You mentioned somewhere that they are knocking them out at 199 a month but I can't find any offers like that. I was interested!!

http://www.wessexgar...car-offers/leaf

Most Nissan Garages can match this.

But you will have to pay around £450 for metallic paint and £200 for the solar spoiler if you want them.

The only non-metallic colour is black though.

Finance Information

36 monthly payments of £199.00

First monthly payment: £199.00

Optional final payment: £11,793.25

Cash price: £17,999.00

Customer Deposit: £2,380.34

Representative APR 9.00%

Just got my insurance quote on the Multi-car policy with Admiral.

"It's a Nissan"

"Yes, what model?"

"Leaf"

"Yes, what engine size?"

"It doesn't have an engine"

"oh".

FC £279.56p, not bad only about £30 more than the Citigo.

You say you'll be charging it at 60% left. How does this impact battery longevity? Is it doing that, or running them down all the time which hurts them?

I can see the appeal of one of these, but only if, like yourself, you've got the option to use another car for long distance trips.

You say you'll be charging it at 60% left. How does this impact battery longevity? Is it doing that, or running them down all the time which hurts them?

They are fine being part charged.

Even on the Tesla with far more battery range they reccomend plugging it in every night to keep it topped up and that has an 8 year battery warranty.

Fortunately battery tech has moved on from years back and they don't suffer the memory effect.

Just out of interest Richard....what is the heater like, any good, it's just something I have always wondered about, how well does the heater work and what effect on the range

Just out of interest Richard....what is the heater like, any good, it's just something I have always wondered about, how well does the heater work and what effect on the range

It's the same as on a regular car, ie, quite good.

The LEAF has a system that warms up a "tank" (for want of a better word) of water to run the heater, which does use a fair amount of electric and can reduce the range in cold temps by 10-15%.

This is why the mobile App is quite good.

You can switch on the heating system and pre-warm the car while it is plugged in before you leave.

This not only warms up the water "tank", but it also warms up the interior of the car as the climate control is activated, all using mains electric while the car is still plugged in so at no cost to the range.

So from then on the car only has to keep the heat reservoir topped up.

I work from home and was thinking of one of these or one of the many Renault electric vehicles that are imminent. Most of my trips during the week are under 50 miles - but when I do the calculations I still always came out that a small normal car (petrol or diesel) would always work out far far cheaper overall, and far more flexible.

I also worried about the life and cost of the batteries and environmental impact of their eventual replacement.

Then only way I could see it saving me money is if I gave it to my missus and the range was just short of the nearest large shopping centre.........

I'd be really interested if you could keep updating on here as to how you are getting with it.

Good luck - must say I'm tempted to take a test drive.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

It's the same as on a regular car, ie, quite good.

The LEAF has a system that warms up a "tank" (for want of a better word) of water to run the heater, which does use a fair amount of electric and can reduce the range in cold temps by 10-15%.

This is why the mobile App is quite good.

You can switch on the heating system and pre-warm the car while it is plugged in before you leave.

This not only warms up the water "tank", but it also warms up the interior of the car as the climate control is activated, all using mains electric while the car is still plugged in so at no cost to the range.

So from then on the car only has to keep the heat reservoir topped up.

Now that is a good idea/system.

The OH only does a round trip of 40 miles per day - home to school, to work and then back to school and home again. IMO this would be ideal for us because we use the Superb at weekends because it's (technically) free (well I pay the company car tax on it!)

However we'd need to ensure that the fuel, tax & maintenance on the current (Mini Cooper) is offset enough against a suitable replacement (think LEAF). Obviously we could factor in the sale of the Mini to part fund the purchase of the LEAF and if that was on a £199 per month deal it could well work. It would be close but might just work out ok.

These leafs's seem like a good idea but you have to have to comply with very specific criteria for them to make any sense. Your scenario does seem to conform very well i.e charging locations at home and at work and a journey of within the vehicles range.

Other than the above scenario though these electric cars dont seem to make sense. Considering you need another car for longer journeys or holidays or whatever then i still cant see why a really cheap diesel isnt a better option. Even with your cheap deal the vehicle is still 18K. Why not get a small diesel car for around 10k and then you can run that however you like without having to change to another car when longer journeys are required. You may be saving on fuel costs but the car cost more and ultimately you still need to run another car anyway.

Fuel costs are never the major cost of car ownership so selcting a car to minimize these costs is merely minimizing less relevant aspect of motring.

Purchase cost and dpereciation are the big costs so but a cheap car with a long warranty and run it untill the warranty expires then change it. No hidden costs and if the initial purchase is cheap enough then depreciation is offset somewhat.

I hope you enjoy you leaf and i will be very interested to see how you get on with it but i still cant undertsand why you would buy one. You buy a car like this to save money, nothing else, but you can do it cheaper with a conventional car and the conventional car doesnt have the leafs considerable draw backs. Therefore the only reason to do it is purely out of curiosity or personal choice.

Maybe if you were being given one for free but at 18K it doesnt make financial sense at all as a 10k diesel car beats it in every way. Thing is you can buy a car for way less than 10k so it would be interesting for a clever boffin on here to work out whole life cycle costs of a leaf and how cheap a normal would need to be to break even with it. Even assuming a 2nd car wasnt needed over and above the leaf id wager the conventional car formula is the better option.

I do get your points.

But a £10k car doesn't have a pre-heater, fully automatic climate control, lots of space for five in comfort, sat-nav, bluetooth etc...

For the spec of a LEAF you need to compare it with a car with similar equipment and size, which does not cost £10k.

I figure nearer £16-18k. The LEAF is slightly bigger than the Yeti and better equipped unless you spend £20k plus on the latter.

Logically if we didn't care about space and creature comforts we'd all be driving £10k diesel cars, but we don't because we like more space and a better spec.

I ran a Fabia Greenline II for a year and 20k miles to see how it was.

I liked it. But the LEAF is a much nicer car to drive and use (which we do pay extra for) if it's limitations fit into your use pattern. We pay for a nicer car.

I'd love to go all eletric. I probably could as my annual milage is only about 6000. It's just the fact I couldn't go, right I want to go to Glasgow today. I'd run out of juice and have no where to charge up again to get back home.

Which is where the Ampera comes in. Runs out of electric and then the petrol engine kicks in.

I'd love to go all eletric. I probably could as my annual milage is only about 6000. It's just the fact I couldn't go, right I want to go to Glasgow today. I'd run out of juice and have no where to charge up again to get back home.

The problem is, unless you do enough miles to make it pay it's more expensive to go electric.

I personally think to make it worthwhile, with the current cost of an EV, you need to do 50-70 miles per day at least, 5 days per week.

Otherwise you are just not saving enough in fuel costs to get anywhere close to making sense.

A lot of LEAFs come up for sale with very low milages.

Which suggests people have them as a lifestyle choice/statement rather than for economic reasons.

Which is where the Ampera comes in. Runs out of electric and then the petrol engine kicks in.

The Ampera definitely suits a different customer to the LEAF, but try one first.

I found it too compromised by trying to do two jobs.

That's probably because a LEAF suits me better and is much cheaper.

An electric range of only 30-odd miles before burning petrol at around 44mpg just didn't make sense when the car costs around £30k. You can't save enough in fuel costs to pay for much of the car.

This is one thing that struck me last year.

I expected to hate the LEAF when I took it on, but I really liked it.

Afterwards I expected to love the Ampera while I had it, but I didn't like it at all. Despite the whole thing making more sense in theory the electric range is just not enough to pay for having it over a decent car that's less compromised.

You'll want to get a sparky round to fit a 20 amp socket in your garage. The Leaf takes forever to get a charge out of a regular plug socket. One of my bosses' kids did a PR gig and they had 3 Leafs between them and they only had the cables to charge them from regular plug sockets rather than fast charge so they limped in to our yard at work and had extension cables all over the place and were there all day. We have a 20 amp right by the door which would have been ideal -full charge in 30 minutes apparently.

Local health authority around here has/had a Leaf for doing home visits and stuff. Was parked outside the local Nissan dealer for what seemed like months last year with a bit "Warning - Risk Of Electric Shock" sign on it - the sort you see on sub station doors etc! Really wish I'd got a picture of it now!

Yes, about 9 or 10 hours if it's nearly empty.

But I'll be doing mine mostly at work (9 hours) or overnight.

Will be fine, but I do plan on a dedicated uprated socket under the carport.

Well if the battery does go flat you do have the other little Nissan runabout and a couple of Skodas

Edited 19 February, 201313 yr by greenstripe

Well if the battery does go flat you do have the other little Nissan runabout and a couple of Skodas

My cynical side says you might be on to something as he can now just say "I'm taking the nissan out for a drive" without specifying which one.

In all honesty though it'll be interesting to see what range you get come winter time and as the batteries get older.

I can see it actually being the future for petrol heads with an electric box for commuting and a petrol toy for weekends, track days and longer trips

My cynical side says you might be on to something as he can now just say "I'm taking the nissan out for a drive" without specifying which one.

In all honesty though it'll be interesting to see what range you get come winter time and as the batteries get older.

I can see it actually being the future for petrol heads with an electric box for commuting and a petrol toy for weekends, track days and longer trips

Why not just have 1 petrol car then and save a fortune? For the price of a leaf you can get a petrol Octy VRS. I know which one i would rather have. I would wager the VRS is far nicer car to be in and drive and faster and has far superior range and ultimately far cheaper as your only running 1 car. I still cant see how a leaf makes sense unless out with work you never ever drive anywhere.

I think you are missing the point Jock Dooshbag. It does not suit everyone.

In my opinion, the LEAF suits a two car family where one person does a commute to work of a reasonable distance.

This is what I'll see.

The other car would be a regular vehicle that does very little milage during the week, but is available weekends if the family needs to cover long distances.

In our family we need a minimum of two cars.

The LEAF would rack up the bulk of the miles during the week with the regular car doing much less.

I average 420 commuting miles per week, my wife averages 40 miles during the week.

During the weekends we tend to do things together (unless I am doing track days) so that is when the regular car could be used if a greater range is required.

If the worst came to the worst I could use the regular car for a weekday if I needed to go great distances and my wife could just use the LEAF for a day.

In my opinion it makes a lot of sense in that scenario.

interesting thread. I work from home and only use the car when going to and from the airport (26 miles return) or to my folks to collect my son on a Friday night (25 miles return) or for pottering around at the weekend. My wife's daily commute is about 3 miles each way. I'd have thought we were ideal EV candidates but according to Richard's sums we're better off with the 2 1.2 TSIs we already have.

I think you are missing the point Jock Dooshbag. It does not suit everyone.

In my opinion, the LEAF suits a two car family where one person does a commute to work of a reasonable distance.

This is what I'll see.

The other car would be a regular vehicle that does very little milage during the week, but is available weekends if the family needs to cover long distances.

In our family we need a minimum of two cars.

The LEAF would rack up the bulk of the miles during the week with the regular car doing much less.

I average 420 commuting miles per week, my wife averages 40 miles during the week.

During the weekends we tend to do things together (unless I am doing track days) so that is when the regular car could be used if a greater range is required.

If the worst came to the worst I could use the regular car for a weekday if I needed to go great distances and my wife could just use the LEAF for a day.

In my opinion it makes a lot of sense in that scenario.

.

I agree it seems to work for you but they are very specific circumstances so it probably wouldnt work for the majority of people. If you need 2 cars anyway and 1 of these cars has a consistent commute that falls within the vehicles range and the work place has charging facilities then it works. Other than this scenario though it doesnt seem to stack up. I am still interested to see how life with the leaf pans out for you as running a car for not a lot of money appeals to me. You cant beat driving a vehicle knowing that its costing hardly anything (in fuel costs). Probably makes your trips to the petrol station in the other cars even more depressing though.

Just seen this Richard - good luck with it, sounds like an interesting proposition and one that Ive lightly considered previously.

I do a daily commute of 25 miles However, I think Id be continuously worried about the range and how it would limit me. I'll often take a detour on the way home to visit my mother or go shopping out of town. With the Leaf I think id be too limited. When it runs out of power, it stops. Id like to give the Ampero/Volt a try, as with one of these, I wouldnt feel constrained. I'd know there was no likely hood of me slowing to a halt on the dual carriage way because id depleted my batteries. The petrol engine would fire up in the Volt and id continue on with no issues. If our work patterns changed and I found my commute increased, I'd be stuffed with a Leaf. If it was the only car at home (ie the missus was out in the other) and something unexpected/unplanned came up and I had to shoot off - it could be problematic depending on the charge status.

However, I do get the point of the Leaf, but with current battery technology im sure I'd find it quite limiting - I think you have to be very regimented in your driving patterns with little unplanned changes to it to make it work. If I could make it work then Im sure Id be chuffed with the savings.

Knew about this a little while ago, but only just seen the thread - where have I been?!

With the miles you've been covering in the Yeti Richard, this definately makes sense, along with saving a bundle on the car in the first place

I remember when you had the loan of the Leaf. It's got it's own (strange) styling and it's even stranger when there's a car, but no noise.

I'll get the lads to knock up a vinyl dartboard on the bonnet for all the pedestrians that you'll (hopefully not) run over

Next up hemp trousers, nettle tea and calling yourself Moonshine Stardust Bossfox

So I picked up the Nissan LEAF today and gave it a bit of stick on the way home.

Traveling 32 miles cost me £1.25p in electric!

Good for fun, bad for range.

Initial impressions.

What I don't like:

Range (obviously! but OK for me I think...)

Brake lights don't illuminate when not on the pedals (regenerative braking) so you slow down quicker than lifting off in a regular car.

A little bit lacking in thigh support due to not enough tilt on seat base.

No reach adjustment on the steering column. (fortunately it's spot on for me, further back than Citigo was)

What I like:

Seems well built.

No noise. Even wind noise is very well supressed.

Good price as end of old model (£18,600 with only two options available in total. Metallic paint and solar spoiler)

Interior space. (it's as big as an Octavia II, but with less boot space)

Spec level, even though it's a one spec range currently (more below...)

CarWings phone app control for charging and pre-heating remotely.

Very easy to see big speedo just under the screen.

Bag in the boot with LED torch, High-Viz vest, first aid kit, fire extinquisher etc... nice touch.

On the spec I have to say it's quite comprehensive.

You get:

Full touchscreen sat-nav, bluetooth, USB port, loads of set up/economy info, timed heater settings.

Cruise control, Full LED lighting including main beam, auto lights and wipers, speed reminder (handy!).

Colour reversing camera with guidelines than move as you rotate the steering wheel, Climate Control.

Keyless entry and start, voice control of main functions, nav and phone. Privacy glass.

That's what I've found so far...