EatsShootsandLeafs said:
I turned in my 2012 Leaf in mid 2014, about half way through its lease and replaced with an ICE...
Why? The range on the Leaf was a @*#&ing joke. In the winter its range was so terrible I just got sick of dealing with it.
Ya, you poor early adopters got the short end of the stick.
The 100 mile range Leaf that was promised really wasn't a 100 mile range car at all… unless you only drove it at 40mph... on flat ground... only during the summer… with the A/C off... and replaced your car every year or two... For some reason they didn't put those details in the fine print. :|
But I think anyone looking into a Leaf now should be able to find out what they are getting themselves into.
I did anyhow. I knew how far it would go. I knew how much it would be affected by the cold. I knew it would degrade at a fairly easy to estimate rate based off my climate and driving habits. I knew the car would depreciate rather quickly too. I also knew how much I could save in fuel and maintenance. All that information led me to buy a car that we enjoyed very much and miss now that we don't have it. If my circumstances hadn't changed, we'd still be driving it.
The one thing that I didn't know is that the price to change out the battery would increase instead of decrease. :x I knew that someday I'd have to change out the battery. And I had that figured into my total cost to own calculations. At around $5,000 a pop it just meant saving a bit more every month, about what I save in fuel, so that when the time comes I could just hand over the cash and keep driving. But when it jumped to more than $8,000, that really threw me for a loop. It wasn't the reason I got rid of the car, it still ran fine with 11 bars after 5 years. But it wasn't pleasant news to be sure! :!:
If my circumstances change to where I don't have to drive so far I'd be tempted to get a Leaf again.
But Nissan's battery replacement pricing is a turnoff for me. :? Maybe if I could get a lease on a new Leaf for less than $300 a month without a huge down payment (is that possible) and could trade it in before any warranties expire, I might do it. But I would need to lessen my driving from 30,000 miles a year down to something that would fit within a lease agreement first.
For now, I still have my 40amp EVSE out in the parking lot waiting for that next EV some time in the future. :mrgreen: