New Buyer - 2013 SL vs 2015 SV Q

[KingThursday]

Hey, everyone!

First--very happy about these forums. I've been researching EVs as I look to replace an aging car and was surprised to find out little I knew about them. I'm looking to make my first EV purchase, although we do have a Prius, and I have a couple of questions around the practicality of two deals I've found locally.

Car A is a 2015 SV w/ 17k miles on it for $12k. It does NOT appear to have DC support. Car B is a 2013 SL w/ 37k miles on it for $11k. There's the loss of two years on the warranty and the extra usage, but it DOES have DC support and the extra SL features.

Now, my situation: I work from home and nearby coffee shops. Even on the weekends when we run out to do errands, we're rarely traveling more than 10-15 mi from home, unless on rare occasions to visit my parents (70mi) or my wife's (200mi). For those I've looked and there are charging stations en route, but again--we'd probably just use the Prius.

There is a DC charger literally three blocks from us at the grocery store I frequent for lunches. My current thought is that short-term I'd charge at home overnight in my garage (120v) which would be fine for most of my usage and also when we stop to get groceries, and at some point near-term I'll upgrade the garage to 240v (via a professional) and buy a Level 2 base.

From what I've read the 2015 SV would have the 6.6kw charger, so the question comes down to how necessary DC charging support is. For no commute and local use, I'm feeling like the answer might be 'not terribly' necessary. But I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by NOT getting something that would make longer travel tolerable, especially with access to a free DC charger so close to home.

Any thoughts or tips? Are the extra 20k miles in usage and loss of 2 years on the warranty worth it for DC and the other trim perks? Am I nuts to think that it's practical short-term to trickle-charge overnight even on minimal usage?

Thanks!

 

[rmay635703]

Personally I would go for the 2015 just because the battery is likely in better shape,
QC is nice but for me at least it wouldn't do much to my driving pattern,
for you since you have QCs nicely spaced it could turn the leaf into a road car,
but local QC is well, less useful, its very rare that I would travel a hundred miles around my house,
also if the QC is quite expensive, it might not be a real option to just driving an efficient gasser.
don't know about you but that is my opinion, your situation might be different.

 

[Nagorak]

DCQC port is not that important on the Leaf, as the overall range is simply too low to make it very useful. The only exception would be if you have a quick charger regularly available at work or something. although in that case a L2 would probably work just as well unless you have an incredibly short work day. (A L2 with 6.6 kW charger can fill you up in only about 3 hours.)

Most quick chargers really rip you off on cost per kWh, so even if you can you don't want to use them. Also, in the event you're exceeding the car's single charge range, do you really want to drive 50-60 miles, then have the hassle of charging for half an hour before driving back? If you're going to drive 200 miles, do you really want to have to stop and recharge 4 or 5 times, while also trusting you don't ever make a mistake and cut it too close?

Where DCQC starts to become interesting is with a car like the Bolt that has a 200 mile range. In that case you can realistically drive long distances with only moderate inconvenience.

All things being equal, it's better to have the charge port, but in this case I think the 2015 without the charge port looks like a much better deal. Personally I think you're already getting most of the worthwhile perks with the SV anyway. You get the nicer head unit with graphical display and the connectivity stuff with the SV.

With the Leaf, newer, lower miles is better, all because of the battery. If you're willing to live with a 2013, I'd be looking for one that costs no more than 7 or 8K.

 

[IssacZachary]

Are you sure these are from the same climate or have the same battery degradation?

Just because it's older doesn't necessarily mean it has more battery degradation. Just like ICE's a lot has to do with how it was used or abused. For an example my second car is my 1985 VW Golf diesel that had some 400,000 miles when I bought it. But the car just won't die! It just keeps going and going and going because it's always been taken care of and both the previous owner and myself don't hot rod it. I'd like to get rid of it and go Leaf-only, but until I'm sure there are enough public charging stations to know that I no longer need it, I'm going to keep it.

So what I'm saying is that an older Leaf might be worth it if it was from a grandpa that lived in a cooler environment than a newer Leaf owned by a teenager in Phoenix Arizona. My 2013 has 12 bars still. It's neat that on the Leaf there are ways of telling how much they've been abused, even from the dash!

 

[powersurge]

I have come to look at buying a Leaf like buying a loaf of bread. Buy the freshest you can get...

I would say that you should get the 2015 SV, as long as it came with the 6.6kh charger ( I think this is standard on an sv). Why don't you try to knock $1000 off the price with the dealer??

I have a 2015 S, and I can assure you that you wont notice missing the "extras" on the SL..

 

[KingThursday]

Thanks, everyone! I took your advice to heart and a few weeks back purchased a gently used (certified) 2015 SL. It has 15,000 miles on it and came in at about $14k, so all in all I think it was a solid deal.

So far so good, except that we bought out of state and sorely underestimated the charger ecosystem limitations, learning the hard way that we couldn't pull up to an EVGo charger and use a credit card to pay ad hoc. That resulted in two unexpected detours to track down a charger we could use and about 3 hours added on to what should have been a 90 min trip.

But! Now that we're back in the city and I can just plug into my garage nightly, it has been smooth (literally smooth) sailing. And I've picked up Chargepoint and EVGo cards just in case.

Thanks again--I appreciate that I didn't discount the idea of Level 3 charging or buy a heavily discounted older model with a worn battery!

EDIT: One additional detail--after test driving a newer Leaf with my wife we settled on the SL being a 'must have' for a reason I didn't think of: the leather interior. We have a husky/shepherd pup that loves to roll around in mud, and cleaning off the cloth would have been a lot more work than wiping down the leather. Not something that was at the forefront of my criteria, but ended up being pretty key. Dog owners take note!