What Are Our Used Leafs Worth Now?

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

LeftieBiker

Well-known member
Staff member
Joined
May 22, 2013
Messages
20,001
Location
Upstate New York, US
With the new massive residual discounts for March 2017, a lot of us are buying, or at least thinking of buying, our cars. In my case I would definitely be reselling it in a few months, to lease a new EV with more range. Until now, it wasn't too hard to get a resale value for an older Leaf, because there are lots of them on the market. But between this and the possible end of Federal subsidies looming, it's going to be a real Puzzler figuring out a Leaf's resale value in a given market. I think that mine will be worth at least $7k, and maybe $8k locally, because used Leafs are rare here, and the car has only 16k miles on it. If the subsidies end it should be worth more. OTOH, mine doesn't have QC, and we now have a few EVGo stations. If subsidies remain and a price war develops for new EVs, will I even be able to sell it? Let's talk about this.
 
Personally I don't think even if the $7500 tax credit goes away that the price of used EVs will change much, what would drive up the cost of EVs would be if fuel prices spiked, and stayed that way for many months, otherwise with relatively cheap gas price the American sheep will continue to purchase larger and larger less fuel efficient vehicles and EVs will be just a blip on the sales charts :(
Oh personally the QC port isn't worth much for me, the charger OTH is a deal breaker if only has a 3.6 vs 6.6kw, of course if you have lots of QCs in your market and they aren't priced sky high, some may care if it doesn't have one.
 
It's an interesting thought. Used EV prices have tanked more than ICE in the past 5 years due to increasing battery capacity and amenities, and likely decreasing gasoline prices as well as degradation of 2011-12 Leaf batteries. Now, I won't pretend to know the future, but with an assault on mileage requirement and the oil industry controlling the White House, it is entirely possible that we will see increasing gasoline consumption and prices while several big name car manufacturers may slow their EV developments. Thus, it is "possible," but not likely, that used EVs may be worth more. Pull out the popcorn, things will only get more ugly.
 
The way I see EV is a lot like cell phones. With each year expect the battery range to increase, similar to cell phone features gets better.

Our Nissan Leaf is a lot like Samsung Galaxy S5, still works, but not the newest or the shiniest when compared with Galaxy S7 Edge or One Plus 3T.

Nissan Leaf with 24 kwH of power is worth very little for someone who has to drive more than 60 miles highways but priceless for someone who commutes 10 miles one way.
 
Just to be clear, I don't expect to be able to sell my car to an ICE driver. There is a small but significant number of EV drivers in my area (there is a FB group but the owner is unpleasant and controlling so I left it) and it's that niche market I'd be looking at, along with local college students who'd be interested in essentially no fuel cost and a Cool local use vehicle.
 
I struggled with this recently. In my case, it was $1200 for a warranty/battery replacement vs. trade-in and up into something else like a shiny Bolt or other (and take on a new monthly repayment @1.49% auto loan). I dislike auto leases in general, as it has a "cost" built-in at inception and when you turn the vehicle back in.

In the end, I went the battery route because I am taking a punt that a 2011 Japanese built Leaf will remain to have high reliability for the next 5 years or so. I hope I have taken the right gamble and nothing else will break next in my car.

The next car that I will be purchasing brand new, will be an autonomous vehicle product in 5 years or so. Looks like I'll be waiting it out for now....
 
In my case I'd be looking at $6k for a non-warrantee battery replacement, just to get back 13 or 14% capacity I've lost. That's a nonstarter with a 24kwh pack, so my ownership of my Leaf probably won't last longer than late next Fall. I may try Leaf Box in the meantime, though!
 
The day I bought my used LEAF I figured the resale value is zero and I would not have purchased the car if I had any expectations of selling it in the future. OTOH I *do* expect the car to work well for us at least five years.

Unfortunately, the LEAF is a throw-away car. If I'm really fortunate the battery and its electronics get recycled into a home system.
 
SageBrush said:
The day I bought my used LEAF I figured the resale value is zero and I would not have purchased the car if I had any expectations of selling it in the future. OTOH I *do* expect the car to work well for us at least five years.

Unfortunately, the LEAF is a throw-away car. If I'm really fortunate the battery and its electronics get recycled into a home system.
I bought my 2011 new, installed leather seats, and have loved it since day 1. My main concern is an expensive component failure... Less of a concern is the reduced regen due to lowered battery capacity...

When I purchased, I realized 98% of my driving falls into a very small range circle that supports use with a traction battery at 50%.... WLA also has abundant QC stations, but I've only used twice. Having a second ICE sports car that is used for longer trips helps, so all good, except paying two auto insurance bills....

The SUM, is barring a big expensive repair bill for something like the OBC, that it keeps it's worth and utility to me...
 
Well, I found our 2014 SL for sale after we turned it in at lease-end. It's being offered at $11,990 at the dealer in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio - VIN ends in 331649.
 
DaveInAvl said:
Well, I found our 2014 SL for sale after we turned it in at lease-end. It's being offered at $11,990 at the dealer in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio - VIN ends in 331649.
Just curious, what was your buyout? $12k seems a bit on the high side or maybe their building in a bit of haggle room, it must have been pretty clean and relatively low miles? maybe new tires?
 
jjeff said:
Just curious, what was your buyout? $12k seems a bit on the high side or maybe their building in a bit of haggle room, it must have been pretty clean and relatively low miles? maybe new tires?
The buyout was $16024. It has 21,000+ miles, the original tires and 11 bars. Last fall, the leasing dealer accidentally sent me an ad intended for owners rather than lessees, telling me the Black Book value was $7475 but they'd offer me up to $8970 as a trade-in. Naturally, I made a buyout offer in that vicinity but they wanted nothing to do with me...
 
Ha, that's great. I love it when the dealership's screwup and you can catch them at their game. So there's another example that they target a minimum of $2000 profit on each sale, sometimes $2k on each side.
 
Last fall, the leasing dealer accidentally sent me an ad intended for owners rather than lessees, telling me the Black Book value was $7475 but they'd offer me up to $8970 as a trade-in.

I think we all get those. If they have your address, they send you it. It's casting a wide, annoying net.
 
It's hard to say what the future brings, but almost every scenario points to the Gen1 Leaf being practically worthless in a few years.

SageBrush said:
The day I bought my used LEAF I figured the resale value is zero and I would not have purchased the car if I had any expectations of selling it in the future. OTOH I *do* expect the car to work well for us at least five years.

Unfortunately, the LEAF is a throw-away car. If I'm really fortunate the battery and its electronics get recycled into a home system.

I bought mine off lease, when they offered me an extra $5k off residual. This was my thought too. I figure that by buying the car, I can wait until I am ready to upgrade rather than being forced by a cycle of leasing. I also calculated the cost of a new 3-year lease. At the time, it would have only saved me about $2k from just buying. So now if the car is worth $2k at 6 years old, I'm golden.

I probably won't try to sell in my market. There isn't much demand for a 25-mile (in the winter, with degradation) car around here, despite the low running costs. I will ask about trade-in, but probably won't do that unless it's at least 3-4k (ha!).

I'm thinking I'll keep it as a winter rat. In New York, you can withdraw a car from use for a season and cut insurance almost to 0. No need to turn in the plates. So if I go back and forth between two cars, the extra insurance is basically zero.

When I'm tired of that, I may just tear it apart and put the battery cells in my sailboat. I already use an electric outboard, with a measly 0.52kWh battery. The upgrade would be very nice.
 
GetOffYourGas said:
It's hard to say what the future brings, but almost every scenario points to the Gen1 Leaf being practically worthless in a few years.
Isn't that a lot like saying that most any vehicle reaches a point where it has little resale value? I look at this from the standpoint of how long it will be useful to ME. A somewhat different question.
 
I think that people thinking that a Gen 1 Leaf is worthless in a few years is ridiculous (ok, to soothe the writer below, I will use the adjective... "misinformed"). If that is true, I will buy a Leaf for every member of my family and laugh.

I really think that too many of us are thinking of a Leaf as an electrical device like an Ipad or a cell phone that is valueless when the new ones come out. Yes, ipads, cell phones, and pcs can be worthless WHEN THE SOFTWARE becomes too complex for the old computer to process and run at a reasonable speed.

Cars are very different because the environment in which they work DOES NOT CHANGE. A 30 year old car (or even a 50 year old) is still made of steel, seats, and tires, and travels down the road at the same speed as any other new car. SO... To me, the Leaf can last as long as any other of my cars (15-20 years) AS LONG as I can get a battery or parts for it... I fully expect that we will have better and bigger batteries that will keep the Leaf going for many year.
 
Agreed. Any vehicle that drives ok and will pass inspection is worth at least $1k. Any nice car that does the above and has the Leaf's other advantages will always be worth at least $3k, IMO, if it can do 25 miles or more.
 
Dooglas said:
GetOffYourGas said:
It's hard to say what the future brings, but almost every scenario points to the Gen1 Leaf being practically worthless in a few years.
Isn't that a lot like saying that most any vehicle reaches a point where it has little resale value? I look at this from the standpoint of how long it will be useful to ME. A somewhat different question.

No, it's not. True, all vehicles eventually reach a point where it has little resale value. Typically that takes 15 years or more. Most $35k cars (ok, $28k after federal tax credit) do not depreciate to less than $3k in less than 8 years. That's about 90% depreciation. And that's what I meant by "practically worthless". You can debate whether the words I used are "ridiculous" - feel free. But that's what I meant.

powersurge said:
I think that people thinking that a Gen 1 Leaf is worthless in a few years is ridiculous.
...
LeftieBiker said:
Agreed. Any vehicle that drives ok and will pass inspection is worth at least $1k. Any nice car that does the above and has the Leaf's other advantages will always be worth at least $3k, IMO, if it can do 25 miles or more.

If the car is worth less than $3k to sell/trade-in, then it is worth more to me to just keep it as a winter rat and eventually cannibalize the parts for other purposes. Insurance overhead for the extra car (in New York, cannot speak to other states) is basically zero. Even if the battery degrades to 50%, a 600lb / 12kWh battery alone is worth the $3k to me.

I'll probably just cough up the extra $3k towards my next car rather than trading in the Leaf. Who knows - maybe if I keep the car intact, I can enter it in the Syracuse Nationals in 20 years from now.
 
powersurge said:
I fully expect that we will have better and bigger batteries that will keep the Leaf going for many year.
I hope you are right, but I don't think it will work out that way.

Nissan has already made the current 30 kWh battery non-interchangeable with 24 kWh cars. Law requires that Nissan stock spare parts for (7? 10?) years, but there is no requirement to store them in optimal conditions. The warranty in fact actually only requires Nissan to bring a battery back up to 9 bars. And in the case of buying a replacement battery, it is no better: warranty for a year -- against defects, NOT aging.

Are you going to buy a battery for $6k that may be 9 bars on day #1 ? Not worry about a battery that may have been sitting in storage for years ? AFAIK, Nissan is no longer producing 24 kWh batteries, so the best case scenario we can hope for is that replacement batteries were produced in early 2017.
 
Back
Top