DesertDenizen said:
... I face owning a 35k car that may become close to useless after only five years?...
Did you, or any other US LEAF buyer actually pay $35k, after incentives?
If Your LEAF is down to ~70% "new" range after five years, and that ~50 mile Summer freeway range is insufficient for your needs, you will need to decide whether to buy a new battery, or sell your LEAF to someone else, who does not find it "close to useless".
Two years after the LEAF's US introduction,
Nissan has now given all of us a capacity warranty significantly reducing the risk of ownership we accepted when we bought our LEAFs. I doubt Nissan executives did this out of the goodness of their hearts. I expect that it was a simple cost/benefit business calculation. And if the cost of this warranty was expected to be excessive, I doubt Nissan would have done it.
IMO, it suggests a relatively low percentage of LEAFs are now expected to sustain capacity loss below "9 bars" or ~"70% capacity" during the duration of the capacity warranty, and/or the battery packs can be inexpensively restored to higher capacity, which I consider very good news.
If any LEAF owners can't accept the inherent and unavoidable uncertainty of future cost of ownership of any BEV, I'd suggest you just sell your LEAFs now and buy yourself an ICEV or hybrid, or lease another LEAF, at the current very low (MY 2012) net price.