I'm shopping...

Hello All,

I'm shopping for a Leaf and I have a deal or no-deal sort of question. I haven't found a specific answer to it so here it goes...

I found a 2013 Leaf with about 20k miles. In fact, there's a bunch of them for sale in the San Diego, Ca. area for less than $10k--AMAZING! I'm just starting my research. My main question is: If I buy a used Leaf, should I expect to replace the battery in a few years? The cost is about $5k. Just thinking here but, what's the point of paying $10k for a used car that you're going to pay $5k for a battery soon. Or, am I being unrealistic? I realize that I'm saving on gas but I spend $360 on gas a year for my PriusC and Toyota's been fixing my car under warranty so I haven't really spent very much.

What should I expect if I buy a used Leaf?

Thanks.

Alex

Buy a Leaf built AFTER March of 2013, with 12 or 11 of the 12 possible "capacity bars" showing (they are thin little bars alongside the charge bars on the dash), and assuming the car hasn't been tampered with to display more capacity than it actually has, you should be good for 60 mile trips now, and maybe 40 mile trips in 5 years. If you have DC Fast Charge stations in your area, make sure the Leaf you get has two charging ports, so it can use them. If you want to keep the same pack for 5 years, do NOT buy a pre-April-2013 Leaf, no matter how good the price.

There are several threads that discuss checking the battery capacity with LEAF Spy Pro and a suitable OBDII adapter so I won't go into those details. The traction battery will lose capacity over time and the 12 small bars on the far right side of the driver display disappear one after another from the top to somewhat indicate that loss. Therefore, you can get some indication of battery capacity by counting the number of bars visible (2 red plus 10 white bars are visible until capacity is down to about 85% of new). High ambient temperatures increase the rate of capacity loss so my battery is in worse condition than a similar car in a cooler environment. How long before you need to replace the battery depends upon how much range you need between charges. The usable range will continue to drop as the capacity drops and bars disappear. My round trip commute is 52 miles and I was able to make it with the 2011 down to 8 capacity bars before Nissan replaced the battery, but the was almost no charge left when I arrived home.

If you reply with your anticipated daily driving needs, members on the forum will give you some feedback. You can also look at the range charts prepared by Tony Williams to get an idea of maximum range at various speeds.

Yep on all of the above.

Can you update your location info via your user name in the upper right > User Control Panel > Profile tab? That way, we don't need to ask in future posts/threads or do sleuthing to deduce it.

What are your daily driving needs in terms of miles? How much city vs. highway? Will you have the ability to charge at your work/destinations?

http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/File:Scott_3_bars_s.jpg is an example of a 3 bar loser.

It is pretty important to know (via Carfax/Autocheck) where the car resided before so that you can tell if the capacity bar and Leaf Spy (AHr, SOH and Hx) values are legit or whether the car has had its BMS reset and is reading something higher than actual.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/162244573806988/A%20Guide%20for%20Buying%20a%20Used%20LEAF/1100737373291032/ is helpful.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=4295 are the range charts. Note there are copies further down for cars that have lost capacity bars.

alexcordero52 said:

I realize that I'm saving on gas but I spend $360 on gas a year for my PriusC

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I don't know if you plan to charge at home or if you get free or cheap charging somewhere (e.g. work, public charging, solar, etc.) I don't know anything about your area's power rates, but it's possible that the cost per mile to charge your Leaf at home could be similar to or MORE than paying to fuel your Prius c. This isn't the case in places where electricity's cheap (e.g. WA state) but is certainly very possible in CA.

Figure about 3 miles/kWh or from the wall (rough guesstimate since know nothing about your driving). Figure out how many miles/month you drive and how many kWh you'll use along w/its marginal cost.

If you are only spending $360 per year on gas for your Prius and you live in San Diego, then buying a Leaf isn't going to save you any money.

The average electricity rate in San Diego is apparently 16.35¢/kWh, and you will likely average around 4 miles per kWh. For 10000 miles per year, that would be 2500 kWh or $408 per year at your rates.

Sounds like you drive less than 10k miles annually, so like I said - zero savings...

Only buy a Leaf if you want one for reasons other than saving money.

alozzy said:

If you are only spending $360 per year on gas for your Prius and you live in San Diego, then buying a Leaf isn't going to save you any money.

The average electricity rate in San Diego is apparently 16.35¢/kWh, and you will likely average around 4 miles per kWh. For 10000 miles per year, that would be 2500 kWh or $408 per year at your rates.

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I suspect the marginal cost will be higher. The OP might be pushed into a higher tier or already in one and thus paying MUCH more than 16.35 cents/kWh.

4 miles/kWh is not necessarily a good assumption. Gotta account for charging losses and per 24 kWh range chart, http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=4295 even 60 mph should be under 4 miles/kWh, BEFORE charging losses.

From https://www.sdge.com/rates-regulations/current-and-effective-tariffs/current-and-effective-tariffs, I'm led to http://regarchive.sdge.com/tm2/ssi/inc_elec_rates_res.html then http://regarchive.sdge.com/tm2/pdf/ELEC_ELEC-SCHEDS_DR.pdf (1st link). Look at the total rates on page 1. Ignore CARE unless the OP has a low enough income to qualify.

Notice that https://www.sdge.com/understanding-rates says

Each climate zone is assigned different daily baseline allowances. Baseline allowances are set between 50%-60% of the electricity the average residential customer uses in each territory.

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As I said, CA electricity can be expensive.