Comparison: Why I Chose a Nissan Leaf Plus over a Tesla Model 3

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I have both too. A 2021 Leaf S Plus and a 2022 Model 3. Love them both for different reasons. And the Leaf was an absolute steal at about $22k brand new after the federal incentive.

I use the Leaf as my daily driver because if I get in an accident it’s much easier and much less expensive to get repaired. I hit a deer last year in the Leaf and trashed the front panel. I was able to get it repaired in a couple months at a cost of $1300. The Tesla would have been much worse with time and cost.

New tires for the Leaf are much less expensive too, and both my Leaf and Tesla eat tires. So I put as much mileage as possible on the Leaf.

Also where I live there is a lot of EV and Tesla hate. Pickup trucks will cut me off and coal roll me in the Tesla. With the Leaf, nobody has a clue it is an EV and they leave me alone.
 
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I have many work colleagues with Tesla. and as a Gridmanager I see them every day in our yard at the destinationchargers. The Tesla S 3 Y even the X are sometime on site at . I've never driven it, but have sat in it a few times.
do you still have a OBD module to read battery Data?
 
I have both too. A 2021 Leaf S Plus and a 2022 Model 3. Love them both for different reasons. And the Leaf was an absolute steal at about $22k brand new after the federal incentive.

I use the Leaf as my daily driver because if I get in an accident it’s much easier and much less expensive to get repaired. I hit a deer last year in the Leaf and trashed the front panel. I was able to get it repaired in a couple months at a cost of $1300. The Tesla would have been much worse with time and cost.

New tires for the Leaf are much less expensive too, and both my Leaf and Tesla eat tires. So I put as much mileage as possible on the Leaf.

Also where I live there is a lot of EV and Tesla hate. Pickup trucks will cut me off and coal roll me in the Tesla. With the Leaf, nobody has a clue it is an EV and they leave me alone.
Our second 2019 Plus was 23K after all rebates new, and at the time nothing was close in price for the spec.

I believe right now in Colorado, if you qualify for every incentive, you can get a new Leaf in the teens.
 
I like the Leaf because it's a normal looking car. I don't like technology in a car. If I want a self-driving car, I'll call Uber. As several here are Tesla owners too, what it the tire mileage? Our Leaf had 10K on the tires when we sold it and the tires looked pretty good. I rotated them at 5K miles. I've been told the Tesla's eat tires but no one has ever given me a figure for average mileage one can expect. I did see story regarding a Tesla Plaid that destroyed the rear tires at 4K miles. The inner sides of the tires were shredded. Thanks.
 
I like the Leaf because it's a normal looking car.
I think your the first person I've ever heard call the Leaf "normal looking". Those headlights in particular are not "normal".

I don't like technology in a car. If I want a self-driving car, I'll call Uber.
A lot of cars these days, especially the more expensive models, have technologies that didn't exist ten, or even five, years ago. They are often referred to as safety or driver-assist technologies, as they should be. No cars on sale to the public are "self-driving", no matter what the manufacturers marketing departments might have named the technology sets, as a number of drivers have learned the hard way.

As several here are Tesla owners too, what it the tire mileage? Our Leaf had 10K on the tires when we sold it and the tires looked pretty good. I rotated them at 5K miles. I've been told the Tesla's eat tires but no one has ever given me a figure for average mileage one can expect.
Tire life is highly variable, depending to a great extent on the tire design and materials and on the owner's driving style. I've replaced the tires on my 2013 Leaf once, after about 5 years and 54,000 miles. The Leaf is now at 72,000 miles and the tires are still good. I've replace the tires on my 2018 Tesla Model S once, after 3 years and 40,000 miles. The S is now at 70,000 miles and the tires are still good.

I did see story regarding a Tesla Plaid that destroyed the rear tires at 4K miles. The inner sides of the tires were shredded. Thanks.
I can believe that a Plaid could go through a set of tires in 4,000 miles. I'm inclined to blame that on the driver, not the car, unless the alignment was bad. Very bad. A person who wants a Plaid is a person who will drive the car hard. But ... when you say the damage was to the "inner sides" are you referring to the inner edges of the tread or to the inner sidewalls?
 
I'm assuming that you had a nice, LOW first gear. I towed a Volvo P1800S with a slightly lighter Volvo P122s, in my youth. I also towed that 122S about 300 miles with a slightly larger Dodge Polara. It's all about being slow and consistent.
 
Again, I have both a Leaf S Plus (2021) and Model 3 (2022) and love them both and would recommend both, depending on a person’s needs.

Another advantage to the Leaf - depreciation. In 3 years my Leaf value has dropped from the $22k I paid for it (after incentives) to about $19k private party value now, according to Carfax. So about $1,000 a year depreciation. Really amazingly good.

The Model 3 on the other hand has dropped $10k in 2 years. So about $5,000 a year.

Now, it’s almost always true that a more expensive car takes a bigger hit on depreciation from the moment you drive it off the lot, so I’m not surprised about this difference in the Leaf vs. Model 3, and I will keep the Model 3 for a long time, and the future depreciation will be much less per year. But the Leaf financially has come out way ahead so far.
 
The LEAF is a solid choice based on many factors. The BIG PRO of Tesla has been it's network of Super Chargers..... Of course there are Nissan Dealers, Commercial networks to charrge on road. If you only drive local as I do, charge at home the network of Tesla chargers is less important.

HOWEVER Tesla NOW has opened it up to almost anyone (except LEAF with CHAdeMO at this time. I know Nissan Ayran has CCS... so it is compatible. If a CCS charger to CHAdeMO vehicle adapter is made great for LEAF drivers.

The only place I see CHAdeMO is at some Nissan Dealers. One of the big chains of charging stations has announced they are phasing out CHAdeMO.

I think manufactures have to sign up with Tesla to allow their brand to access the Super Chargers. I believe VW is a hold out.
 
Jetpilot

Here in the midwest, chademo installs are still going in, though it is notably slowing compared to ccs. I have been very thankful that many hyundai dealerships (even a few gm) have added chademos. I haven't seen many chademos removed yet except for the cases where the whole ststion is being removed.


My bigger concern is next year and whether chademo handles will be replaced with nacs. The new adapters are arriving just in time. I am hoping we see chademo to nacs soon, but even the chademo to ccs give us another 5 years of support or more.
 
Another advantage to the Leaf - depreciation. In 3 years my Leaf value has dropped from the $22k I paid for it (after incentives) to about $19k private party value now, according to Carfax. So about $1,000 a year depreciation. Really amazingly good.
That's you in the US... Here in Germany I bought the Leaf in 2018 für about 30 K€, and today I would get about 15 K€.

That's the reason why we now have two cars, I will not* sell it for 15 K€, so we have the best of both worlds. A Model3 and the Leaf.
 
Here in the Beaverton, Oregon area, we were behind a Gal with a Model 3. She had several hate sticker towards Elon Musk on the Tesla. She pulled into the same parking lot we did and She was crazy mad (irate) at Musk. She said we wants to dump the Tesla really cheap. Well, bad news. She called and said She sold it to a Dealer.
 
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That's you in the US... Here in Germany I bought the Leaf in 2018 für about 30 K€, and today I would get about 15 K€.

That's the reason why we now have two cars, I will not* sell it for 15 K€, so we have the best of both worlds. A Model3 and the Leaf.
One should look at the TCO = total cost of ownership. You can influence this a lot, by driving energy efficient. Looking for cheap charging rates etc...

Not bringing a bag with money to the dealership: when it's depreciating crazy like that, then why do dealer maintenance? Even though the only maintenance it needs, are tires are brakes?

I plan to keep my Leaf for another few years: I'm hoping the depreciation might stabilise.
 
It's a 2014 car, with a 2019 62kwh battery that I swapped in. I got lucky finding a salvage one from near Smyrna TN. Sit down, the pack was only $4400 in Nov '19. At the time, it was a really great deal to get a 200+ mile EV. Now a 62kwh swap is too expensive with all the Leaf lovers fighting over them.

These days, If I wanted another 200+ mile EV, I would be getting a used 2017-2019 Bolt with recent new recall battery, for around $15k, hopefully minus the $4k used EV tax credit. Earlier Bolts all got recall batteries or are still eligible for replacement, 2020+ Bolts may or may not have gotten the recall replaced battery. Similar used 2019+ 62kwh Leafs look like they're a bit more expensive. I'm intrigued by a Bolt, but definitely don't need another 200+ mile car.

I really want 300+ miles for trips, just the last 1-2% of usage. Some used M3 Long range cars are near the $25k upper limit for the used EV tax credit. So I'm interested but don't have a real need for another vehicle now.
You put in heftier rear springs right? The pluses uprated the springs because the 62kwh battery pack is heavier. They're generally cheap at a junkyard.
 
An EV should rarely need brake replacement. Brakes are much longer lasting on an EV than on an ICEV because most of the braking should be regenerative, not friction.
True, but brake fluid should be changed every once in a while?
 
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