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I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

jeffgeerling.com

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

#341

Post by boredpudding »

rsolva wrote: post #312

Small, cheap electric cars are the best! Fun to drive, easy to maintain. I own an VW eUP 2015 model which costed me €4000 used. I do not know if they where for sale outside of Norway (I only see them here!), but it is the perfect car for 95% of our mobility needs. I drive it to work every day (where I can charge it for free). I drive it to Oslo and can park/charge almost anywhere around town for really cheap, about €…

What range are you getting in winter at 85km/h?

Currently trying to get rid of our petrol car but knowing realistic range up front is rough. I'm fine with driving slower.

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

#342

Post by floxy »

rsynnott wrote: post #141
nicce wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that we can use the general "old" here. The statement should have been more explicit and include the design of the battery. If the model gets even minor updates, manufacturing is happening right now, the car is either good enough or new enough in general, and we cannot use old as negative quality. Electric motors existed before the combustion engine, and people keep talking about "rapidly evolving area"…

The problems with this car are all around the battery pack (though honestly these problems are a little exaggerated). The battery pack is, for practical purposes, a 15 year old design. This car is no longer made. When it was being made, it was the only electric car you could buy with such an old battery pack design. Buying a 2nd-gen Leaf in 2025 would be a bit silly, unless you were getting a major discount.

I got 42% off of the MSRP when buying a new 2025 SV+.

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

#343

Post by kjkjadksj »

bluGill wrote: post #86
mschuster91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limiting QC events is easy enough. A daily commuter vehicle can easily trickle charge over night, and even the measly 40 kWh old used Leaf can get you 200km a charge - assuming an average commute of 20 km for Germany, that's a whole work week worth of battery life. The only time you as an average person actually "need" QC is for the yearly vacation road trip, but as the author writes, renting an ICE or chungus electr…

Renting a car for vacations / road trips is expensive. sure you can but expect to pay $100 per day. Also expect to arrive and be told they can't fill your reservation as they are out of cars.

Seems expensive but in the grand scheme of a road trip that is only like a 33% increase in price when you factor in a motel room for $100 a night, maybe $100 spend on gas a day filling up twice, $100 on three meals coffee and snacks for one. Give or take of course.

That is probably why the american road trip is a dying animal. Past a days drive you are coming way behind just flying straight there.

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

#344

Post by floxy »

geerlingguy wrote: post #99
fifilura wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that 2 & 3 are problems with the original (20kWh) Leaf model. Which possibly led to a rumour about the 40kWh models, that the OP has. My Leaf from 2019 has 100% battery health and I always charge it to 100%. I almost never use fast charging though since it is a commute kind of car.

Is that the health reported by the car dashboard, or by LeafSpy? The dash has some wiggle room in its 1-10 display an IIRC it will display 100% until the SoH is below like 90%...

Obviously they are reporting the dashboard number. The first bar drops at 85%. For a 2019, it is probably getting close to dropping its first dashboard bar.

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

#345

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #309
blank_fan_pill wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it will likely retain almost no value as time goes on. If you're buying a car as an investment I have bad news for you...

Sure, but you can buy one for $12k and get almost nothing back, or buy a more modern EV for $25k and maybe get $13k back. In both cases you are losing $12k in a few years, but in one of the cases you get a more modern car.

Get almost nothing back from your $12k used car? Nonsense, you get a larger fraction back, the annual depreciation continuously slows down.

If a 6-year-old Bolt is still worth $14.5k, then an 8- or, say, 12-year-old Bolt isn't worth $0. Most of that depreciation happened in the first year, it's still going to be worth $12k or $9k.

For example, Jeff's 2023 Leaf originally sold for about $30k. Now, just TWO YEARS later, he probably paid $15k to $19k for it. That's a steal! Given he drives his vehicles into the ground, it probably doesn't matter, but if he wanted to sell it in a few years he could still get $10 to $15k from it.

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

#346

Post by [deleted] »

sitharus wrote: post #156
liendolucas wrote: post #37

Looks like you bought a faulty computer which happens to have 4 wheels buddy. The neutral and parking brake issues: that just by itself should make Nissan stocks plummet. 2025 and we have these issues? It definitely looks an involution to me. Things we humans are still lame at: adapters. Power adapters, cable data adapters. Why do we have bazillions adapters? Can't we just design one adapter for the whole world that…

What is the neutral issue? It sounds annoying to switch in to, but when do you even need neutral in an EV? The reasons I’ve needed it while driving ICE cars aren’t there in an EV, because it’s the same as the car being off. Come to think of it, I have no idea how to get my car in to neutral.

[deleted]

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

#347

Post by SlowTao »

m463 wrote: post #261

that's not cheap. Cheap is the older leafs, which go for $3k. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=niss... I bought a 2012 for $7500 in 2016 and drove it for several years. 1. chargers suck. there was evgo, blink, chargepoint. Most locations had 1 or most 2 DC fast chargers, but frequently they didn't work or were busy. Not reliable. 2. range was less that expected, even if you update expectations.…

Here in southern Australia we would endlessly see this one guy with his broken down leaf on the side of the road. If I recall it was one of the very first generation models and they did not handle our summers well at all. To be fair to Nissan a lot of their issues did get resolved in come generations but it was funny to see that, yeah, they didn't do too great on those first few rounds.

As to your Tesla *. I do endless tire of folks who are like "But what if you want to circle the planet!?! Check mate EV dorks!". For 99% of the time they are absolutely fine.

A friend of mine had one as a work car and drove the 940km (580 miles)from Melbourne to Sydney with only a single charge up of $20 half way through, got lunch at the same time. I mean yes if you really stretch it, you could do it on a single tank of fuel on a combustion engine but it would be a tight run. Also to the recharge time, that drive takes about 9 hours if you do not stop. I have never done it in less than 12 hours because you end up having a lot of down time on trips like that. There is plenty of time to charge if needed. Like you say, for the most part these are solved issues.

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

#348

Post by dzhiurgis »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #293
geerlingguy wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also CarPlay, which was on my shortlist of features I actually cared for in any newer car. Silly of Tesla to not support it out of the box (IMO).

I thought not having Carplay was a dealbreaker, then I tried shopping other brands and they wanted $15 to $25 per month for remote start, so I went with Tesla. Plus Tesla had dash cam recording, which somehow no one else has yet? And of course, don’t have to deal with a stupid dealer with Tesla, just bought sitting on the couch at home. Anyway, not having CarPlay has not been an issue. Although, it would have been ni…

I’m picking up mine today from repairs. Some kids crashed their ute into me and left me fake details (I found them anyway via OSINT). Since I have full video insurance waived excess and going after them.

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

#349

Post by loeg »

hellisothers wrote: post #209
PaulKeeble wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think until you have one you don't realise quite what having a range of 200+ miles means in practice. You don't actually drive for 500 miles without a break, that is 8-10 hours of constant motorway speed driving and its not safe to drive that long. So when you take 30 - 60 minutes for lunch on a long drive like that and charge the vehicle you are going another 200 miles before again really taking a break. As it sta…

I would add one thing my family has complained about wrt road trip charging is it’s not just the time you wait to charge, it’s the time and games/anger dealing with all the people in line waiting to charge.

Admittedly I don't use public chargers often, but I have yet to experience any kind of line.

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

#350

Post by foobarian »

jhallenworld wrote: post #259

So here's the thing that's coming for EVs, and I finally started to see it for the Leaf: driveway DIY battery replacement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIQ-RROpls0 Yes, this involves lying on your back with a 700 lb battery held up by jacks just inches above your head. But heck, services are expensive these days so it's going to happen.

This makes me wonder, if you can replace one, can't you add one on top of the old one? Or two or three? There goes the range anxiety
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