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I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

jeffgeerling.com

231–240 of 683 posts

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#231

> Lack of standards: For 'L3' DC Fast Charging, the Leaf has a CHAdeMO port. Teslas and many newer EVs have NACS. Then there's CCS1 and CCS2. And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods. It's not like gas stations, like with Shell, BP, Buckee's, etc. where you just drive up, stick the gas nozzle in your tank, and squeeze. Afaik in Europe, CCS2 is the standard (and mandator…

> And that the rental company (AVIS) does not provide an AC adapter Here in Norway, new EVs are no longer allowed to be sold with AC adapters, due to the potential fire hazard. At least that's the reason I got when I purchased my current EV. Perhaps a EU thing, wouldn't surprise me.

This seems like the kind of regulation that causes more harm than it saves in anyone's house actually burning down. I did a cursory search and didn't find any EU reports of a house fire caused by a L1 charger.

Sure you might burn a house down if you find one that has a plug which isn't correctly installed with loose connectors but the fire risk here wasn't the EV. Its the incorrectly installed wiring.

You don't tell people to get rid of their fridges because some people might have forgetten to plug theirs in and therefore they could get food poisoning from spoiled food inside.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#232
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$17k minus an extra $2k added to my Camry's trade-in value, and it's eligible for the $4k used vehicle EV tax rebate at the end of the year. So out the door $15k with 36k miles and 94% doh battery, I was satisfied with the deal. At the end of the tax year I'll have paid $11k for the car, effectively. I tacked on the price of the CHAdeMO adapter mentally to the price I offered, since I knew I'd want it for the one or…

Re: the tax credit, note the income requirements here: https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/used-clean-vehicle-cr... I don't know anything about your situation, but I'm guessing quite a bit of the readers here on HN from the US won't qualify.

>The sale qualifies only if:

>You buy the vehicle from a dealer.

This is such an annoying part of the tax incentive.

It's a huge, pointless gift to car dealers (who need no help) because it means they don't have to compete for price with private sellers or buyers. If I have a used EV to sell, I basically have to sell to the dealer because no buyer wants to bother buying from me when they can get the same thing from a dealer with a $4k tax credit on top.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could jump into your local used car listing site and check for yourself. In here a used 2022 leaf goes for about $20-22K CAD. 2016 models go as low as $8K - those had a range of about 120km when new.

In NZ you can get a Leaf for $1-2k, about 50km range remaining.

50k is equivalent to driving around with a low fuel warning constantly on your dash

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW i3 are going for about the same.

and they're an absolute -nightmare- to maintain.... even with that being the case i still want one because russ hannaman had a point- everyone loves a car with doors that open like this \[]/ not like this =[]=

My 2017 i3 REX is just fine. It needs new tires before winter hits, an alignment (it gets knocked way out really easily, especially if you've ever taken it on a less than perfect road. Washington State has many such roads), and I should probably proactively do an oil change on the REX. Oh, and drivers seat heater has a short so doesn't work (the fix from BMW would be prohibitively expensive, but I may try a DIY re-wire).

Otherwise, this car is as close to a perfect daily driver I've ever owned. I hope it lasts forever: not a single touchscreen, no OTA updates, decent battery range (and DC Fast Charging at 60kW+), gas engine to fall back on (with OBD-II programming you can enable Hold State of Charge on the NA models allowing you to truly treat the i3 as a proper series-hybrid and not just an emergency limp-along range extender that will crap out going up a hill in the cold), comfy seats, and did I mention NO TOUCHSCREENS and NO OTA UPDATES?

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#235
post #226

> And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods. I rented a PHEV in Spain, and this was the biggest issue. Every charger has an app. They want all your information, even your home address, before charging. Most of them error out after you try to make it work in the 44 °C / 110 °F Spanish sun. After trying five charging apps and only succeeding in one, I gave up charging comp…

"Plug and charge" is a thing, and is supported by some vehicles and charging stations. Unfortunately, it's not universal (yet), but the standards are there.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#236
post #3

EV's look like EV's because they don't have the same constraints on space that ICEV's do. There is no engine in the front/back, no water pump, no oil pump, no water cooled radiator, no starter motor... so on so on. There's also a great big battery under the floor pan and no gas tank. They are also heavier, so need different set ups in order to handle decently. But, that's why they look so different.

They tend to handle better than ICE cars due to the low centre of mass (also the fact the big mass - the battery - is firmly bolted to the frame and not wobbling around on rubber mounts like an engine does). These are both big advantages in terms of dynamics. Couple that with the much faster powertrain response and many options to do torque vectoring to each wheel (individual motors on sports models) and it's an easy…

People way overstate the "dynamics" advantages of EVs

Yes EVs can keep their weight low, but it's a lot more weight to deal with.

Yes EVs have excellent 0-60, but that's just because they have a great launch. Even doing a 5-60 pull removes the EV advantage. Starting from highway speeds? EVs start to look real slow.

There are some good traits to EVs but, outside of launching hard in street car trim, performance is not one of them.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#237
post #226

> And charging stations are run by multiple vendors with multiple apps and payment methods. I rented a PHEV in Spain, and this was the biggest issue. Every charger has an app. They want all your information, even your home address, before charging. Most of them error out after you try to make it work in the 44 °C / 110 °F Spanish sun. After trying five charging apps and only succeeding in one, I gave up charging comp…

This is my experience as well with regular EV chargers. Tesla chargers on the other hand work seamlessly and reliably. You walk up, you plug it in and it works. No fuss.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could jump into your local used car listing site and check for yourself. In here a used 2022 leaf goes for about $20-22K CAD. 2016 models go as low as $8K - those had a range of about 120km when new.

In NZ you can get a Leaf for $1-2k, about 50km range remaining.

I'm guessing distances in NZ are shorter, or you're only planning to use that vehicle in the urban city core. Here in the US, 50km range barely gets me to the ferry terminal to get into Seattle, and that's assuming 50km is at 55mph rural highway speeds and isn't assuming I'm driving 25mph in the city.

Put otherwise: if the battery is so degraded you only get 30mi/50km range out of it, I see why it's selling for $2000.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#240
post #92
post #33

Nice, we did the same recently. The choice was 2016 100k km Golf Plus for 16k eur 2020 50k km e-Golf for 13k eur I'm so glad we picked the e-golf! It's so fast and nice to drive and cheap to run. Only downside is the limited range (200km on a summer day) but even my commute (100km one-way) is OK as I can charge at work and home. That said, we still have a Touran for when we need to drive further or with lots of lugga…

If that were me then for that much money I'd just buy a used Tesla Model 3

For many people in Europe, Tesla is just out of question now.
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