Hi all, just wanted to share some mainly positive and a few small negative experience on my family's 2023 Nissan Leaf 40kWh.
First of all, I live in Indonesia therefore we got the Japanese made Leaf but with the European standard plugs (Type 2 AC instead of J1772). The Nissan Leaf isn't a cheap EV by any means, it's around $45k new and the only incentives we got are the very cheap yearly registration (plate) tax, no progressive tax (if you have more than 1 ICE cars, the taxes gets progressively expensive the more you own them. EVs are exempted from that), and the electricity subsidy for our home charger. I got the car for $41k after some tough negotiations, got a free window tint, free wall charger with installation included, and extended warranty to 5 years and 10 years for the battery.
The car is mainly used around town here in the capital city of Jakarta, and because everything in Jakarta is not that far, we managed to have around 260-270 kilometers of range or around 170-180 miles of range. Finding ChaDeMo connectors here aren't that difficult since the government mandated all public chargers must have either DC CCS2 or DC ChaDeMo alongside AC type 2 chargers. This means that if I can't DC charge it, at least there's an AC charger nearby. Lo and behold, most public chargers here are AC chargers ranging from 7-22 kilowatts. Safe to say, finding a place to charge my car is relatively easy. Ride quality is excellent for a car with torsion beam rear suspension and equipped with eco tyres. Seats are amazingly comfortable (got the leather with suede inserts), interior space is adequate for my family and the luggage space is huge. Also our daily cost on operating our car is down by a LOT, since we always "fill up" the car at home.
Would I recommend other people to buy a Leaf? Sadly no, because there are loads of Chinese EVs coming with double the range and half the price, the Leaf is very undesirable for most people. Especially for those living in apartments where they can't exactly charge all the time. More so the locally assembled Hyundai Ioniq 5 standard range base model is priced close enough to the Leaf. The reason why we chose the Leaf? Ride and build quality as well as size, because we were planning to make this as our daily driver. But I can't lie that I do have a buyer's remorse on no looking hard enough for a base model Ioniq 5 when buying the Leaf. Most dealers only stock the top trims which is around $51k at the time. We're not exactly fond of Korean brands, and the other Japanese offering was a $72k Toyota BZ4X, the $73k Lexus UX300e or the $130k Lexus RZ450e (very luxurious inside though. European brands? Well almost all of them are north of $80k-100k so no. Chinese? We did consider it, especially the MG4 which is the direct rival for the Leaf, but we yet again aren't too keen on that brand.
Overall, we're still happy with the car. Even with only 180 miles of range when fully charged, we experienced no major issues whatsoever even in our tropical heat climate. We mainly charge it at home and never DC charged it since we had the car. The A/C is super cold all the time, the standard audio system is quite good, and because it's a Leaf it gets minimal attention. Very important when driving it around the sketchy part of town.
