I know I am not the first to post impressions for the 2019 so I will just highlight some things that may have not been noted coming from a 2014 leaf SL owner.
I am now the happy owner of a White/black interior SL plus trim.
-As expected performance is outstanding. When flooring the car you better have both hands on the wheel because the torque affects steering stability from 0-40mph. Not complaining since I won't be flooring the car very often. I suspect this car is no more than .2 to .5 seconds slower than the bolt because the leaf is a bigger heavier car.
The interior is definitely of better quality overall from last gen. Based on some professional reviews I have seen, all signs indicate the interior being better than the bolt.
The cabin is much quieter and the car's suspension much softer than last gen.
-The console displays are a very nice jump coming from a last gen SL and I am sure they are similar to 2018.
The driving console reverts back to an analog speedometer (don't know why the digital readout was not more popular) but the design engineers made up for that by providing a very slick secondary interface on the left side. It's basically a smaller secondary console display. It has a lot going for it.
-Four unique pages for the battery that you page through vertically (main page categories are horizontally flipped)
-Another page that has a functional compass with weather and road/speedlimit info. I like how the speedlimit icon mimics real life signs.
-Next main page has a graphical display for the propilot feedback. Showing a car graphic for your car as well as the car in front of you to indicate that the computer is tracking the car in front for collision avoidance.
-An audio page, note: when changing stations regardless of what the display is showing you will see the station info overlay it for a few seconds to show the new station info.
-A sub page that gives you basically an electric tachometer to compliment the speedometer to the right.
-A menu page for various settings categories.
-A charger programming page. (This is huge for me because I can fiddle with charging and air condition schedules without needing the car on or main console display on). Basically this page stays on after your turn off the car for a few minutes. Great design!
All this on this mini-display on the driver console. So basically if you are not using the navigation map features you can turn off the main console display and rely solely on the driver's display, very impressive feature set overall.
-The main 8"console is graphically impressive with customization button selections at the bottom meaning that you can swap in or out shortcut buttons much like a touchpad interface. My only disappointment would be the sluggish response of the top menu. The good news is that the touch entry for the navigation inputs was respectable in responsiveness and much better than previous gen. The map system overall feels more modern, more responsive and up to date and the apple car play feature is very nice since you can actually use a different map navigation display similar to apple. I am sure the andriod feature set is just as good.
The propilot feature set is not bad. I appreciate the collision warning features the most. It's also nice to know that the car has the potential to stop the car before you rear-end someone or prevent you from running over a ped while backing up.
Finally we come to range, it's the only reason to buy a new leaf if you have an older one. Having a 60kw battery is a godsend. I now have that warm and fuzzy that I missed from my gas driving days when I transitioned to the leaf. Even though I never ran out of juice in my 2014 leaf, I always had to stay on my guard when it came to planning out daily trips. I hated the fact that I always had to remember to charge the night before long trips. Those days are finally gone.
One issue I will need to keep an eye on is the range guesstimates being awfully generous. I am getting estimates of 220+mi range at times when driving in eco mode with 80% charge. This is way off and I have no desire or time to test this out.
But overall very happy with the car.
Now I have the best of both worlds, gas-driving range and electric convenience, cost savings and efficiency.
For those fans of the last generation LEAF, the new LEAF @60kw is well worth it. The 2018 owners should wait for the next major release in the next few years. I suspect given Nissan's record no sooner than 4 years before a major revision.![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I am now the happy owner of a White/black interior SL plus trim.
-As expected performance is outstanding. When flooring the car you better have both hands on the wheel because the torque affects steering stability from 0-40mph. Not complaining since I won't be flooring the car very often. I suspect this car is no more than .2 to .5 seconds slower than the bolt because the leaf is a bigger heavier car.
The interior is definitely of better quality overall from last gen. Based on some professional reviews I have seen, all signs indicate the interior being better than the bolt.
The cabin is much quieter and the car's suspension much softer than last gen.
-The console displays are a very nice jump coming from a last gen SL and I am sure they are similar to 2018.
The driving console reverts back to an analog speedometer (don't know why the digital readout was not more popular) but the design engineers made up for that by providing a very slick secondary interface on the left side. It's basically a smaller secondary console display. It has a lot going for it.
-Four unique pages for the battery that you page through vertically (main page categories are horizontally flipped)
-Another page that has a functional compass with weather and road/speedlimit info. I like how the speedlimit icon mimics real life signs.
-Next main page has a graphical display for the propilot feedback. Showing a car graphic for your car as well as the car in front of you to indicate that the computer is tracking the car in front for collision avoidance.
-An audio page, note: when changing stations regardless of what the display is showing you will see the station info overlay it for a few seconds to show the new station info.
-A sub page that gives you basically an electric tachometer to compliment the speedometer to the right.
-A menu page for various settings categories.
-A charger programming page. (This is huge for me because I can fiddle with charging and air condition schedules without needing the car on or main console display on). Basically this page stays on after your turn off the car for a few minutes. Great design!
All this on this mini-display on the driver console. So basically if you are not using the navigation map features you can turn off the main console display and rely solely on the driver's display, very impressive feature set overall.
-The main 8"console is graphically impressive with customization button selections at the bottom meaning that you can swap in or out shortcut buttons much like a touchpad interface. My only disappointment would be the sluggish response of the top menu. The good news is that the touch entry for the navigation inputs was respectable in responsiveness and much better than previous gen. The map system overall feels more modern, more responsive and up to date and the apple car play feature is very nice since you can actually use a different map navigation display similar to apple. I am sure the andriod feature set is just as good.
The propilot feature set is not bad. I appreciate the collision warning features the most. It's also nice to know that the car has the potential to stop the car before you rear-end someone or prevent you from running over a ped while backing up.
Finally we come to range, it's the only reason to buy a new leaf if you have an older one. Having a 60kw battery is a godsend. I now have that warm and fuzzy that I missed from my gas driving days when I transitioned to the leaf. Even though I never ran out of juice in my 2014 leaf, I always had to stay on my guard when it came to planning out daily trips. I hated the fact that I always had to remember to charge the night before long trips. Those days are finally gone.
One issue I will need to keep an eye on is the range guesstimates being awfully generous. I am getting estimates of 220+mi range at times when driving in eco mode with 80% charge. This is way off and I have no desire or time to test this out.
But overall very happy with the car.
Now I have the best of both worlds, gas-driving range and electric convenience, cost savings and efficiency.
For those fans of the last generation LEAF, the new LEAF @60kw is well worth it. The 2018 owners should wait for the next major release in the next few years. I suspect given Nissan's record no sooner than 4 years before a major revision.