The official "I got my Leaf" thread

[LEAFfan]

INSURANCE ISSUE! My new Leaf is insured now as a third car (50% usage) under 12k miles a year. Anyway, I was surprised at the cost of adding a third car to my family policy with Liberty. I thought 3rd cars were supposed to be inexpensive? Turns out, it is around $700 a year!!!!!!!!!!! I know new cars cost more to insure than old ones, but I think we are victims of the rebate math.

What I leased was basically a $19,000 vehicle, after rebates. I also suspect what it would sell for used tomorrow, would be about that (keep in mind, I leased the stripped S model).

What I insured was a $35,000 generic Leaf. Turns out Liberty does not recognize the S model as any different than the SL, and does not factor in the rebate. Now that was a surprise :x . Thoughts?

AAA wanted DOUBLE what I was paying Allstate to insure my Audi. On previous quotes AAA was close to Allstate, so clearly AAA is charging a lot for the Leaf. OTOH esurance insured both the Leaf and the Audi for what Allstate wanted for the Audi alone.

Liberty Mutual was also one of the more expensive quotes I got, but still less than AAA.

Safeco, owned by Liberty Mutual, was by far the lowest of at least a dozen other companies.

 

[717Capt]

Just signed the papers to a new 2012 Leaf SL at Nissan South in Morrow, Ga. Will pick up our Leaf on Monday. We're excited!

 

[LilDave]

Picking up a 2013 Leaf SV tomorrow. It has the QC port and the LED headlights. Doing a 2-year 15/K lease. I've had a Volt since October of '11. The Leaf will hopefully be my daily driver and keep some miles off my Volt. I have a 52 mile commute (round trip) so I am hoping the Leaf will make it under most conditions.

Quick pic of my two EV's together! (Working on getting the EL plates for the Leaf)

 

[tallgirl]

We ran out of time to close the deal on a 2013 SL -- dealer closed at 8pm, but I was there past 10pm.

I've bought a few cars on Saturdays before, but usually much earlier in the day when things were easier to figure out. On Monday I should be able to secure the financing, then the BLUE (!) Leaf of my current dreams should show up later in the week.

I work for a solar power company and I'll be asking the big boss to put in a charging station. If not, I'll be adding a 2kW array to make up for the daily drive. We've got the panels just laying around, so my dream of driving for free will come true one way or another.

 

[dgpcolorado]

...I work for a solar power company and I'll be asking the big boss to put in a charging station. If not, I'll be adding a 2kW array to make up for the daily drive. We've got the panels just laying around, so my dream of driving for free will come true one way or another.

Good luck with the rest of your LEAF purchase. The synergy of EV + PV is quite compelling and there are many here at MNL who do just that. Driving on "sunpower" is fun to do after years of driving on oil!

 

[neoplasticity]

Just leased a base Leaf S and have been driving it over the weekend. Love it.

Will have to see how much my electric bill goes up....

 

[bobsfreeleaf]

Just leased a base Leaf S and have been driving it over the weekend. Love it.

Will have to see how much my electric bill goes up....

Congrats! I love my "strippie". I think you will find she keeps up with the big dogs just fine

 

[Bigboler]

Hello All,

After waiting patiently since the early 1980’s I finally have an electric car. I bought plans to build one from Mother Earth News back then, and of course never built it, but finally the dream has come true.
In Canada the 2012 SL Leaf had a list price of $43,000 and the dealers would not budge off that, a little too much for your average working class Joe. So I followed developments on MNL, and waited.
This March Nissan offered $8500 discount, vpp took $1500 off invoice (found out about vpp on MNL) the BC government gave another $5000 and I had my 1994 Protégé crushed to get another $2250 from our scrap it program. I was able to get the Leaf for $24,600 which only added a $120 to our monthly budget when you consider the lower maintenance and reduced “fuel” cost.
I love the new car; it’s so quiet that it’s a pain to open the window and let the noise of the world in.
Thanks to everybody on MNL, aren’t forums amazing, the quality of information you can get through the in the modern age is night and day compared to before the internet.

The bike in the photo is electric (training wheels for the Leaf)

The color is listed as ignition red, does anybody know if it is the same as cayenne red in the US.

 

[Reddy]

Amazing! $24,600 in Canada. Wow, have times changed. I would expect we'll see lots more Canadian sales in the coming months at that price.

 

[bronsonb]

The color is listed as ignition red, does anybody know if it is the same as cayenne red in the US.

Hmmm...the photo isn't bright enough for me to tell, but your red looks a little more "red red" than the Cayenne Red, which seems to have some sparkle to it as I recall. From the photo, yours looks a little more "fire engine red," but I don't know if I am the best judge of color.

Baby looks good sipping juice no matter what color she is!

 

[Bigboler]

I will try and get a better picture, in western Canada we are out of 2012 Leafs. I really wanted a 2013 but at the price they had the 2012 at, I couldn't resist. We are not supposed to see the 2013's until June.

 

[Bigboler]

Here's a better of picture of ignition red on the Canadian Leaf, it looks like cayenne red to me.

 

[SCP]

My husband surprised me with my dream Blue Ocean Leaf this weekend. It's an early birthday present! Been waiting for my LEAF for two years!
I'm having so much fun driving it this weekend, and looking forward to no more gas station trips!

So happy to be here too!

 

[apvbguy]

my newly leased 2013 LEAF SL delivered to my house by the dealer today!
it is the bright silver with grey leather interior. It does NOT have the premium package (wing mirrors/bose). I am in Northern FL and there are probably less than a dozen LEAFS at the 8 dealers around here and they ALL had black interiors (unacceptable to me here in FLA)
I can post a pic or 2 tonight.

 

[Becky50]

Please do. Lately, here in San Jose, CA, we are seeing at least one LEAF (not the same one) on every outing. My husband says I no longer need to point them out to him. LOL

 

[TimLee]

my newly leased 2013 LEAF SL delivered to my house by the dealer today!
it is the bright silver with grey leather interior. It does NOT have the premium package (wing mirrors/bose). I am in Northern FL and there are probably less than a dozen LEAFS at the 8 dealers around here and they ALL had black interiors (unacceptable to me here in FLA)
I can post a pic or 2 tonight.

Contratulations
But it can't be an SL. The SL only comes with black leather interior according to Nissan on line build your vehicle.
You must have an SV with the partially recycled cloth seats in gray.
I think Nissan made a huge mistake in not offering a gray leather option in the SL.
I hope they have improved the partially recycled cloth interior compared to the 2011 / 2012.
On the 2011 / 2012, the six months of chemical smell was very irritating.
And the high amount of static charge from the material 70% of the time remains irritating forever.

 

[thehelix112]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to say a quick g'day. I've been interested in getting a LEAF since my wife told me about "some display of some Nissan electric car on 3rd St Promenade tomorrow", as part of their PR leading up to launch. Fast forward some years and we're finally in a position to pull the trigger, but it's mid-2012 and all I can see is the 3.3KW/H charger in the spec sheet, so we decide to wait it out. Talk about frustrating.. Nissan has already launched the 2014MY GTR before the 2013MY LEAF is available.

But eventually it's announced, and we start getting in touch with dealers, settle on a SL Black/Black with Premium package, do a bunch of haggling, settle on a price, and then get told it's a 3 week wait. Thankfully it came in after 2.5 weeks, and we picked it up last Saturday

The wife and I proceeded to drive it from south bay to Westwood (~20 miles), then on to a winery in the Malibu hills. It was a little scary going up those hills and watching the range disappear.

My wife Heather started looking up charging stations for on the way home, but thankfully we passed thousand oaks nissan on the way and figured we would definitely make it back that far. A picnic lunch with friends and some over priced wine later, we hop back in the car with an indicated 22mi range and a 35mi trip. My wife saw that there was a station in Malibu so we decided to start heading home and see what happened.

Put it in eco/B, and headed off down the hill. By the time we got to the bottom we'd covered 7mi and our range had gone from 22 to 42. Much relief, and we decided to just head home. We covered the next 23mi on PCH at a pretty consistent 35mph and arrived with the original 22mi indicated range. After being disappointed by two Santa Monica charging stations we headed to Culver city by our house (helms bakery), grabbed dinner and headed home an hour later.

Plugged it in overnight, hopped in the car the next morning with 99% charge, then went to the valley today to see friends and show them the car.

Both these trips have been a smashing success. Learning more about how the range gauge behaves, and starting to build some trust in the car.

Dave

 

[MatimalND]

Pay no attention to that gauge in the dash, will just give you unneeded anxiety. Check out this thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[LilDave]

Had my Leaf for about 2 weeks now. I am pretty impressed with everything about it. I've already put about 700 miles on it. I upgraded my charger so I could take advantage of the 6.6 charging. What a difference! I wasn't going to tint the windows (since it's a lease) but the 2 days we hit 75 degrees it got hot! My Volt has 35% all of the way around. Makes a huge difference. I haven't had any range issues as I am only using it to commute and to run errands around town. It will serve that purpose just fine. I have over 21K EV miles under my belt from the Volt. I will add 30K more with the Leaf over the next 2 years! It is soooo nice not using any gas commuting now. Love it!

Here is a pic from the front. Love having two EV's in my driveway!

 

[LEAFfan]

Pay no attention to that gauge in the dash, will just give you unneeded anxiety. Check out this thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That thread doesn't apply to the 2013 DTE gauge for drivers on relatively flat terrain. It's absolutely very accurate now. I don't know how it behaves with hilly and or mountainous terrain.