hassle.

The only issue I see with the S is the higher heater power consumption. You will want to pre-heat the car when possible, and that is also harder with the S, IIRC.

cwerdna said:

mihird said:

Depending on where you live, and what CHAdeMO infrastructure is being built out in your area, I would advice on not getting a leaf without the QC.

Click to expand...

Yes, depends on that but also their pricing, their reliability and the OP's use cases and whether they have the patience to stop and charge or have an "adventure" if the DC FC is broken or blocked.

mihird said:

To me CHAdeMO did not make sense in 2013 because there were far few/no chargers in my area/on my commute route & secondly it was an extra $1500 option unless you went with the SL trim, but now there are close to 100 CHAdeMO points (one every 30-50 miles) in the SF Bay Area. The CHAdeMO port is of so much use now.

Click to expand...

It didn't make sense for me in July 2015 when I bought a used '13 Leaf SV after having had a '13 Leaf SV WITH QC + LED and premium packages for almost 2 years. None of the 3 DC FCs that I used back w/my 1st Leaf are free anymore. One them went w/NRG eVgo (see bottom of https://www.nrgevgo.com/ev-drivers/freedom-station-plans/ for flex plan: DC fast: $4.95 session + 20¢ / min.) and the others are on Blink at $0.59/kWh to DC FC for members. No thanks. Since this is way more than fueling my Prius, on longer trips, I'll take my Prius instead.

There are hardly any free DC FCs anymore (not that they were many to begin with) and Blink and NRG evgo are the 2 dominant DC FC providers in the Bay Area.

I know of two that were and are still free, but I don't travel that way often and if I still had a Leaf w/QC inlet, wouldn't want to depend on them on a long trip (they could be broken or in use).
http://www.plugshare.com/?location=13491 - looks like it's been broken for awhile and has been broken for weeks at a time, in the past
http://www.plugshare.com/?location=8428

Besides the exorbitant DC FCing prices, even $1K (premium for a CHAdeMO inlet) buys my Prius quite a bit of gas. If it's $4 gal, that buys me 250 gallons. If I only achieve a lousy 40 mpg in my Gen 2 Prius, that will propel it 10K miles.

I live in the Bay Area too, but in the South Bay.

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We bought a 2013 SV in late October. There's a great Aeroenvironment network in Oregon and Washington and so we drove from Portland to Renton (Seattle) and back for Thanksgiving, stopping twice each way to charge. Aeroenvironment charges $7 a charge, but they also have the option of $20 a month for UNLIMITED charging, so we bought that for the month instead of spending $40 on gas. Yeah, we could have gotten there faster in the ICE, but we rather enjoyed the slower and much quieter ride. Most of the time we drive around town but it's nice to have the option to go longer, since the charging network is there for us. (Also per Plugshare the Aeroenvironment stations are much more reliable than Blink, etc.).

paulcone said:

We bought a 2013 SV in late October. There's a great Aeroenvironment network in Oregon and Washington and so we drove from Portland to Renton (Seattle) and back for Thanksgiving, stopping twice each way to charge. Aeroenvironment charges $7 a charge, but they also have the option of $20 a month for UNLIMITED charging, so we bought that for the month instead of spending $40 on gas. Yeah, we could have gotten there faster in the ICE, but we rather enjoyed the slower and much quieter ride. Most of the time we drive around town but it's nice to have the option to go longer, since the charging network is there for us. (Also per Plugshare the Aeroenvironment stations are much more reliable than Blink, etc.).

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Problem is the above network does NOT exist in California. So, the above network and pricing choices are totally NA for me.

And, Aerovironment was supposedly contracted to install and maintain (?) the crappy Nissan-branded DC FCs (and not the supposedly much better http://www.evsolutions.com/product-details/ev-50-public/ev-50). Some of them weren't that well maintained and not having their filters cleaned either. Clogged filters = temperature error and basically useless DC FC.

cwerdna said:

paulcone said:

We bought a 2013 SV in late October. There's a great Aeroenvironment network in Oregon and Washington and so we drove from Portland to Renton (Seattle) and back for Thanksgiving, stopping twice each way to charge. Aeroenvironment charges $7 a charge, but they also have the option of $20 a month for UNLIMITED charging, so we bought that for the month instead of spending $40 on gas. Yeah, we could have gotten there faster in the ICE, but we rather enjoyed the slower and much quieter ride. Most of the time we drive around town but it's nice to have the option to go longer, since the charging network is there for us. (Also per Plugshare the Aeroenvironment stations are much more reliable than Blink, etc.).

Click to expand...

Problem is the above network does NOT exist in California. So, the above network and pricing choices are totally NA for me.

And, Aerovironment was supposedly contracted to install and maintain (?) the crappy Nissan-branded DC FCs (and not the supposedly much better http://www.evsolutions.com/product-details/ev-50-public/ev-50). Some of them weren't that well maintained and not having their filters cleaned either. Clogged filters = temperature error and basically useless DC FC.

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Yeah, I got that. I was just pointing out a case where it makes sense, so others have an example contrary to yours.

I don't use QC a lot but I wouldn't want to be without it. Especially as the battery degrades, it can make the car still useable for many. I wouldn't want to buy a car without the ability to QC. I also do not want to fall back on gas if not truly necessary. The ability to QC eliminates the need for hybrid in most cases.

Evoforce said:

The ability to QC eliminates the need for hybrid in most cases.

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Depends on the use cases and the infrastructure. I gave an example at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=445234#p445234 where it wouldn't have helped. At that time, I had a Leaf w/CHAdeMO.

Last night, I also was on a date and had to drive a bit over 112 miles in total, almost all highway, 1/2 of it when it was cold at night and the other half below 65 F. There is 0 charging at the BART station where I parked at (and yes, I looked around that area on Plugshare). Even if I had CHAdeMO on my current Leaf, I wouldn't want to have to take extra time to detour to a CHAdeMO station, have an "adventure" if it was broken or blocked and wait around at a DC FC.

Prices in California are jacked up on so many services/products just because it is California. Incidently I noticed, QC charges are as high as 79 cents/KWh in Hawaii on the Blink network.

I had a chargepoint L2 station near my office charging 49 cents/KWh until mid 2015. Once the gas prices started to fall, they lowered it to 30 cents/KWh.

Someone started a thread here on whether charging stations should be regulated by the govt. I think, just like the initial years of gas stations, I would be okay with the govt. intervening in the initial years. I am all for paying into charging stations more than just the electricity cost for the convenience and helping them build more stations, but arbitrary pricing like this is price gouging.

cwerdna said:

Evoforce said:

The ability to QC eliminates the need for hybrid in most cases.

Click to expand...

Depends on the use cases and the infrastructure. I gave an example at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=445234#p445234 where it wouldn't have helped. At that time, I had a Leaf w/CHAdeMO.

Last night, I also was on a date and had to drive a bit over 112 miles in total, almost all highway, 1/2 of it when it was cold at night and the other half below 65 F. There is 0 charging at the BART station where I parked at (and yes, I looked around that area on Plugshare). Even if I had CHAdeMO on my current Leaf, I wouldn't want to have to take extra time to detour to a CHAdeMO station, have an "adventure" if it was broken or down and wait around at a DC FC.

Click to expand...

However, in the future there may be more infrastructure in all areas of the country as well as yours. Without a QC port on a car a person would not be able to take advantage of it. It also could enhance a persons ability to sell a QC enabled car to a broader audience should it be sold. There are also Tesla owners that regret not paying for QC capability, because when they bought their cars, no charging stations were in their area and now there is.

Evoforce said:

However, in the future there may be more infrastructure in all areas of the country as well as yours. Without a QC port on a car a person would not be able to take advantage of it. It also could enhance a persons ability to sell a QC enabled car to a broader audience should it be sold.

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True, but I'm not optimistic about the DC FC prices getting any better. There seems to be no money to be made from DC FCing, at least as a station owner. Ecotality already went bankrupt. CCGI bought the carcass but is doing horribly from a P/L POV: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CCGI+Income+Statement and http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CCGI&annual.

As for the latter, it is goofy that there is this perceived want/need for QC inlet. I'm not clear if the extra price premium paid for a car w/QC inlet can be recouped at sale time.

Evoforce said:

There are also Tesla owners that regret not paying for QC capability, because when they bought their cars, no charging stations were in their area and now there is.

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Supercharging can still be enabled on those cars for $2.5K: http://shop.teslamotors.com/products/enable-supercharging. It was $2K at purchase time.

I believe the original 40 kWh cars didn't have Supercharging as a choice anyway and Tesla ended up shipping those folks 60 kWh cars w/software to limit the battery 40 kWh.

There is also http://shop.teslamotors.com/products/chademo-adapter, but it's unclear to me if a 60 kWh owner who doesn't have SC enabled will need to pony up another $2.5K to get that enabled.

doghouseReilly said:

... Vancouver, Canada. The vehicle will be primarily used for my wife's commute, which is 29km (18 mile) round trip, plus errands/activities in the evening. ...We have a second vehicle...The kicker is that I just bought the 2013 S (no QC), ...

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Normally, I would always recommend the QC option (I got it back in 2011 and still the closest DCQC to me is 85 mi, now pretty much unreachable). However, with an 18 mi RT commute and a 2nd vehicle, you are good to go with this car being a commuter and grocery getter. You really don't even need a L2 EVSE, but it's an added bonus for us low mileage drivers. Finally, as has been discussed in numerous threads, the EV charging infrastructure has not increased (or even been maintained) at the same pace as the number of EV's being sold. Coverage is spotty, regionally specific, has cost/maintenance issues, suffers from the "single unit" problem, etc. Many people have completely given up charging outside the home. It's unfortunate that we haven't progressed faster in the past 5 yrs, but you need to evaluate your ability to withstand these issues. Good luck with the 2013 S commuter. It's a great deal and I only wish I had the chance to buy a 3 yr old Leaf back in 2011. I'm pretty sure I could find something to do with the $15,000 in savings!

cwerdna said:

paulcone said:

We bought a 2013 SV in late October. There's a great Aeroenvironment network in Oregon and Washington and so we drove from Portland to Renton (Seattle) and back for Thanksgiving, stopping twice each way to charge. Aeroenvironment charges $7 a charge, but they also have the option of $20 a month for UNLIMITED charging, so we bought that for the month instead of spending $40 on gas. Yeah, we could have gotten there faster in the ICE, but we rather enjoyed the slower and much quieter ride. Most of the time we drive around town but it's nice to have the option to go longer, since the charging network is there for us. (Also per Plugshare the Aeroenvironment stations are much more reliable than Blink, etc.).

Click to expand...

Problem is the above network does NOT exist in California. So, the above network and pricing choices are totally NA for me.

And, Aerovironment was supposedly contracted to install and maintain (?) the crappy Nissan-branded DC FCs (and not the supposedly much better http://www.evsolutions.com/product-details/ev-50-public/ev-50). Some of them weren't that well maintained and not having their filters cleaned either. Clogged filters = temperature error and basically useless DC FC.

Click to expand...

Yep AV was part of the WCGH (West Coast Green Highway) which in reality should be called PNWGH (Pacific Northwest Green Highway)