Leaf Price / Discount discussion thread

Have a lot of friends and associates (>+20) with M3s and so far looking to have few if any problems. Warranty coverage notwithstanding.

For us the M3 SR+ and the 40kWh SV Leaf are the best value combo for our personal travel needs.

Different folks, different strokes, YMMV...

Also, I get almost precisely 200Wh/mi on our SR+ driving a bit more aggressively than our current or prior Leafs and even the prior Plug-in Prius, so beat the EPA estimates the most in the M3. Have not driven long enough to test efficiency in the Bolt, Kona, or Niro with my same driving patterns/habits.

iPlug said:

Also, I get almost precisely 200Wh/mi on our SR+ driving a bit more aggressively than our current or prior Leafs and even the prior Plug-in Prius, so beat the EPA estimates the most in the M3. Have not driven long enough to test efficiency in the Bolt, Kona, or Niro with my same driving patterns/habits.

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Nice !

I've been averaging about 175 Wh/mile for my city driving but I'm sure it will rise as AC use increases through the summer.
I'm most happy to have seen 0 mile vampire loss over 12 - 18 hours the last couple of days. It is too early to declare victory over that annoyance but I am optimistic. I LOVE OTA updates.

Next on my wish list: a better behaving web browser

The SR+ is 55/56kWh? I know Tesla just posts range now, not battery capacity on the 3.

To hit the 240 miles, what watt per mile figure do you need to hit? If you can do 200 watts,or 5 miles/kWh can you do 275 miles on a charge to empty?

SageBrush said:

I've been averaging about 175 Wh/mile for my city driving...I'm most happy to have seen 0 mile vampire loss over 12 - 18 hours the last couple of days...

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Great numbers and progress on the vampire drain. I think I'm down to about 1 mile/day, but haven't had a chance for the car to be idle for more than a day recently to find out.

DougWantsALeaf said:

The SR+ is 55/56kWh? I know Tesla just posts range now, not battery capacity on the 3.

To hit the 240 miles, what watt per mile figure do you need to hit? If you can do 200 watts,or 5 miles/kWh can you do 275 miles on a charge to empty?

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Apparently the SR+ battery is 62 kWh and ~55 kWh useable. I have never charged the vehicle all the way to 100% max user capacity nor taken down close to 0. I should have a better feel for this in a few weeks when we take our first road trip.

So it seems one would need 230 Wh/mi to hit 240 range. I would expect this to happen at freeway legal speeds based on my driving habits.

My current running 200 Wh/mi is mostly 0-52 mph on streets with a few stop lights and a couple stop signs, 7 miles round trip commute.

DougWantsALeaf said:

The SR+ is 55/56kWh? I know Tesla just posts range now, not battery capacity on the 3.

To hit the 240 miles, what watt per mile figure do you need to hit? If you can do 200 watts,or 5 miles/kWh can you do 275 miles on a charge to empty?

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EPA combined city/highway * 0.88

The 0.88 fudge factor is present to discount the charging losses that EPA includes in overall fuel economy but is not relevant to a range test.

So ... EPA is 133 MPGe = 253 Wh/mile including charging losses
= 253*0.88 = 222 Wh/mile to get the EPA 240 mile range.

We can also calculate the usable capacity when new:
240 miles * 222 Wh/mile = 53.28 kWh

Weird... a local dealer (I don't not like them as we've had a bad experience w/their sales dept as have two other folks I know who don't know each other) sent me one of their marketing emails. One of their deals are CPO '19 Leafs SV for $21,995. They claim they have 10 available at this price with under 1K miles each and "100,000 mile warranty" included. I wonder if they were test drive vehicles or something that the dealer bought and took the tax credit on?

Can you get any build dates?

^^^
No idea. I guess so, if I visited the dealer and asked to look at the cars. Not sure I would bother though as I'm not in the market. Sorry.

Maybe someone else in my area might be in the market and thus investigate?

I'm wondering if they were prototypes or early production beta test cars.

LeftieBiker said:

I'm wondering if they were prototypes or early production beta test cars.

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I doubt they'd be prototypes or ones that aren't meant for actual customers/fit for sale.

I don't think an automaker could legally sell those. AFAIK, those have to go to the crusher or have to stay within an automaker to never be sold or parted out to real customers. There could be some major legal liability problems or support problems down the road, esp. if they differed from actual production cars.

cwerdna said:

LeftieBiker said:

I'm wondering if they were prototypes or early production beta test cars.

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I doubt they'd be prototypes or ones that aren't meant for actual customers/fit for sale.

I don't think an automaker could legally sell those. AFAIK, those have to go to the crusher or have to stay within an automaker to never be sold or parted out to real customers. There could be some major legal liability problems or support problems down the road, esp. if they differed from actual production cars.

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That's likely true for prototypes, but not necessarily for early production cars being tracked with beta testers. The PIP was tested that way, and I don't believe the cars were scrapped, although I don't remember what did happen to them.

On this note, I found these and just read them both quickly:
https://jalopnik.com/ex-fbi-agent-tells-the-story-of-the-gm-employee-who-ill-1754984967
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/business/volkswagen-lawsuit-prototype-cars.html

I know about the pre-produtction PiPs that you're talking about. Some were even loaned for a short time (e.g. a week or so) to a few well-known Priuschatters. (not me) Their charging inlet was in a better spot and they had some weird quirks vs. actual production '12 PIPs that eventually shipped.

Their charging inlet was in a better spot and they had some weird quirks vs. actual production '12 PIPs that eventually shipped.

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Where was the charge port? I know that they had two separate batteries: a NiMH hybrid battery (likely a stock part) and the larger lithium battery for EV mode. Toyota decided to just reserve space in the big battery for HV mode, and lose the smaller one to save weight and complexity.

Any recent pricing updates? My wife’s 2016 Leaf SV is coming off lease in 4 months, and we’re between buying out the lease, approx $12.5k for the buyout or buying/leasing a new Leaf. Haven’t seen much discounting, especially considering that the Plus falls at the bottom edge of the long distance EVs. Was hoping that it would make the pricing more advantageous. Looks like cheapest pricing for the Plus in MD is about $31k, versus $24k for the Bolt.

I have a Chevy Bolt, and the pricing seems much more aggressive on the Bolt side, even taking into account the $3750 tax credit versus $7500 credit that Nissan gets. Back when the Bolt had full tax credit, Chevy discount/rebate was about $8000 off. Now, it is about $12k off.

But do you need a plus? I would think that when the 2020s start showing up, you might be able to negotiate a good deal. It depends on when the 2020s arrive.

I would think you could negotiate at least 3 to 4k below msrp on them now? A few dealers in SoCal already have the plus listed for 3 to 4k down.

We live in Ohio and got the SL+ for $5k off MSRP at the end of May 2019. We had received a quote from a dealer in MD and considered driving out there till a local dealer decided to match the offer to offload one of their stock.

A few months ago the Leafs were running much bigger discounts m. It looks like supply has gone down and with it the discounts.

Either inventory is all going to new markets or build rate was reduced.

Can you extend you lease 6 months?

I don't want to be chicken little, but sounds like the Leaf, (of any flavor) is disappearing rather than increasing in volume. I don't see any amount of Leafs at the dealers around the Long Island NY area... It was easier to find my choice of Leaf when I bought mine in 2015?

Is Nissan steering in the direction winding down this model? I would love to see this car INCREASING in popularity, and have a better selection of Leaf models as time passes...

FYI for Maryland based folks, looks like BGE is doing rebates again. Not well advertised on the BGR or EZ-EV website. I only know because a salesman told me. I thought he was telling me dated information, but when I did a web search - found the following:
https://www.bge.com/SmartEnergy/InnovationTechnology/Documents/FY19%20Q1%20LEAF%20Fleetail%20BGE.pdf
Looks like Nissan wants to move the lower range Leafs.

It will take a month or two to see if the other market are really selling any volumes. I do think they get a higher premium for the Leaf outside of The US (maybe Europe) as competition isn’t so steep.

Hopefully by end October we will see what’s new in the 2020 Leaf.