I’m thinking through my options for replacing the car I got rid of a year ago.
I need something to use when it would be inconvenient to borrow my wife’s car. As a result, I won’t be driving it much, and probably won’t be driving it far.
So how about a nice used Nissan Leaf? That’s the subject of this post.
Source for artwork for this post: The AI picture generator at Gencraft.com
Not my cup of tea, but the price is right.
Source: Edmunds.com
On the down side:
The Nissan Leaf got off to a rough start, more than a decade ago, due to some well-publicized problems with the batteries. Nissan got that sorted out.
Beyond that, Leafs seem to suffer from faster battery degradation than most EVs. This is probably due to their lack of a battery temperature management system. Everybody else uses either air or water to cool the battery as needed. Not the Leaf. Excess temperatures are the death of lithium-ion batteries.
Consistent with its age and price, the older Leaf’s didn’t have much battery capacity, and so didn’t have much range. Brand new, the first few model years would only go about 70 miles or so.
Finally, I vaguely recall something objectionable about the charging connector for the Leaf. As in, the “fast charger” connector that Nissan chose turned out to be unpopular. The leafs in the right age group seem to have a “J1772 or CHAdeMO” connector, about which I know nothing.
So, in many ways, those old Leafs are obsolete. Obsolete meaning that they still work, but that better products are available now. That’s mainly for their limited range. (But also for their crude battery management system.) I don’t think anybody would offer a new EV today with only 100 miles of range. So these are now “second-tier” EVs — as good as it got, a decade ago. But nowhere near as capable as the current generation.
On the UP side:
There’s a robust market for used Leafs. There are a lot of them out there, for sale, for not much money. I see models at late as 2016 model, advertised locally, for under $10K.
Those more recent Leafs have a claimed range of just over 100 miles.
There is a company that (claims to) test the state of health of the battery, so you can (in theory) buy a car with a battery in a known (excellent, good, fair, poor) condition, with the associated amount of range left.
Weirdly, there’s a Federal tax credit. As long as your FAGI is under $!50K (for married-filing-jointly), Uncle Sugar will give you a $3K tax credit, for purchasing a $10K used Leaf.
Used. It’s a once-in-the-vehicle-lifetime tax credit, for purchasing a used EV. As long as that EV was assembled in the US. Or something. All I need to know is that the Leaf qualifies.
Maybe that’s as good as it gets.
The bottom line is that for a net $7K, I can get a pretty nice-looking small EV with maybe 100 miles of range. And relatively little measurable battery degradation.
Mostly, I need a car for getting around in the ‘burbs, on occasion. So that’s an OK fit. A hundred miles of range is plenty.
The car is going to sit idle quite a bit. I suspect that you get less degradation in an older EV than in an older gas vehicle. So that’s also a plus.
I’m pretty sure this dominates the prior two options: Electric motorcycle and e-bike. Electric motorcycles and (in particular) electric bikes use less electricity per mile. But they aren’t all-weather, four-season vehicles. And they impose a much higher risk of injury than driving a car.
This imposes a slight environmental penalty, relative to driving a Prius Prime in EV mode. It works out to about 100 pounds of additional C02 release per year, given Virginia’s generating mix (0.65 pounds C02 per KWH).
I hate backsliding, for my carbon footprint. (e.g., Post G22-053, Halving my carbon footprint in four not-so-easy steps.) An additional 100 pounds a year is not quite rounding error in my 6-tons-per-year CO2 household footprint. But it’s close. I think I could just close my eyes and ignore it.
Upshot: It’s cheap, as cars go these days, thanks in no small part to inexplicable generosity of Uncle Sugar. It’s a good fit to my limited needs. It imposes only a minor carbon footprint penalty, relative to a Prius Prime in EV mode. It provides all-weather, all-season transport.
Of what I’ve considered so far, this looks like the winner in terms of utility, value, and environmental benefit or damage.
