Looking to purchase a used leaf but concerned about early battery degradation or even replacement without warranty.

Mainly highway driving at 75mph and 65 miles round trip to work and back home, 5 days a week in northern California. Im looking for a 2013 or newer leaf with no more than 30k miles on the odometer. If I factor in normal battery degradation based on mileage, how long should I be able to continue maintaining a daily 65 miles of driving on one charge? I’m also afraid to have to replace the battery without warranty because that’ll run another $5500, which makes it a huge price difference on a used leaf. Any experience or suggestions on this?

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. Can you be more specific as to where in Nor Cal? There's a HUGE variance in climates in the Bay Area (e.g. cool in the summer like SF and Pacifica, blazing hot in the summer like Walnut Creek, Concord, Antioch). For those unfamiliar with Bay Area summer temps, see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=533224#p533224.

If you have no ability to charge at work, forget about it with a 24 kWh Leaf (all Leafs '11 to '15 model years). If you can at least charge at 120 volts all day at work, that'll let you make it.

Please see range chart "Use this 82% chart for a battery that has 11 of 12 capacity bar segments." at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=4295. It presumes an 11 bar car will make it 51 miles at 75 mph before dead. Even a '11 to '15 Leaf on a brand new battery with no degradation will barely make that 65 miles at 75 mph, if it all.

"If I factor in normal battery degradation based on mileage" isn't a good measure. There are calendar losses and losses due to cycling, but there the chemistry of battery and the climate/temps at which the battery was kept play a HUGE rule.

4/2013 and later built '13 Leafs and presumably '14 Leafs have a better chemistry than the ones that came before. I lost my 1st bar a year ago (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=511915#p511915) on my used 5/2013 built '13. I'm still at 11 bars and my SOH is hovering between 83.xx and 85.xx% although recently it's in the low 83.xx%. I can guess I'm down at least 15% in capacity. I'm past 60K miles. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=473995#p473995 in Phoenix has the same build month yet he lost his 4th bar in late 8/2016!

'15 model year has the "lizard" pack and is the best we know of, so far.

http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/wiki/battery-d1/ under Battery Capacity Behavior is derived from a table in the '11 Leaf service manual. It was removed from later Leaf service manuals w/no explanation given. Not sure if it has ever returned.

There are numerous reports stating a replacement battery is past $7K now: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=25882. Tends to be somewhere over $7K w/tax and labor now. There are 0 recent reports of anyone being quoted $5500 or even $6K for a replacement these days.

To make it work w/a 24 kWh Leaf, you need to be able to charge all day at work at 120 volts, or you need to stop on the way to work or back to charge a bit at level 2 or DC FC (CHAdeMO, if the car has it). Otherwise you need to get a 30 kWh Leaf ('16 SV or '16 SL or '16 "S 30" or any '17) which has a 107 mile EPA range rating vs. 84 on a full charge for '13 to '15. Otherwise, you will need to slow WAY down, to say 60 mph or less. When it hits winter w/rain and need to run the heat + defog, you will suffer a range hit and need to charge and/or slow down even more.

'16 S 30 at https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1106593_nissan-leaf-s-quietly-gets-30-kwh-battery-upgrade-higher-price. Original '16 S was only 24 kWh.

You should take a look at https://www.facebook.com/notes/seattle-nissan-leaf-owners/a-guide-for-buying-a-used-leaf/1100737373291032/ and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26662.

I have a 2012 Leaf. The battery is so degraded at this point that it can barely make it 40 miles on a single charge. And that assumes that it's not too cold, that you've installed a hack like I did to completely turn off the heater, AND that you keep your speed down below 65 mph.

So I agree with cwerdna - the early 24kWh Leafs are probably not going to be a reliable commuter car for you. Throw in any bad weather, and you'll have to slow down significantly to make it.

The 30kwh 2016/2017 Leaf should have been the answer for range issues like this, but until it becomes clear just how many of the cars with 'vanishing capacity' issues are merely suffering from a software bug, and how many are actually losing capacity rapidly (and how to tell them apart!) the 30kwh Leaf isn't a good bet either.

^^^
For context, we were seeing a ton of rapid capacity bar loss on the 30 kWh Leafs. I started tracking 4 bar loser 30 kWh cars and it was insane: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=525968#p525968. There were at least 1 or 2 more after that. They seemed to be doing much worse than the '15 lizard (24 kWh) packs.

Nissan issued a fix: https://insideevs.com/nissan-issues-software-fix-for-2016-17-leaf-battery-reporting-issues/. I would agree that the jury's out but at the same time, assuming Nissan didn't muck w/the thresholds of when each bar goes away, a 4 bar loser 30 kWh pack should have very similar range to a 1 bar loser 24 kWh pack. And, 30 kWh (and 40 kWh) packs are warranted to have at least 9 bars for 8 years/100K miles vs. only 5 years/60K miles on the 24 kWh packs. Hit 8 bars before capacity warranty expires? Battery is replaced for free, although there's no guarantee they'd put in a new one.

The above is true, but while a 4 bar loser 30kwh Leaf should be able to achieve 65 miles in normal driving, going 65MPH or faster in frigid weather would yield something more like 55-60 miles.

It looks to me like there are at least some 30kwh packs with actual rapid capacity loss - they don't get the predicted range restored with the software update. Others do seem to get the range back, so there may be a second, quality control issue with those cars. If true, that will make buying a used one tricky, especially for cars that haven't gotten the update and had time (several weeks at least, preferably months) for it to "settle" yet.

LeftieBiker said:

The above is true, but while a 4 bar loser 30kwh Leaf should be able to achieve 65 miles in normal driving, going 65MPH or faster in frigid weather would yield something more like 55-60 miles.

It looks to me like there are at least some 30kwh packs with actual rapid capacity loss - they don't get the predicted range restored with the software update. Others do seem to get the range back, so there may be a second, quality control issue with those cars. If true, that will make buying a used one tricky, especially for cars that haven't gotten the update and had time (several weeks at least, preferably months) for it to "settle" yet.

Click to expand...

Trying to settle whether the Nissan 'fix' actually improves battery performance based on anecdotal range experiences is a waste of time and just muddies the waters. The ONLY test of merit is whether the battery can take up more energy after the update.

My guess (that I am willing to wager on) is that the GOM and assorted meter readings are more accurate but actual battery performance is the same. By that I mean that the amount of energy that goes into the battery while charging up LBC to full (and is equivalent to usable energy in usual driving) is unchanged. Nissan fixed the rapid drop in SOH that was leading to battery replacements but that says little about the state of the battery chemistry.

In those affected cars the SOH and Ahr readings obtained by LeafSpy are unreliable. Battery health must be evaluated by a charge test