LEAF is an inexpensive car to buy

[madbrain]

Yep I just checked. I can lease a new corolla or sentra now at around $40/month less than my Leaf, but their mileage is so much worse they would cost more.

On purchase, these cars probably cost much less though, especially if you owe less than $7500 of federal tax and don't qualify for the full tax credit.

[Luft]

It's not really this simple. One needs to know the battery life and the replacement cost to make a rational decision. Unlike modern ICE cars that have the obvious upfront cost, maintenance, and gas expenses with a lifespan or 100-200k miles, the LEAF appears to have a finite battery life: the time at which the battery needs to be replaced will depend on the individual's needs. Thus, there is the upfront cost, minimal costs from electricity, near zero maintenance, AND the battery cost:

I think you only need to consider the replacement costs of battery modules that fail while you intend to keep driving your LEAF.

I don't figure out the total cost of ownership of an ICE vehicle by adding in the replacement cost of the engine just before I haul it off to the junk yard.

[OrientExpress]

It's not really this simple. One needs to know the battery life and the replacement cost to make a rational decision. Unlike modern ICE cars that have the obvious upfront cost, maintenance, and gas expenses with a lifespan or 100-200k miles, the LEAF appears to have a finite battery life: the time at which the battery needs to be replaced will depend on the individual's needs. Thus, there is the upfront cost, minimal costs from electricity, near zero maintenance, AND the battery cost:

I think you only need to consider the replacement costs of battery modules that fail while you intend to keep driving your LEAF.

I don't figure out the total cost of ownership of an ICE vehicle by adding in the replacement cost of the engine just before I haul it off to the junk yard.

TCO with an ICE vehicle should include mileage specific maintenance items like timing belt replacements, catalytic converter replacements, and other periodic maintenance. For EV TCO, periodic battery maintenance cost and interval is really an unknown at this point, but for modeling purposes, I would suggest a 60 ~ 100K mile interval and a $3K net cost. So for a 2011 car with average utilization, forward pricing assumptions would fall in the 2016 time frame.

[Luft]

It's not really this simple. One needs to know the battery life and the replacement cost to make a rational decision. Unlike modern ICE cars that have the obvious upfront cost, maintenance, and gas expenses with a lifespan or 100-200k miles, the LEAF appears to have a finite battery life: the time at which the battery needs to be replaced will depend on the individual's needs. Thus, there is the upfront cost, minimal costs from electricity, near zero maintenance, AND the battery cost:

I think you only need to consider the replacement costs of battery modules that fail while you intend to keep driving your LEAF.

I don't figure out the total cost of ownership of an ICE vehicle by adding in the replacement cost of the engine just before I haul it off to the junk yard.

TCO with an ICE vehicle should include mileage specific maintenance items like timing belt replacements, catalytic converter replacements, and other periodic maintenance. For EV TCO, periodic battery maintenance cost and interval is really an unknown at this point, but for modeling purposes, I would suggest a 60 ~ 100K mile interval and a $3K net cost. So for a 2011 car with average utilization, forward pricing assumptions would fall in the 2016 time frame.

I agree that to figure out the TCO you need to include all expenses related to owning the car. As you stated for an iCE vehicle it would include many things that do not apply to EVs.

I also agree that the periodic battery maintenance cost (if required) is unknown at this time. It depends on the price of replacement modules and the life of our existing modules. If we plan on keeping our EV for five years we may not need to replace any modules. We just don't know at this point how long the battery pack will last.

Any guesses as to how many modules (if any) would need to be replaced and how much they may cost at the time they may be needed are just guesses at this point.

[Reddy]

...I suspect that there are some in Seattle area that might get to 240,000 miles. Depending on exactly where, what the garage is like, driving style, how flat the commute, charging and SOC, etc. Again, that's 20 years.

Substantially warmer over here, but I'm planning on making it 20 yr with around 160,000 mi (unless we get some DCQC on I-90, I-82 over here on the dry side). Primarily charge 2-3 hr L1 to 40-50% SOC daily. I'll definitely see more calendar losses than mileage losses. Temp is the big unknown. We had a "cool" summer with only a few days in the 100's this year. Much of the summer I bicycle and will keep the car in the shaded garage and parking outside at night for the cooling. I'll let you know in 2022.

Reddy

[cwerdna]

And with the 5 decimals PG&E uses everywhere, it takes them E no less than 16 pages of computations to figure out the total of my electric bill every month.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1eSSO ... ER2bEtqcGs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of course, anyone who is consistently hitting high tiers will figure out pretty quickly they need to get solar.
I got solar within 2 months of moving into my large home 2 years ago. But it was sized properly to reduce me to the low tiers, but not 0. But adding the EV charging now would put me back into the high tiers... So EV charging means adding more solar again. Hopefully by monday I will have my 12 additional PV panels up in addition to the existing 28. But they are not free.

Any chance you can put up an example copy of your absolutely nutty electric bill/statement again from PG&E? The above link is now 404.

[CmdrThor]

And with the 5 decimals PG&E uses everywhere, it takes them E no less than 16 pages of computations to figure out the total of my electric bill every month.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1eSSO ... ER2bEtqcGs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of course, anyone who is consistently hitting high tiers will figure out pretty quickly they need to get solar.
I got solar within 2 months of moving into my large home 2 years ago. But it was sized properly to reduce me to the low tiers, but not 0. But adding the EV charging now would put me back into the high tiers... So EV charging means adding more solar again. Hopefully by monday I will have my 12 additional PV panels up in addition to the existing 28. But they are not free.

Any chance you can put up an example copy of your absolutely nutty electric bill/statement again from PG&E? The above link is now 404.

It's probably 404 because this thread is 2 years old.

[Nhinman]

I haven't had my Leaf very long. I haven't measured my power usage from charging the Leaf. In the short time I have had mine, I have looked at my daily electrical power usage. My charging usage is un-noticeable as it is washed out by the differences in my house heat pump usage in cold or hot weather. I currently pay a flat rate of about .085 per KWH.

In rough terms though - I figure I will have payed about $23 K net for a 2015 SV with LED & QC option and a L2 charge station with all the rebates, tax incentives, dealer adds, taxes, registration, etc. I live in a hot climate, so I am already budgeting for a battery replacement @ $ 6 K in 5 -6 years. That puts me at $29 K for a small car with limited range. With gas and maintenance costs, I will probably be a little under what a similar size ICE car would cost but not a lot.

It's a nice little car that is fun to drive, so I don't really regret my decision to buy one, but I don't know that I would say that it is an inexpensive car to buy.