Slow1 said:
Perhaps one way to address this is to ask:
1) What vehicle did you replace and what MPG did it get?
2) How many annual miles did you drive the old vehicle
3) How many annual miles are you driving the Leaf
As well as, the LEAF is actually a hatchback and NOT a sedan; in the US we're not all that fond of hatchbacks like many in Europe are but this makes my '06 Mazda GT 5-door fall under your 'other' category. In any case, I've seen somewhat similar polls years ago when the LEAF was first introduced but always good to see what they latest trend is. Our '12 LEAF is 39 months old now with 28,800 miles or about 8,900/year. So,
1) 2006 Mazda3 Grand Touring 5-door hatch with 2.3L/automatic rated 22/29 MPG; could get about 31-33 on highway trips
2) Had it for a bit over 5 1/2 years at 59,500 so 10,625/year
3) About 8,900/year; all commuting and errand trips
Still need to either drive my other (ICE) car which has better range and/or rent for longer trips and/or bad weather so expect its mileage to stay fairly consistent. The difference (about 1,725 less miles per year; or about 84% of the previous car's annual mileage) is a bit misleading with Mazda3 to LEAF swap as we always had a bigger utility/travel vehicle in the mix and just took the Mazda3 for 'moderate' trips.
More interestedly, for those who have had more than just 1 car before the LEAF, tracing back each replacement can be interesting as well -- some car buying decisions involve conditions at the time (gas prices, family needs, commutes, etc.) others are simply non-rational ones 'because I can'. So, here are the predecessors to our LEAF:
'70 Toyota Corona ($250 beater) -- > '81 Toyota Corolla (2 door, stick, roll down windows, no A/C, not even a glovebox lid) --> '88 VW Fox GL (4 door, easier for car seat, A/C, 'deluxe') -- > '93 Ford Taurus SHO (4 door, bigger back seat, all the toys, rocket sled) -- > '98 VW New Beetle TDI (close to 50 MPG, heated seats, stick again, longer commute = need better MPG) -- > '06 Mazda3 GT (kids outgrew Beetle back seat, more utility for college runs, fun to drive) -- > '12 LEAF (very predictable commutes for 3 drivers, loved the EV tech, nice incentives despite high initial cost)
Thinking about 'when', etc. the LEAF would be sold or traded; with resales values expecting to get even worse once the next gen EV's can get 200 miles on a charge prompts me to take a wait and see approach and its not our typical 5 to 7 years yet to swap/sell yet -- perhaps someone (maybe Nissan, look what Tesla did with their roadsters) will offer a retrofit with double range batteries once the current one expires; that would 'enhance' the resale potential of these still first gen LEAF's unless our road salt gets to it first! Even if Nissan simply wants you to buy their next gen for us 'early adopters', they might offer incentives; time will tell but we're pretty happy with it so far.