Ex Leaf-owner club (Why we gave up on Nissan Leaf)

[Rat]

There's only a trickle of people who had their LEAFs delivered by March of 2011. So there are very few who have completed the 3-year lease or in CA, the 3-year CVRP ownership period required for the CA rebate.
By the end of this year, we will have a better picture when the number of 3-year-old LEAFs increase.

I didn't take delivery until June 2011. I'm very happy with my Leaf and have no plans to join this club, but this post reminds me of the 3-year requirement. I got my rebate when I bought it, so I assume that when the 3 years is up nothing happens. Has anyone who got the rebate sold their Leaf and can tell us what happens at that time? Do they ask you for the rebate back? What if you move out of state? Can they track you down and sue - or get you through your new DMV? I'm curious now.

 

[Rat]

There's only a trickle of people who had their LEAFs delivered by March of 2011. So there are very few who have completed the 3-year lease or in CA, the 3-year CVRP ownership period required for the CA rebate.
By the end of this year, we will have a better picture when the number of 3-year-old LEAFs increase.

I didn't take delivery until June 2011. I'm very happy with my Leaf and have no plans to join this club, but this post reminds me of the 3-year requirement. I got my rebate when I bought it, so I assume that when the 3 years is up nothing happens. Has anyone who got the rebate sold their Leaf and can tell us what happens at that time? Do they ask you for the rebate back? What if you move out of state? Can they track you down and sue - or get you through your new DMV? I'm curious now.

It looks like I found my own answer, although it's all hypothetical since it's from the CVRP Final Report published in 2011 by the CCSE. It would still be useful to hear how it has been implemented in practice. From this it sounds like the buyer who got the original rebate must repay a prorated amount.

Exhibit 11: CVRP Vehicle Resale Standard Operating Procedures
The language below outline the necessary steps involved for the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) and the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to follow if notified of the resale of a rebated vehicle.
Step One: Notify CCSE of Vehicle Resale Request
If ARB is notified of vehicle resale request, ARB will contact CCSE with the applicant email and phone information and a brief description of the request.
Step Two: CCSE Document Vehicle Resale Request
Once notified by ARB or by a rebate recipient of interest in reselling a CVRP funded vehicle, CCSE will document the case on a resale request form which will then be provided to ARB:
1. Applicant contact information
2. Date when the individual applied for CVRP
3. Original rebate amount received
4. Vehicle Identification Number
5. Reason for vehicle resale
6. Status of vehicle resale
Step Three: ARB Review and Rule on Vehicle Resale Request
ARB program staff will review the resale request and any supporting documentation, and inform CCSE of staff’s decision within 10 working days. If the resale request is granted, ARB will provide CCSE with the prorated rebate amount using the formula below.
Step Four: CCSE Notifies Applicant of ARB Ruling
CCSE will communicate ARB’s decision to the individual requesting resale, including instructions for refunding the prorated amount of the rebate to CCSE if the resale request is granted.
Refunded rebates will be added back into the rebate funding pool.
Step Five: CCSE Notifies ARB of Applicant Refund
Once the prorated rebate amount is refunded back to the CVRP, CCSE will inform ARB. Additionally, CCSE will provide regular status reports until the refund is received.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Are most people who are bailing on the Leaf just reverting back to a gas car? Or going to the Volt?

It would be fun to get a model S but that's a whole different level of financial commitment.

If I get an early out on the lease I might just go for something like a sentra or versa note to tide us over until the dust settles... cars like that always make good hand-me-downs. It would kind of bug me to have gotten "roped" into the brand based on the EV though.

 

[davewill]

Are most people who are bailing on the Leaf just reverting back to a gas car? Or going to the Volt? ...

I went with the Rav4EV, but if I had been outside California, I would have gone Volt, or maybe the FFE (or a Tesla if my wife ever wins the lotto). I'm not going back to a plain ICE car ever again if I can help it.

 

[Nubo]

I've quite enjoyed our LEAF so far, 27 months into a 36 month lease. Still have 12 bars and no burning desire to know exactly how many "Gids". The car does more than well enough for our needs. I will seriously consider another LEAF though it will be another lease without some clear indication of improved battery longevity. The Volt is a good concept but I simply don't want to deal with gasoline anymore. Ever. We still have a gas vehicle for longer trips; to be replaced by a Tesla X. Also, I really don't want a "compliance car"; I am loathe to reward half-assery.

 

[Maaz]

I am also, handing down the leaf to my little sister. The range works for me, but sometimes, it is just a hassle, I will be upgrading to the RAV4 EV, the deals these days are great, i live in california, and the range and everything else about the car is a big plus to me. So excited !

 

[sparky]

I tried to become an ex-LEAF owner.
I have been disappointed in Nissan w.r.t the battery degradation issue and felt there's now many good EV options out there. Although, in our case, at ~30k mi and 38 mos, we still show 12 bars.
In anticipation of hitting 3 yrs this past January, my wife and I test-drove the Rav4-EV, Fiat 500e, Chevy SparkEV, Fit-EV and Volt.
She wanted none of them nor a new LEAF.
She finds the LEAF works perfectly for her 25 mi/day commute and fairly predictable weekend runs of ~40 mi R/T. She gotten used to the Nav/electronics system and likes the roominess and acceleration.
The thing's paid for and she's decided to wait awhile to see what 2015-2016 brings.
When it comes to cars, my wife is clearly more practical than I. Glad we bought rather than leased.

 

[Weatherman]

Are most people who are bailing on the Leaf just reverting back to a gas car? Or going to the Volt?

It's very difficult to go back to a gas-powered car, after driving an EV for over two years. It doesn't happen too often, but it's very obvious to me whenever my Volt turns on the backup generator. I can, definitely, feel the vibration even if I can't hear the noise.

I don't care if the Volt only has four seats. As far as I'm concerned it's two seats too many, since I've driven two-seat hatchbacks for most of my life. The Volt isn't perfect, but, given the limited alternatives in my non-CARB state, it's the best I can hope for, for now.

 

[WetEV]

2. Capacity bars: the LEAF has this display with 12 bars, that is supposed to show how much of the battery capacity is remaining. It is supposed to show any degradation in the battery pack. Most reasonable people would expect that each bar would represent about 100/12 = 8.3% of remaining capacity. Nissan hides any initial degradation by making the topmost bar 15%. So the top bar would remain until at least 15% is gone! Someone please propose another possible reason for indexing of the battery capacity guage, other than to hide battery degradation...

Battery loss isn't expected to be linear. Two bar loss or 80% means that your battery is about half way in time and cycles to 70%, a normal EOL percentage. I bought my 2014 and don't plan on being a member of this club.

 

[RegGuheert]

Battery loss isn't expected to be linear.

Perhaps not by you or by Nissan, but it is by me. Calendar loss is seen to be linear or faster in much of the published literature. Cycling loss "should" be slower than linear based on the literature, but we do not have evidence of that in the LEAF.

Two bar loss or 80% means that your battery is about half way in time and cycles to 70%, a normal EOL percentage. I bought my 2014 and don't plan on being a member of this club.

I wouldn't count on that, as I have pointed out previously the scant amount of data we have indicates that capacity loss DOES NOT SLOW DOWN as capacity drops:

As an example, consider member "cyellen" who experienced the loss of bars one and two during the summer of 2012 and bars three and four during the summer of 2013:
Bar 1 to 2: 73 days and 1400 miles
Bar 3 to 4: 64 days and 1500 miles

As you can see, this vehicle lost the fourth capacity bar slightly faster than it lost the second capacity bar, even though the climate and miles were quite similar.

There is some hope that in milder climates we will see this much-hoped-for slowing in degradation, but I have yet to see any evidence of this.

 

[WetEV]

Battery loss isn't expected to be linear.

Perhaps not by you or by Nissan, but it is by me.

As an example, consider member "cyellen" who experienced the loss of bars one and two during the summer of 2012 and bars three and four during the summer of 2013:

One point selected out of a larger data set isn't data. This is called "cherry picking'. Lots of factors can disturb one data point. Example only: Was the car parked in a cool underground garage for a week in 2012 and parked in the sunshine for the same week in 2013? How much measurement noise is there, if you take many cars and keep them in exactly the same conditions, what will be the variation between the first car to lose a bar and the last car to lose a bar?

If you want to convince, you need to analyze all the data available, and make sure that the conclusion is robust, that is that it wasn't caused by chance or other factors.

For all the cars that have a four bar loss, what is the average time and miles for losing each bar?
Same for three bar loss.
Same for two bar loss.

Want to convince? Use the full data set.

 

[uwskier20]

One point selected out of a larger data set isn't data. This is called "cherry picking'.

I guess I'll chime in with my own data point. When I got LEAF Spy in around April of last year, I had roughly 36,000 miles and still 95-96% of capacity. By the time July rolled around, I found myself in the mid-upper 80%-range. This doesn't strike me as linear. It was an appreciable loss after two years of apparently good battery health, owing both to our maritime climate and to my own diligence in taking care of the battery.

My situation pales in comparison to people who have lost capacity much earlier. I'm not so upset about my own capacity loss as I am about Nissan's lack of transparency on how they plan to address this (especially for us '11 owners, who are the vanguard, and the reason the LEAF has been this successful), not to mention their dishonesty with respect to pack resilience. I was told at the test drive event in 2010 that the battery would be replaceable at cost, and that packs should hold 80% of capacity for 10 years.

 

[RegGuheert]

For all the cars that have a four bar loss, what is the average time and miles for losing each bar?
Same for three bar loss.
Same for two bar loss.

That simple-minded methodology is flawed from the start. The obvious reason is that capacity loss in the LEAF is extremely temperature sensitive and capacity loss of a full bar typically takes a significant part of a season. As a result, comparing the losses of two consecutive bars, like bar 2 to bar 3 or bar 3 to bar 4 is not likely to be useful. Plus, the comparison of different cars to each other suffers from many distortions which likely do not affect a single vehicle. As such, only comparing the loss of bar 2 to the loss of bar 4 on the same vehicle IF THEY OCCURRED DURING THE SAME SEASON OF THE YEAR is useful.

So, yes, I looked for, and carefully selected that one data point because it is the one piece of data which ELIMiNATES as many of the factors which likely will bias the results.

So I have one data point showing that the capacity loss in the LEAF does not slow as it ages.

You have not shown even a single data point to support the oft-quoted idea that the capacity loss in the LEAF will slow as it degrades. Likely such data does not exist.

Want to convince? Use the full data set.

On multiple prior occasions I have provided links to many scientific papers showing that calendar losses are often linear or worse.

I have also made the obvious and logical point that linear loss mechanisms will dominate over sub-linear ones in the long term.

And I have found corroborating evidence from the one data point we have on the LEAF. We don't have much, yet, but what we do have does not support your assertion.

 

[WetEV]

One point selected out of a larger data set isn't data. This is called "cherry picking'.

I guess I'll chime in with my own data point. When I got LEAF Spy in around April of last year, I had roughly 36,000 miles and still 95-96% of capacity. By the time July rolled around, I found myself in the mid-upper 80%-range. This doesn't strike me as linear.

A single data point isn't convincing. Even if it is yours. Measurement noise isn't zero, so remember you are looking at estimated capacity. When the firmware estimates 95%, there is an error in that measurement.

Suppose the firmware can estimate battery capacity to +-4%. So in April, your capacity was between 92% and 100% (taking 96%), and in July might have been between 84% and 92% (vague, but I'm taking 88% as the point to consider for discussion). It is unlikely, but not excluded by measurements of 96% in April and 88% in July, that no capacity was lost. It is also just as likely or unlikely and also not excluded by the measurements that capacity dropped from 100% to 84% in the same time period.

Some variation in estimated capacity can be reduced by looking at multiple cars. However, some of the error might be built into the firmware's estimation method. To make matters more interesting, firmware updates can both improve the estimate, and disturb the statistics of the estimate. Changing from firmware what was +-4% to firmware that was +0% -4% would move the average of measurements from 0% to -2% error.

I've seen the estimated capacity in my 2012 Leaf drop 2% in a week and then returned to original. I do not think that the batteries really do this. Do you?

I'm not so upset about my own capacity loss as I am about Nissan's lack of transparency on how they plan to address this (especially for us '11 owners, who are the vanguard, and the reason the LEAF has been this successful), not to mention their dishonesty with respect to pack resilience.

Lack of a battery replacement deal is going to be an issue that will get only larger with time. Nissan needs to figure out exactly what they are doing. Failure to do so will cost Nissan their current leading position as an Electric Car company, in my never humble opinion.

 

[smkettner]

Lack of a battery replacement deal is going to be an issue that will get only larger with time. Nissan needs to figure out exactly what they are doing. Failure to do so will cost Nissan their current leading position as an Electric Car company, in my never humble opinion.

This is one of the big reasons I joined the club. There is NO plan in place to get a new battery from Nissan except under warranty.

 

[adric22]

Well, as an Ex-Leaf owner.... Sort of... I will chime in with our line of thinking.

We had a 2011 Leaf that had lost 2 capacity bars and during the winter my wife would no longer consider driving it to work (40 mile round trip) because it would be cutting things too close. So she drove the Volt and I drove the Leaf.

When our lease was up, we considered and test drove several different cars. Keep in mind we're in Texas so most of the compliance cars are not available to us here. We definitely agreed the car would have to be a plug-in because we can't go back to gasoline.

• Ford Focus Electric - I liked it, but my wife did not like the cargo area situation very much and it lacked any sort of fast charging. We have 30+ chademo units in DF/W so it seemed like such a waste not to be able to use them.
• Ford C-Max Energi - We both liked it, but it costs as much as a Volt by the time tax credits are accounted for and yet has half the range. My wife loved the car, but we did the math and just couldn't justify it since she'd be burning gas every day - as such it would end up costing more than a Volt to own.
• A second Volt - This was actually my preference but my wife insisted we have at least one car with 5 seats (even though I can't remember the last time we had more than 3 people in the car)
• BMW i3 Rex - Wasn't quite available in time, only had 4 seats, and would flat out just cost too much.

In the end we leased another Leaf. And I can definitely say the new Leaf is considerably superior to the old one in many ways. I have no idea how the battery will hold up 3 years from now, but right now it seems to go further on a charge than our 2011 EVER did even when it was brand new. And even if it loses some range like our 2011 did, the more efficient heater, seat heaters, steering wheel heater, faster L2 charging, and DC-Fast charge easily compensate for those issues compared to our 2011. (Our 2011 did not have Chademo) And top it all off, the least payment was $100 buck a month cheaper than the one we had before and pretty much cheaper than any of the other vehicles we looked at on the list.

And just another food for thought.. The Volt's lease is up in another year and a half and we'll have to find a replacement for it. Since my commute is short, I will have to test-drive and seriously consider the "Focus Energi" assuming it is out and available at that time. But if it is not competitive on price, then I'll just go with another Volt, unless the Leaf is available with 150 mile range by then.

 

[RegGuheert]

We do not plan to become members of this club.

While the unfortunate fact is that all of our batteries appear to be degrading faster than Nissan led us to believe they would, our driving needs are modest enough that we should be able to drive the LEAF for several more years before its utility drops below our threshold of pain. (I have long hoped that we would be able to drive on the original batteries for more than ten years, but that seems to be more and more unlikely.)

My expectation is that by the time we are in need of a new battery either Nissan or some third party will be offering some sort of battery for sale that will allow us to extend the life using better-than-original technology that is also cheaper. I do not know what that will cost, but I expect that purchasing a battery will be a cheaper option than anything else that we could do to replace the car.

The good news is that the LEAF has proven to be VERY reliable and safe transportation. Above all, we can refuel it at home from our PV-generated electricity.

Icing on the cake would be having the option to purchase a battery with MORE capacity than the original one.

 

[richard]

One point selected out of a larger data set isn't data. This is called "cherry picking'. Lots of factors can disturb one data point.

Great point. In case it hasn't been mentioned lately, Tom Saxton at Plug In America conducted a survey of LEAF owners. It's ongoing, so please take a moment to update the study with your own data:

• The Survey (in case you've never filled it out)
• The Update Form (for those who filled it out in the past, and want to submit current data)

We currently have data on 436 cars in 36 states.

• The first report from the dataset
• The survey summary page (you can get the raw data here if you want to mash it up yourself)

I recommend reading the key conclusions on page 11 at the very least.

 

[mwalsh]

We need to recognize the longest owner on an ongoing basis too. I'm pretty certain it's still Gudy (Olivier C.) at the moment, being as he still had his as of the end of 2013. Omkar turned his in, so I'm at least climbing in the rankings!

Perhaps we need to make it longest owner still active on the forum, since Gudy has been long gone from these parts. Would that be Randy?

 

[tomsax]

I've recently added state of health (SOH) and Hx to the Plug In America Leaf Battery Survey so that LeafSpy users can include those values as well as maximum Gids and pack amp-hours. Using those more granular values, much better than the 12-segment, non-linear, capacity bars, we should be able to get a better understanding of how the Leaf batteries are aging and how that's affected by age, miles and climate.

My wife and I are still driving our 2011 Leaf and just got the software update that came out last spring. I'm interested to see how our Gids, Ah, SOH and Hx change over the next couple of months.

Please contribute your experience as well. See Richard's post earlier today for the links.