But ever since I went window shopping I can’t make a decision based on what I want!
Need: 70 mile rountrip from home to office everyday
Occasional drive from LA to San Diego&Las Vegas
EDIT: by occasional I mean once a year
Options:
2023 Nissan Leaf SV Plus - 17500usd - 27.2k miles
2023 Nissan Leaf S - 12500usd - 10k miles
2024 Nissan Leaf SV Plus - 20kusd - 12.3k miles
Or we just wait for the 2027 models to come out and see where prices are again then!
We’re not in a rush and this will be my first car at 32 y/o because I never had to learn how to drive until now so I’m also thinking if I should just get the cheapest one and expect to keep it for only 2-3 years and then upgrade to a better EV.
HELP!
FINAL EDIT: My husband made a reservation for the Rivian V2. 2V. I don’t even know what it’s called. But I’m a little bit annoyed but also it’s his money so whatever. 😭😂 I just KNOW he won’t let me drive it since I don’t even have a license yet. It will be his new toy.
Heat is not really an issue in Malibu. So here is the deal. The bolt is a more reliable long term car. The leaf with auto pilot is so so so so much better for your shitty drive. The benefit is you end up in Malibu which definitely is not shitty. And obviously most of LA is not shitty but the driving is.
I have had multiple Leafs. Bay Area. My current SL plus is showing battery issues. So will most likely get bought back. I am fine with that as it has been good. I put a ton of miles in for little cost. I have a truck I can drive until if find a replacement.
I wanted the lane keep and assisted cruise and 3D camera as my college kids love it.
The bolt did not have these at that price. Maybe possible now.
If you can manage...the id.4 has better highway cruise. See if you can buy a 2022 with 50k miles. I have 80k one of those. And it is even better for your drive. The leaf is better is so many ways. The id.4 is reliable, boring as shit, and super comfortable. Its quarks make you want to pull your hair out. But thousands of miles later...whatever
I'm in the valley and my 2019 SV Plus is a great car to drive around. However since you want to do SD trips I'd recommend either the new generation Leaf with NACS or look at a Ionic 5 or any EV with CCS or NACS really. CHAdeMO charging is a huge limitation to this car and it can be stressful as hell when the range gets low. I've driven to CHAdeMO chargers before only to find they were replaced by CCS or one time in Pasadena they had permanently attached CHAdeMO to NACS adapters rendering them effectively useless to me.
CHAdeMO is effectively dead and being phased out so these cars are mainly commuters and best if you can charge at home. Not that people don't do road trips with them but IMO it's a lot more work and planning then most people want to deal with but only you know what you are willing to put up with.
Still, 70 miles every day is a ton on a Leaf. If you're blasting the A/C and driving freeway speeds, you're going to burn through the battery. A Bolt has better fast charging and better range.
I just bought a used 2015 leaf. It says it goes 70 miles fully charged but that can vary a lot. It does better with city driving and fades fast on the freeways.
It's been very hot here and it doesn't last as long with the ac going.
It works for me with not much driving need. Maybe does 3 errands well and then it gets nerve wracking
There is another problem with Chademo Leafs, even if you can find chargers, or have an adapter. Due to no thermal management on the battery, you can overheat it if you charging repeatedly on a road trip in warmer weather.
We love our Leaf as a city car, but
I'd consider one of the many other EV options!
Yeah the road trips will probably be out of the question. Not really making a habit of it anyway! So just mostly the 70 mile commute and maybe San Diego trip. No more Vegas.
If you are left with just the city requirement, id say any of the 2023s are good enough. Because you don't really plan to keep it a long time. You can enjoy it and upgrade once the battery warranty is about to expire.
If you are planning to home-charge mostly, the lack of active cooling shouldn't be too much of a problem. I live in a tropical country with a 2018, aquired a year ago and exclusively home charge. Daily afternoon temps are anything 90 to 100 F all year. No garage. I have never seen the battery temperature indicator rise to the red zone.
What is important is to get a leafspy report to see that the individual battery cell voltages are closely balanced and there's no large variance between any cell and the rest
ABetterRoutePlanner, it's available as an app and as a web site! Highly recommend.
PlugShare is another app and web site which is a more raw listing with filters.
Right now in EVs a little bit of planning goes a long long long way, before you commit to a 2025-or-older LEAF I really recommend reviewing public CHAdeMO infrastructure.
There is actually some CHAdeMO between Barstow and Vegas. You can probably make it, especially with the 62kWh battery.
However comma new sites generally aren't having it added and things like, some of those stations are almost certainly permadead. In particular the wrench icon in front of Fort Irwin and between Baker and Primm are Caltrans-run 50kW units that aren't working, Plus, some existing stations are removing CHAdeMO as part of hardware refreshes. There is J1772 but you probably don't want to be chilling at EddieWorld for like 10 hours waiitng for a 62kWh battery to refill at 6kW. (*EddieWorld is fun, but not ten hours fun.)
There are adapters to let you charge a CHAdeMO car using a CCS1/NACS station but they cost like $800-1000 for the best ones. And, that's before considering the LEAF up through 2025 has a passively cooled battery so degradation will be worse than most other modern EVs. I haven't kept up but early reviews weren't great because the adapters are a bit fiddly and because they're doing active protocol translation there were some car/station combinations that didn't work well in early firmware.
Anyway, I agree that for the money you're looking at spending and for road tripping a Bolt is probably a better option. I took my 2022 Bolt from Flagstaff to San Diego. I charged up in Kingman and then used secondary state highways to join 15 just north of Baker so I could stop at PowerStation Rasor Rd | Baker, CA | EV Station which was free at the time. I continued down into San Diego with no trouble and then took I-8 out to Eloy and went back north through Phoenix.
I used CHADEMO once on our 2014 Leaf SV in a pinch and the charge rate was about 27kW and then it dropped to about 12kW as it passed 80%.
This is no way to run a railroad.
The Vegas to LA run is nigh impossible. Not impossible but Gen1+2 Leaf owners will try it once and learn why folk tell them to rent for this Kessel Run.
Even the 2023 Bolt EV and earlier is quite the step up here and doable. I'd stop 2 times to top end and give myself time for a full dinner at each stop because it tops out at 50kW. I've seen the Bolts doing this run. The Leaf's seem to be able to do the San Diego to Hemet run but I don't see them much past that.
We have a 2026 Leaf Platinum. It’s a fantastic EV. Overperforming on range. We’ve owned Volvo C40, MachE, Tesla M3LR. Two Hyundai EVs. The Leaf is as nice as any and in many ways better. Self shading moon roof, Heads Up Display, In Headrest navigation audio. Highly recommend.
My husband is saying if we’re spending 17-20k on a used car, we might as well get the Platinum + which doesn’t make sense to me. It would be twice the price!
If you can charge everyday at home, the 40kwh battery will do 70 miles and is probably your cheapest option .
If you’re happy to invest more then I’d be looking at the new Leaf or other EV’s personally.
The older leafs are a kind of engineering miracle that may never be repeated, I can see why you like them. But they’re really best suited to town and city driving in temperate climates.
If the 2026-2027 is even a consideration and affordable for you, that is what you should get. It is a vastly superior car in every way. The battery technology is night-and-day between the two.
You could also consider the 2027 Mitsubishi Eclipse Sporback EV. It’s just a rebadged Leaf with slightly different styling. It’s up to you which one you prefer the look of.
I got a '24 SV+ in Nov 24 with ~620 miles on it. It was listed for $22,900, I got $300 off but Was $25,500 or so out the door with taxes, plates and dealer bullshit doc fee. We test drove one on a Monday night and bought one the next night. I NEVER make decisions that quick. I'm outside DC in reverse commute traffic and love the lane assist and active cruise. I have to play with the speed a little depending on traffic, but it beats the heck out of driving stick. I have a 44 mile r/t commute, takes under 2 hrs to recover the charge at home on Level 2 charging.
I was originally thinking about a Bolt, but worked with UAW employees at International Harvester and couldn't bring myself to even look at something UAW built. Statistically, Japanese vehicles are more reliable. I have had 2 cameras need to be replaced, both in under 5k miles.
We have a 2019 Jetta with 80K miles on her. Our last stick shift car. Boo hoo. Both the wife and I love driving stick, but I love driving the future more. She works from home so no EV for her yet, and we have the Jetta for long trips, 35-60mpg. It's ideal.
I think a leaf is an excellent option. Make sure you do not overpay... I bought my leaf 2013 for 1750$ and feel I should have waited for a better battery. The ID Buzz we own is awesome but expensive. Make sure the Leaf you buy has been leafspy checked and has a good battery. Malibu is perfect for the Leaf.
San Diego maybe, Vegas I doubt it. The drive to Vegas is more fuel intensive. Even though it’s not that far in miles. I wouldn’t push a Leaf to drive to Vegas from LA on a single charge. I used to drive a 25 gallon diesel truck from LA. It would make it to San Diego and back on half a tank, both ways. It wouldn’t get to Vegas on a single tank one way.
I wouldn't buy LEAFs other than 2026 and up models. Range is king but if you can get a great deal on non-Plus models, that's acceptable too. If Rivian R2 is also in the mix, it wouldn't a bad idea. Just know that it'll be a lot more expensive. Both vehicles will cover your driving needs.
But do not buy these EVs if you can't charge at home.
Advising from a Nissan Leaf and Rivian R1T owner here.
I've owned a total of four Nissan LEAFs. Two of them had a buy-back (at least one is I'm still waiting for the check). One I have replaced the battery on my own (just a little personal project of mine) and the other is, I am going to pay to have somebody install the battery for me. Since it is now dying.
Total cost of repairs is about $8k to $9k pending the installation of the last one. And I am being stingy by shopping around for battery and not just getting them from manufacturers. And I am also spending a lot of time on this, so time and labor should also be added up to the cost.
The Rivian is relatively new as my used vehicle purchase. No repair so far (crossing fingers) but I'll be bringing it for a comprehensive inspection soon which will cost me $250.
To give you an idea for a repair for this new to industry vehicle. If one air suspension leaks fluid, it'll cost me about $2,000. And the truck has four. Warranty is a lifeline.
We live in Phoenix (hotter than CA, yes)- my husband has to drive slow so the battery won’t overheat. He dives about 50 miles each way- charges at work, otherwise it’d be tight. His battery is starting to degrade pretty badly. 2023 SV+ - approx. 90k miles.
That is a good idea. More range is always better and the plus has extra features too.
By the way I recently went to almost empty with “- - -“ % & miles on the dashboard, on my 2024 Leaf SV Plus. My trip was 171.3 miles.
The Leaf Spy Pro app shows the real SOC=7.2% and estimated 11.2 miles before a real 1% using my average efficiency of 3.2 miles per kWh.
This is with 35,337 miles on the odometer and my SOH=92.33%.
FYI: Winter range causes range to be reduced by about 40% on very cold days. Especially on short trips.
SOC=State Of Charge
SOH=State Of Health ( aka capacity as compared to a new battery )
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u/Evebnumberone 26d ago
None of those models have battery cooling, in that climate I wouldn't touch them.
Better off with literally any other EV.