No thanks, if I'm gonna sell my car, I expect to get some money for it. Technically, "selling something for free" isn't really selling, that's just giving it away.
I agree, Years ago I broke down in a company car and we had 5 star cover. After many calls to their head office the tow truck finally turned up 10 HOURS later. They then said I could not have a loan car which was part of our package because all the depots had closed for the night.
@@simony2801 sure; with a fleet of over 60+ vehicles, all “benefiting” from RAC breakdown cover through our fleet insurance, I’m pretty sure we have a good hand in experiencing their p*ss poor performance. Over the past 8weeks, we’ve needed 7 recovered for different reasons, and the FASTEST RAC have ever arrived is 5 hours!
The car's original price was 24,000 pounds AFTER government subsidies, which means the actual cost of the car was about 30,000. And now you can buy it for 1,500. That is a 95% loss in resale value. CRAZY!
This is the earliest model of relatively new tech, and one of the worst implementations possible. Teslas from just few years later tend to level off at ~80-90% of their original charge, with ranges starting at ~250 mi.
For a two car family, £1500 for a car that will cost about 3p per mile when home charging is perfect for all the school runs and short trips that make up 95% of journeys for the average family. If you scrap it after 5 years you’ve still had some pretty cheap driving
so its battery is about 24kwh, we can calculate some losses of charging and it needs about 25-26kw to charge it all up, so 25p per 1 kw = 6,25 to 6,5 pounds for 60 miles. Slightly cheaper than small engined petrol/diesel car. But nowhere near 3p a mile mark.
@@zerobudget8355 Original capacity was 24kw, or about 22kw usable storage. That's now reduced by around 75%, so only has 16.5Kwh storage left. Even if it needs 18kwh (to count for some power lost from charging) x 0.065 (EV tarrif) = £1.17 for a full tank. £1.17 / 60 miles = less than 2p a mile.
@@tallgeezer6445 Good points about reduced capacity, but you are dead wrong about ev tarif, which is subsitized for now and its extremely unrealistic price. So you should still calculate at 25p a kwh. My country had these tarifs as well, once they got cut off, people started to cry that they got scammed. aka public charging stations were for FREE and now they charge you about 0,60 to 0,65 euro per kwh. While at home you get about 0,20-0,25 euro kwh. Never base your long term calcualtions and purchase strategies on goverment subsidies, which will run out, sooner than later. Especially when they are there just to push the agenda for that time. (example my country, all stations were FREE, now its free for 2 years if you buy a new EV; then it was 0,35 eur, then 0,45; now 0,60-0,65 eur. It got to a point where evs are very short lived, unconvient and pretty much cost in fuel barely cheaper than small engined car, unless you charge at home, buy charging plans or brand new evs.
The problem is, the sort of people that would want/benefit most from a £1500 EV are also the sort of people that probably don't have anywhere to charge one at home. They're utterly useless for anyone living in a flat or with communal parking, and next to useless for anyone with on street parking, all left at the mercy,expense and inconvenience of the public chargers.
Add first time drivers to that list and shared housing, in a future where potentially two parents already have an electric car, so what at a minimum a first time driver you will have 3 cars plugged into house electrics? Never mind siblings etc. Can a house even support that amperage, no idea? My house 5 cars currently 6 people living here no way we could all be plugged in at once, running cables across the road. Also charging a car with no driveway, theyl be cables running across the street everywhere. I think its looking like carbon neutral combustion or hydrogen is clearly the way!
@@ISuperTed No, but your comment is stupid, altho I don't mean that is a nasty / flame-y way. This tec is hurtling down the pike at us, and in 5 years all sorts of cheapy used-car EV deals will be out there. In 2030 the Chinese will be making wonderful 500-mile range EVs for under-$10k new price. So the MG4 you bought in 2024 for 16K GBPs will be worth a fraction of that. The sub-1500 GBP crowd - of which I have been a proud member so many times - will have lots of choice.
The early leafs had the worst battery chemistry, and no thermal management. Undoubtedly fully charged to 100% after every trip. Both of which killed the battery much quicker than more modern ones.
Yes and also they have very few high voltage cells instead of many low voltage cells, which is cost efficient when producing but not very well for long term life of the batteries.
The same thing will be said about today's wonder EV's in 10-15 years as well. This, of course, means that your 1-3 year old EV today will be just as worthless in value in less than a decade as this Leaf.
@@markmonroe7330 Depends. The battery tech today is vastly superior to 10 years ago, which means a modern EV should hold its capacity/age less than an original Leaf so you'll have way more capacity left both in percentage terms but also because it had more to start with. Unless there's a dramatic shift in tech, such as solid state batteries that double the range and lower the weight or something, you won't see nearly as much crap around. Sure they will still have lost capacity, but you're average 300 mile Tesla Model 3 will still be able to do 3/4 times the range of this leaf.
@@markmonroe7330 incorrect battery chemistry has changed significantly in the last 10 years, new batteries have cars running high mileages ie over 250k with minor degradation th-cam.com/video/tcJrUrp_Ygs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=lYJXhkG3QlRRIgf_ and this will only improve. Also ICE cars also degrade over time ie they have huge hp losses, their mpg decreases yet no one seems to think that is news worthy.
Interesting that almost all the comments from people that have, or have owned, a LEAF are positive and the vast majority of negative comments are from people that haven't (or any EV for that matter). I've had a 2015 24kW LEAF from new and the range is the same as when I bought it. (70 in the Winter, 90 in the Summer). Always charged to 100%. The key to battery longevity is not using rapid chargers and don't leave it fully charged or depleted for long periods. Have replaced the 12v battery once, but thats the only issue it's ever had. Very reliable car
@@Jack-lo1ucthe point is that if you rarely go more than 30 miles in a day (which accounts for actually a lot of people, especially older retired people) and have the facilities to charge at home, you'd probably be saving a heck of a lot of money even if you need to take a taxi or rent a car a couple of times a year for longer trips. The nissan leaf isn't *meant* to replace your diesel car which you drive long distances in, any more than a bicycle is.
My 2013 Leaf still has >80% original capacity and does most things it did when new. The biggest issue is that the tech has moved on massively, and with it peoples expectations.
Few things as an ex-Leaf owner (2015 version): • I think the 124 range you mentioned, was the "rated" range, which is about as reliable as the range-o-meter in the dash. I had the Tekna (top spec at the time) and I used to get about 90 miles safely with normal driving style. • The range-o-meter was affectionately known as the "guess-o-meter" in the community. It bases the range of current driving so the estimate changes wildly as you drive. • I opted for the Tekna model as it had a heat pump for the climate, other models had a resistive heating system that would eat battery! • The map in the car used to make me chuckle, especially as I used to potter over to the Trafford Centre a lot and it had the "Manchester Ship Canal" listed as "Manchester Shit Canal" which was classic as there is a sewage works next to the motorway as you went over it. • It uses a CHAdeMO rapid charging connector which in the UK is getting harder and harder to find. CCS2 is the standard now and CHAdeMO has been phased out a lot over the past years. Honestly, when I had the car I loved it. I made some videos on it including charging at rapid stations. When my finance finished I switched to an ICE Ford Fiesta after it and really missed it, but at the time the then "new" Leaf was ridiculously expensive. These days I am in a Model 3 and soon a Model Y as well and it is night and day. Driving down to London I look at the services I use to have to stop at in the Leaf and remember the stop start nature, now the range of the Tesla is longer than I would drive without a break. It was a great car, I used to love the acceleration especially at traffic lights with a Police car next to me, setting the speed limiter to 33MPH and flooring it, I did about 30k miles in it with no charger at home (lived in an apartment block at the time) and I still look back on the car as a great car. If you bought a used gun metal grey Tekna Leaf with a reg of MK65 KDN, congrats - that was one mine! :D
Actually CHAdeMO charging is increasing and is a real advantage. No-one is making CHAdeMO cars anymore, but they're still being installed (not in every case, but there are more every year) so the ratio of cars to chargers is getting better all the time, unlike for most electric cars. I've pulled into busy charger stations with huge queues for CCS, and got a charge straight away.
I live in rural Portugal, 13km from our nearest village and 25km from 4 local towns. I do around 700km of driving per month. Of that, around 90% of my daily driving is less than 60km. I own an immaculate 10 year old Nissan Leaf, which we use for all our local mileage. Our diesel Toyota Avensis estate is used for those rare occasions when we need something with a longer range. Last year we did under 1500km in the Toyota. We have never used a commercial charger. For us, that's the way to use an EV. The plan now is a few solar panels and the set up is perfect.
Let me know how many "a few" is. Let's assume the leaf uses about 17 kwh per 100 km. You would need 119 kWh per month, not counting charging losses. Assuming sunlight at soil level has around 1000W per square meter, using 20% effective panels and 8 hours of sunlight per day, one square meter would get you 8 x 200 = 1.6 kWh per square meter per day. So in a month that would be 48 kWh. To get your 119 kWh you will need at least 3 square meters. That does not sound like a lot, but considering the panel is stationary and we have not accounted for weather, a more realistic value is at most 0.4 kWh per square meter. This would up your required surface to 12 square meters already. If you add charging losses (loss of about 12% of energy) you are already looking at 14 square meters. If you then add a little extra capacity to add range on cloudy days (where I live, not having significant sunlight for 2 weeks is quite common) you are easily looking at 20 square meters. 4x5 meters. That is a decently sized roof. An installation like that will set you back several thousand euros. Probably more than the car is worth and then there will still be days where you will be charging from the socket or having to drive another car to achieve the desired range. The past year I have tried to figure out what it takes to operate a mobile phone off of solar 100%. With a 100W panel and two lead acid batteries in parallel, I could do it easily in summer. In winter it was barely doable. I was very close to running empty on several occasions. Also note that the hardware to do this cost me about the price of the phone. Solar is interesting, but it has severe drawbacks. The problem is not even solar itself. The real problem is the storage of electrical energy. We need solid state batteries that have 2-3 times the capacity and 100 times the charging rate without degradation. Then EVs would be superior. Until then, I would rather use an old diesel. I can power that with oil I press from sunflower seeds if need be. 🤷♂️
CRAP!!! I've been ripped off! I got a an 2019 EV bike for $1900 and it only went 20 miles (32km) with throttle only (recently stolen out of my porch). This Nissan is a steal of a deal!
I bought a pre owned 7 year old smart ForTwo electric drive for only $3400 in great condition. I’ve had it for 3 years now and is driven on average 5 days a week. Has been super reliable and fun to drive. No maintenance needed still and all I’ve done to it is wash and vacuum it from time to time. Great little car. Liked it so much, I bought a 9 year old smart cabriolet electric drive as well. This one set me back several thousand more, and is not as quiet as the coupe, but boy is it fun zipping around in an electric drop top. Bonus: I can fit two in the space of one car in my garage, leaving the other side for my wife’s Model S. Lots of fun. Great value. Reliable. And each cost less than the average golf cart (and the coupe cost less than many electric bicycles I’ve seen advertised) - I call the pair of smarts my 90 mph golf carts 😅 .. sure, they only seat two, and the ride can be a bit on the bumpy side, but they’re a nice way to zip around town and a great alternative to a used LEAF imo, as my smart electric drives can still go about 65 -70 miles on a charge, which is about what many older LEAF’s manage. The LEAF of course has seating for four, but I’d personally rather drive a smart than a LEAF for about the same range and purchase price. I’d also wager the battery and BMS hold up better in warmer climates than the LEAFS too. And that’s to pick on the LEAF, but they are well known to degrade more quickly in warmer areas of the world, such as the area I live in. - but in any case, as the OP said, as good or better values compared to many pricier electric bicycles. Of that I think most can agree on.
@@WIImotionmasher The tech it's using is actually older. As they used already old battery tech in that car. We are not talking Tesla's here. As the 2013-14 Tesla's are only down 2/3 of their original prices at most.
But especially EVs. Buy a used ICE car the petrol tank won't have physically shrunk. You may have slightly fewer miles due to out of tune. But batteries are totally useless.
I still have one of these, alongside my Kia EV6. Its not a long range, but fine as a city commuter. Costs virtually nothing to run, and if you can buy them for £1500 thats less than an electric bicycle.
Why would you buy a new battery, when refurbishing the existing battery would cost around the same as fitting a clutch in an ICE car? It seems you've not heard of battery pack refurbs.. There are already EV specialists doing this work. You just didn't know anything about them....
A family member bought one of those three years ago. It was used for shopping and dropping the kids off at school. They thought as stated here, they would be more reliable than the petrol corolla they traded in. Then after three months the range dropped off slowly until it simply didn't go. The replacement battery is worth more than the car. No one wants to buy it including the car wreckers and so it sits in his yard - useless.
Sounds like a HORRIBLE story. No way the battery would degrade that quickly unless there’s a defect. So they just got unlucky. I bought one of these for the same purpose and it’s been AMAZING thus far. 12 years old and 95,000 miles on ‘er. 🤷🏻♂️ battery is perfectly healthy. 👌🏼
£1,500 in Australia would be around $3,000 AU. The problem here is that second hand car's are still pretty expensive. The cheapest second hand LEAF. I could find in Victoria was $13,000 which translates to around £6,500. For that sort of money I'm sticking with a cheap ICE 4 cylinder which won't give me range or charging anxiety. Car's are way overpriced here in Australia
Leafs are more expensive in Australia than they are elsewhere because they are imported. We have a Nissan factory in the UK so we don't pay the higher prices.
@@boyasaka The cheapest on Autotrader (one minute ago) is £2000. 81000 miles though. I'm not sure if age or use is the biggest factor in battery degradation though. Every Li-ion battery that I have had fail has been through not being used. At the opposite end of the price range electric cars are depreciating badly in the U.K. because all the tax benefits are for leasing a new one.
I was remembering that the early Leaf's only had an effective range of about 80 miles at least here in the US. So, an 11 year old car that now has 60 miles, I don't think is terrible for 1500 quid. For an around town car, I think it is a great deal.
Its awful. I can get a Mercedes A class, with 32k miles on it, and it wont be mouldy inside. Its a car for doing run arounds, and school runs yeah? What about when the child says their school won a sports match or got entered into a karate competition and its in the next county over? Or have gone off with the scouts and you get a phone call saying they fell and broke an arm? If you are getting a car, get one that you can throw all the neighbours kids into and take them to an event, get one that you can drive across the country should a friend be in a medical emergency, get one that can fit all the kids gear in, get one that you can drive a few towns over to pick up a cheap sofa you seen online. I live in a city so I got a 1L petrol car that is very small, but it can still fit two adults or 3 kids in the back, and I spend 90% of my time actually cycling instead of driving. I drive in very bad weather, or when I have to go places outside my cycle limit. I also drive places to go for a walk. My car is topped out on the motorway going at the speed limit, but I can actually make it to the scenic areas on my day off and spend the day out. The limit of this thing isnt 59, its 30 mile. I need to find a charger to get home then. Its the whole point of the minivan being a family car, because it does everything a family can need in one vehicle.
@@geroutathat Different people different wants and needs. I am not familiar with the London inner city charges, but can your car(s) get through those without any fees? That is one possible reason to own a car like this. It is small nimble has reasonable power and can ignore metro rules. But again everyone has different wants and desires. I see people on the road in cars I would never own, but doesn't mean that I would tell them never to buy it. I do have to admit the leaky window is a bit of a pisser.
@@geroutathatfirst off, bless you for cycling! We need more folks like you. If you think about it, you're already in a 2-vehicle home: you have the bike and the 1L petrol car. In that case, you've already got the ultra efficient hyper-miler: the bike! You'd need something different to fit a different use case, like moving kids around, helping a friend in an emergency etc. For other folks, the EV is their "bike", and a minivan/truck/sedan is their "people/stuff mover". I maybe wouldn't recommend this Nissan Leaf, which is gen1, mouldy, and very limited in range. But this might make sense for me to get the kids to school/daycare, me to work most days. Better than the pickup truck.
I had a Leaf in 2015-2017. 24kWh battery. He keeps quoting 124 miles which was the stated range but I never got that in reality. A full charge would get me 90 miles on average
As someone who owns a 2012 Nissan LEAF my battery is also at about 70% and my experience has been similar. I bought it in May 2022 with about 92K kms and have had no issues with it as it approaches 122K km. Range is an issue, but for in town daily driving it can’t be beat!
@@petekenny3774 for pure city driving petrols are just more expensive. Between higher fuel-costs, higher taxes and (on average) more expensive maintenance an EV makes more sense for many, many people.
Some extremely useful info regarding batteries: There are 3 main different battery technologies that were at some point or another used in EVs. Li-Ion, Li-Po, LiFePo4. The market right now is almost if not completely exclusively using Li-Ion batteries due to their small size and light weight. Basically Li-Po are the lightest and smallest, but also have the worst charge cycle count (how many times you can charge the battery 0-100% before it is considered "bad"). LiFePo4 have by far the superior charge cycle count, but are quite bigger and heavier. So the happy middle ground is Li-Ion. Many times used in this 18650 or 21700 cell form factor. That Nissan Leaf, might have been using Li-Po batteries just by seeing those pouches and how they got swollen. Generally you can expect up to 100-300 cycles out of a Li-Po, 300-1000 out of a Li-Ion and 1500-6000 out of a LiFePo4 battery. What is a charge cycle really? In theory it is the sum of the partial charge cycles (for example 40-100, 15-100, 50-100, 95-100, these four charges would be 2 full charge cycles, because they sum at 200% of charge need). But that's not the whole story. A battery is happier if it's SoC (state of charge) doesn't fall below 20%. Most importantly it's way happier if it doesn't stay below 20% for extended periods of time (not charging it for a day or two...). It's also happy if it doesn't stay at 100% for extended periods of time. So, if you make sure that the battery isn't close to those extremes, you can extend these charge cycles quite considerably. So, for example a Tesla battery of the last year, should have some Li-Ion cells capable of 1000 charge cycles (impressively high for Li-Ion, best on the market). If tesla engineers make sure their reported SoC is slightly different to the real SoC of the battery, making sure to stay away from those extremes, the battery can last up to 3500 smaller charge cycles (25-90%), which is up to 2500 full charge cycles instead of just 1000... 3500 charge cycles is roughly 10 years somebody might say. And that's pretty much the case if someone totally drains their car daily. However,I don't believe tesla puts so relaxed extremes to their batteries (because they would lose advertised range that way...), so I think it's more like 2000 cycles of 10-90%. Roughly 6 years for daily draining. Realistically you will use all the battery every 2-3 days if you drive a lot, so... 12-16 years? Something like that. Is charge cycle count the only consideration when talking about battery life? No... Battery ageing occurs no matter what, it's just faster if the battery is empty or full. For a Li-Ion battery you can expect 10-15 years of battery life no matter how much you take care of it. So. What does it mean for a battery to die? In the world of Lithium batteries, a dead battery is a battery that is below 80% if its original capacity. Why is that? Basically from 100% to 80% the battery again curve is a straight line, slowly going down in a straight line as the years or the charge cycles pass. However at 80% of its original capacity, this straight line becomes a more and more aggressive curve. That actually means that after that 80% point, the ageing of the cells occurs faster and faster and faster. You might need 10 years to go to 80%, but you will need 5 years to go to 60%. 2 years to go to 40%. 1 year to go to 10%. That's just an example, but these numbers are almost accurate. So basically, your battery is still ok at 85%. At 80% starts the downhill and nothing can stop it. So, what does that mean for the Nissan Leaf? First of all, the car already has a kind of bad battery technology if they were using Li-Po cells. So, I assume the 100-80% window closed at around 8 years of use at best. Secondly, the battery that now is at 65-70% is considered dead. You can expect month by month to see a slight reduction in mileage. In the next ~2-4 years, the battery will completely die, unable to do much of anything. Are 1500£ worth it? Meh... Idk... The car works and it's electric... It might not pay itself because there are too few charge cycles remaining... I mean, for 1500£, you get an electric scooter with less range, so... Yeah. It is kind of value for money... I might would have bought this or something similiral and try to fit my own batteries somehow 😃 That would give me 15 full years of way better range... They only bad thing is that these things have lots of factory locks and stuff... I'd really love to be able to put my own batteries on any of the EVs... Imagine having a second full battery in the trunk... Imagine doing that on a new car. 1000km of range. Anyways. These were some nice info for Lithium batteries.
Thanks so much for sharing, this is really helpful! I've also heard that you don't have to worry so much about charging LFP batteries all the way to 100%, at least compared to the other two types of chemistry. And that a heat pump really makes a difference for range, especially in the winter time
Thank you - it's tiring listing to TH-camrs like carwow that will discipline their monkeys all day long to 8 cylinder this and 16 valve that, but don't spend any time learning about battery chemistry, rated cycles, SoC estimates etc.
Not to mention other types of Lithium-Ion batteries such as LFP, which have a rated charge cycle of 3,000 to 80% capacity. Newer Standard range Tesla Model Ys and 3s are equipped with this battery.
Didn't realise the batteries were modular, which is good news if you can get a refurbished one that's not too far gone at a reasonable price. Compared to all the things that can go wrong with modern petrol engines it's worth looking at.
@@jacobcarlson4010The difference is so small that in practice, it makes no difference unless you are a surveyor or scientist. That said, it's about time all of you backwards yokels moved to the metric system.
My 2014 Leaf, with 240.000km with around 70% SOH. Clocks daily 75km, with no problems and still some electrons left for a few more km, so a great commuter.
Yeah, i have a friend that bought one of these used recently. He is very happy with it. He charges it nightly and most all days he drives less than half of the 60 mile range. If he has to drive further he just takes his wife’s car that day. Its a specific use for shorter commutes but if for a few k you can get a car that does all your local driving without needing gas, its a good deal.
We ran a 24kh leaf for 6 years covered 56K miles. Even when we traded it the battery health was 11\12 bars and range was approx 90 miles in summer / 70 in winter - cost buttons to run other than tyres and brake pads and I replaced the front discs as the standard Nissan / Renault ones are cr@p . Great car for local trips if well priced 😊
Yeah, so for an EV - it's not a vehicle you want to keep for 15 or 20 years, the sweet spot is to sell it after 5 years and let somebody else deal with the problems to come. And here in Canada with temps below -20C (and occasional -30C) for December / January, your 70 miles would become 40 miles awful fast (since it's nice to have the heat on a car at those temps).
@@salipander6570you gotta explain that or your comment is just a troll. As far as this is concerned, the second hand ev's are infact rubbish just like the second hand electronics market.
@@Cyrribrae yea.. just as much as anything made now as well. Absolutely the same. And if you're one of the Elon musk followers then I can just say that may God guide you on a better path. Amen.
I’ve still got my 2014 Leaf. The battery is down to ~100 km but that usually gets me through a week of driving to work and running errands. The only thing I don’t like is that the telematics don’t work anymore so I can’t pre-condition the cabin while plugged in before leaving. Also, living in Canada where car thefts are on the rise but it’s almost 200 km to the next city, it’s not a vehicle many thieves target. 😅
I own a 2018 Renault Zoe (which shares some parts with the Nissan Leaf) and was leasing the battery for 100€ a month. Last year I asked if I could purchase the lease, and it only cost me 3500€. All in all it cost the same as if I bought the battery with the car originally. After 5 years and 66000km, I've lost about 8% capacity.
Be warned Lithium-Ion batteries don't degrade linearly they will be at a steady decline for roughly their rated cycle life then start to fall off rapidly, so you could get 10 years and lose a total of 15% but at the end of that 11th be down 30%, Also DOD (depth of discard) and charge rates have a major effect run it flat is really bad also fast charging that's bad too
@@shaynegadsden batteries are over at 80% capacity. i never understood why is there a 100% scale if at a 20% loss battery is finished...but, whatever...
Renault Zoé doesn't share any parts with this version of Nissan Leaf. They were developped separatly, starting before Renault-Nissan union. Only the phase 2 Leaf share some parts with Zoé.
@strigoiu13 it is not that they are over at 70-80% SOH (depends on manufacturer), but rather that that is what is still considered a "healthy" battery. The battery (unless there is a failure) doesn't just die once it reaches 80% soh. Same as with any other wear part. You could drive a tire untill it is completely bald, but you still deem it used up once the profile is down to the tread depth marker.
I have a 2016 Nissan leaf, it still averages 80 miles to a full charge, not that it matters in the slightest because it's used to take me 10 miles to work, to do the school run and the occasional run to the next town (20 ish miles away) I can't remember the last time I fully charged it. Charging it at home on a time of use tariff it costs about 2 / 2.5p a mile to run. Even if the battery lost 1/4 of its capacity it would still be perfectly usable. And even after that it's got enough capacity to be given a second life as a home battery storage.
Yep can't agree more and the story gets even more compelling with EV's with much more range and a better BMS. For most people they will be good for 20 years+
so if i bought a combustion engine with a 500 mile tank and in 10 years the tank was no only able to do 60 miles then thata ok? plus im a computer engineer the battery will be dead in 20, get a 20 year old laptop and try and charge it. yes samme batteries as the car.
@PUREBLOODWALES Laptops and EVs don't have the same batteries. Just because both are Lithium-Ion batteries, doesn't mean that their behavior is identical. Cars are designed to last at least a decade or two, while cell phones and laptops can be obsolete in a couple years. Laptop and cellphone battery packs sacrifice longevity for more power and energy density, allowing for thinner lighter and longer lasting devices. While that might be fine for a cellphone or laptop, which the manufacturer wants you to replace in a couple years anyway, that isn't a sacrifice a car manufacturer can make, since vehicles are much bigger investments that need to last much longer than a laptop.
@PUREBLOODWALES I had more hope in the critical thinking of a fellow computer engineer... A car that was capable of 90 miles new (actual range, not rated), can do 60 now, would be going down for your example from 500 new to 333 after 10 years. And regarding death in 10 years, you forgot the top and bottom of the charge buffers, not sitting at 100% all the time as most laptops do, the fact that they have a significantly better thermal and voltage management, alongside with other differences in chemistries.
I had a 2013 Leaf Tekna (the late 2013 upgraded version with LED lights and a few other stuff) that I sold last fall. It had done 105 000 km and still had 12 bars of health. The LeafSpy app showed that the actual health was 86% so just about to lose a bar. It still did 130 km in the summer. Only reason I sold it was the poor winter range and I had a regular need to drive 2 hours there and back, so the car just wasn't keeping up.. That being said I really loved that car. 5 years of ownership and it was such a comfortable and good ride. I replaced it with a cheap 2010 Ford Fiesta 1.6 TDCi and that has been such a downgrade in every conceivable way, except range. Full tank of diesel can get me at least 800 km away from home. My next car is likely gonna be a 2018-2020 40 KWh Nissan Leaf Tekna as I wanna go back to the reliability and comfort it has to offer.
A neighbour has one of these, the range nowadays is around the 60 mile mark. He says its fine for his commute and he treats it like his phone-plugs it in every night, and its ready to go.
What documentation did you find where the 24kwh leaf did 124 miles of range? All the documents I've found on my 2014 with the same 24kwh battery says 84 miles from new. Mine has 10/12 bars and says it should get 70-75 miles depending on the temps. I usually drive it 30 miles / day and charge it over night on house voltage (120v here in USA).
Old Nissan Leaf, is an original and very early EV. The battery is small at 24kWH but has very little of the new battery protection tech that is in the newer EV's. At £1500 it is a great run around, where you can charge at home overnight. You should try this with a 4 or 5 year old EV and see how good that is.
So basically all these Leaf's and similar EV's from that era are now useless - how's that "eco-friendly" in any way if all those resources were spent only to make cars with a service life of 10 years?
@@cikuuzis The car paid off its emissions debt within a year (assuming all energy for charging was from fossil fuels). 10 years of operation is very eco friendly.
You'd have to be out of your mind to pay anything for a car with 60 miles of range, and delusional to think that's not gonna go down even faster with time since you'd have to change it very often. Don't get me started on winter ❄️ conditions.
@@kitcht probably, either that or it’s just because it’s a very early LEAF (made clear by the light colour interior and intrusion into the boot from where I believe the inverter / charging electronics are). The very early ones were known to have pretty terrible batteries and they were quickly changed. The later 24kWh batteries appear to be the most robust of the earlier shape LEAF’s as the 30kWh is known to degrade quite fast especially if rapid charged a lot.
@@gary3074- The difference between “perfect” and “terrible” charging behaviors will determine whether your battery lasts 3 years or 20. This is according to several really detailed studies on the topic. Not only that, but the Leaf is especially sensitive to your charging habits, because it has no thermal management.
When I owned a Leaf I plug in every night at home. I had a routine 30km consistent commute, and when I sold the car on it had 125,000 KM with plenty of life left 11/12 bars. It's not a road trip car but for it covered all my city driving entirely, without ever stopping to charge during the day. Perfect for families who want a second car to get off of gas, and cheap as heck to buy.
I stick £45 in my BMW 3series diesel on a Monday morning and don't need to do any "recharging" all week either as six UK gallons will get me 340miles a week which is my weekly commute My car takes approximately 5 minutes to refuel and it doesn't need a chargepoint at home... diesel is available at every supermarket or service station Plenty of little cheap reliable runaround ICE's for £1500 without the range anxiety and lifestyle restrictions. EV's are still mainly using fossil fuels to generate the sparks
I've taken my 24kwh 2015 Leaf 437 miles to Edinburgh, around the city and back again totalling 890 miles in two days. It IS a road trip car if you allow for charging time on the way. That time was very useful for toilet stops, rest breaks and getting a bite to eat. Occasionally I would have more charge in the car than I needed by the time I'd done what I needed to do at that stop. And on the way back I was able to take 3 hours off of my charging time as I became familiar with how much charge I actually needed. I've been to Brighton, Kings Lynn, Southend, Harrogate, Farnsbrough... there's nowhere I've wanted to go that I couldn't get to. When I get the time I still plan to go to Edinburgh again with my 77% SOH and I also want to go to see friends in Liverpool and Coleraine in Northern Ireland. I've planned the trips out every year to see how much easier the infrastructure has made it, so I know I can do the trips with little worry.
@@TheComputec1. Your diesel car wastes 70% of that fuel heating air instead of moving the car. This means the electricity can be entirely coal powered, and still much better for the environment. 2. You don’t need a “charge point”, you can just plug it into an outlet. Leaf plug charges at just 10A. 3. Plugging it in or out takes about 5 seconds and you don’t need to drive to a useless gas station. 4. Diesel is funding Putin and other dangerous autocrats. 5. Diesel releases even more NOx emissions which literally poisons people, which is why they are banning it in cities.
There are good reasons BEV batteries and their management got FAR better over time. The average US commute is roughly 25 miles, which is TINY compared to the range of the typical modern BEV.
You'll get used to it quickly, especially if you drive the same routes all the time. For example: I know my commute (45km) costs about 15% charge with the current weather, so last week I left home with 20% state of charge and arrived with 4% without ever thinking "will i make it? . The range is a lot more predictable than a petrol car that's low on fuel. Having said that, you don't want this car if you make 30+ mile trips all the time. It's fine for
Let’s face it looks useless, your range of 60 miles was full on a full charge, using the 10:38 recommended 20-80% charge would leave a real world range of 36 miles
40kmiles car should still be like new. my mum recently got low miles micra 40k and 2005 the engine like new very quite very smooth and still has full range and as very low miles gets done as long stay on top rust mum my said it out live her, 40k miles cars really on beaded in and has easy another 20 years if not more if keep on top rust. 40k miles in this ev its knackered in my eyes more than useless. my i20 done 100k 2011 and it only just had its first big cost a new clutch what was only £500, and timing chain if i don't change it in the next 5k miles but am currently looking for another car just waiting on payment a timing chain replacement as the chain tensioners can fail just over 100k-120k but some say 140k but that £500 job and car be good for another 100k miles as it burns very clean and don't drink oil so its pretty healthy engine and £500 maybe a tad over is great cost to save healthy engine. and had 4 years very reliable and can sell it more than paid for it private or about the same in exchange
Conversely my Mazda 6 ran out of diesel on the A11 while the trip computer said it had 125 left. It never got anywhere near the official consumption, while on many of my cars I’ve beaten the figures. In defence it was more fun to drive than anything like that had a right to be and a lot quicker than expected.
This is a 2013 car that's 11-12 years old, it doesn't matter that it's done 40000 miles, it could have done 20 or 80 it would still be getting old and tatty. I don't think 60 miles out of a car that could do 80 in 2013 is that bad give it a break. Also we have no way of knowing how long this one could last, maybe a year, maybe 10 🤷
@somad6997 ev can be 3x the cost per a mile, with such poor range it will have to use public charging and that way more cost than a petrol or diesel, so more cost per a mile and more cost to buy
I have a 2013 Leaf in Sri Lanka.Most of the cars of similar age and mileage in Sri Lanka have less than 50% of it’s battery left by now(Mine barely managed 30 miles when i bought it lol).It’s probably because the hotter climate coupled with the fact that the thing doesn’t have an active cooling system for the battery unlike almost every other ev.So i swapped in a 30kWh battery pack and it runs like new.Btw mine has that exact same issue with the front window motors lol.As you said it’s a fun little thing to drive and i love it.And considering it’s the first remotely affordable mass produced ev, i think it’s holding up pretty well.
The last time I went to Sri Lanka, the rental cab I took was a Toyota Prius hybrid, the near noiseless engine was just amazing. The driver told me the car starts off in electric mode, then the engine kicks in whenever power is required. The dashboard had a console that showed the whole process. Hybrids are amazing, I think these are the future, and Toyota seems to have gotten the game plan far ahead of their rivals..
@@arbjful In Oxford, the taxi cartel Royal Cabs have been using prius exclusively since 2012. They operate their own mechanics and used tire vendors to lower overall TCO and every hybrid is racking in 150k-200k miles. Toyota really made them well, very few engine issues too.
I loved my Blue Nissan LEAF 2011 29,000 miles looked and drove like new . njo damp issues . the 12 volt battery died .and it needed new wiper blades yearly .still on original tyres slightly age cracked rubber .. i sold it on when I lost three capacity bars almost identical to your miles driving .
The damp smell is because you darent run the heater because of its effect on the range. Condensation over years means... damp. Mine is the same, even with the black spots on the seatbelts.😂
And in my petrol cars, I run the A/C all the time with no worries on range. In the winter, the A/C acts as a dehumidifier with heat. And cools in the summer. My oldest car is now 14 years old, and I've serviced and repaired everything myself since new on all my cars. There are no issues on any of them even after 14 years. I would have an older car from 2005 but had to get ride of that due to ULEZ. Only time I need to take to a garage is for MOT, AC regas, wheel alignment and tire replacement as all that needs calibrated equipment that is not practical to buy for a few cars at home. All other repairs are possible at home with petrol and it works as good as new after so many years. That can't be said for EV
@@teddy6888 I do not agree on that AC thing. I used to do Lisbon to Porto in Portugal in the summer, some outrageous 40 degree celcius, it would take the car some 25€ of diesel to reach 30km north of Porto, making it a total 360km (223 mile) range trip driving at 120kmh (70mph) (mostly), this in the winter. In the summer, as soon as AC was needed, it would munch more 10€ of diesel, making it 35€, if I wanted to reach Porto (or Lisbon in the way back) still alive and not cooked by the southern european summer sun. AC will take a toll on the overal car consumption and is no joke on a 2.0l diesel engine, In the summer my cost with fuel would go up by a noticeable amount, sometimes more 30 to 40€ in general, all because I was using AC more than not. Nowadays EVs can do that trip in one charge that will cost you about 5€ with the AC on, you reach your destination still with charge like some 10 to 15% and can charge it while having lunch, sleeping or working. About repairability, in that regard you are right, but the trend is the same all over, from computers to cars...I can service my diesel car, at home, easily. Can't say the same about the EV. But, new ICE cars follow the same trend, it is almost impossible to repair a Mercedes at home, they even have hidden batteries that will lock the car if you dare to disconect the main one. My take on this, keep your old cars running for as long as possible, because the future ir bleak for both EV and ICE.
this was a very very long video to show that the battery degraded 30% in 10 years, that the battery expert simply reads the data provided by the car anyway, and that the range indicator surprisingly is spot-on. could've been a 2 minute video.
Great review Matt, confirmed everything I was thinking, looking for a cheap car for the Mrs to do a 6 mile daily commute and the Leaf looks like the answer, especially when she's a new driver that doesn't like changing gear!
😬 friend had a new EV jag, new. Within 3 months, multiple breakdowns. Problem is when electric cars go wrong, you can't move them. His issue was country lane (narrow) car gave up (all lights stopped working so no hazard lights) and can't be towed, has to be lifted. His kids were in that car. The health hazard that caused alone meant he quickly got rid of it. Get your Mrs a combustion engine.
@@Rampagedd Yes 1 is a really good sample size... Just because you know someone whose EV broke down doesnt mean all of them do. In fact, its much more likely to break down in a used ICE car compared to a used EV because there is much more that can go wrong. And what kind of health hazard are you talking about?
@@fremue9312 to expand, the fleet vehicles with const, engine, housing comp I work with have seemingly all gone back as faulty, new cars? Colleagues 'zoe EV' issue with headlight had head the car off the road for months as can't be fixed 🤣 please, it's your money. Atleast it's not so bad when our companies paying for the mistake..back to combu engine 😄 give it another 10 years.
There are still plenty of things that are mechanical on an EV... It's not a bloody unicorn! Steering motor Wiper Motors Heater box issues Suspension Battery Faults (as mentioned in the video) Ball joints, Bearings and anti-roll bars (more stress on a heavier EV with potholes these days) Gearbox issues (the leaf has a gearbox) General electrical issues (ECUs, Relays, shorts in lighting system etc) Heavy tyre wear Plus the risk of fire, hence the hike in insurance costs If the battery degrades to the point of death, then your £1500 suddenly becomes £3500 or it's a write-off
My neighbour uses her ancient Nissan Leaf to get to her teaching job every day. She doesn't need much range as it's about a 25 mile round trip. She can nip and do some shopping on the way home and it still does it comfortably. I don't see the problem to be honest.
The problem is it's unsalable after she uses it, and goes to scrap, meaning more waste. No sane person would buy a 10yr old EV due to the range, battery death and resellability. My car is 15yr old and still has the same range, and parts are cheap.
@@Jin-Ro1. your name is misspelled 2. a 15 year old car is a polluting mess and probably cost far more to repair and keep operational than a comparable ev 3. seeing how little modern ev batteries degrade, your complaints are meaningless
@@MaticTheProto 1: I know, but Roh is taken and I don't like numbers :) 2: It may pollute a little more, but it's still perfectly usable where as an EV would be in a junk yard, and more resources mined to make another one. Disposable cars are not green, they're worse than what we have now.
The cheapest Leaf where I live is the same. That is ~8 months of wage fully saved, just to have 100kms of range + charging costs. At least I can park for free (for the time being) while I decide what to do with the 10-years-old car once no more batteries will be available or charging stations drop compatibility. No thanks. Sticking to the 20yo ICE Ford C-Max. Plenty of parts, relatively rugged and hard to break. Only thing getting more expensive is petrol. The gap between a used electric and petrol prices? Can spend it on fuel...
@@556poor7 Yeah I don't get this video at all. Most people are only interested in an electric car if can get away with charging it once a week and preferably for free at work due to costs. These used Leafs are just not practical at all.
In the U.S. 44k miles for a car to already be essentially junked is an absolute joke. That's like 2 years worth of driving when compared to our best ICE vehicles that run 300-600k miles for 15-20 years.
You are comparing apples with screwdrivers TBH. This is a 10 year old car, its not a modern EV which as you've said will run for hundreds of thousands of miles with only mild batter degredation.
@@glowwurm9365 yet the vast majority of EV batteries have warrantees under 100k miles and the cars are totaled once they need a new battery. Try again.
That is such a massive amount of e-waste. It seems criminal that its basically junk after only 44k miles. And these things were touted as saviours of the planet? Absolute lies! All the raw material mined out of Africa and Australia to last just a few years and miles?
@@judosteffer Who thinks this is e-waste? Nissan Leaf batteries are often used in home energy storage solutions. The chassis will probably be scrapped but the battery will definitely not be scrapped unless it was faulty beyond repair (which it's not). I think you have a very misconstrued understanding. Modern EVs last for 100ks of miles and become carbon neutral after only 20k miles if charged from green sources. Even with only 44k miles, this car is more carbon friendly than any ICE vehicle of a similar age. Not saving the planet by any means, but if humans demand the need for personal cars, then it's certainly much better than the alternative. Of course walking/cycling/public transport is far more carbon efficient.
I think the takeaway here is how quickly EV batteries have advanced in 10 years. When you think this car didn't start with much range, has much older battery tech, old battery management system and as far as I am aware it is a passively cooled battery. I'll be curious how current EVs fair in a decade. I think though if you have a new driver or someone who only drives to the shops or local friends, £1500 with dirt cheap servicing and £3.50 to fully charge to do 50-60odd miles, it's not as bad as you'd think
Stuff like this is what drives me insane about all the naysayers tearing in to EVs declaring they are all fatally flawed and will never work. Of course you'll never match a century of development and infrastructure. But just look at how far things have come in ten years, hell their are premium cars less than 5 years old that are being left well behind because of how fast the technology is moving. E.g. The Jaguar I-pace, a perfectly solid and usable car yet left in the dirt by a steadily lengthening list of newer (and often cheaper) cars.
@@Jarrik32 I agree, technology advancement in cars is accelerating at pace. Not to pick on the I-Pace but the issue for that car is reliability often nothing to do with the battery, like weak windscreen seals and onboard electrics like tailgate issues, software recalls dont help either mind..but people tear into the EV's due to these issues, again nothing to do with the actual battery, more level of build quality..
Yeah advanced to the point where 100k evs could maybe do about 250 miles between charges, woopdedoo, I can drive to the other side of Europe in my 320d
Costs me only slightly more than that to do 100ish km combined city/country (i live semi rural and have a 60km commute to the city each day) in my kia cerato GT... a 200+bhp midsized saloon that seats 5 and has a huge boot. And i can go a other 600+km before needing to take what? 3-5 minutes to 'recharge'. And itll do that range regardless of weather. Mum has a 2018 holden astra saloon (err...vauxhall something or other in uk. 1.4 turbo) It does 3.4l/100 hughway cycle. I drove it from sydney to melbourne on ONE tank. Piss easy. Tell me your ev can do that. 900km without stopping. Whisper quiet too. Like an ev. And my kias tank doesnt get smaller every year...if i service it ( yes i service it) itll last 300,000+km It wont burn thru tyres like an ev either.
I hope the point of repairability of the battery comes more into focus during tests. With new ev cars, it's really difficult to find out how complicated a repair would be.
There are Tesla tear downs on TH-cam. Their battery packs are easily replaced (if you have the right equipment) with a couple of hours work (and a spare ten thousand if you have more than 100,000 miles on the car (otherwise it is a warranty repair)).
@@allangibson8494 given that 60kwh Tesla's are more or less unheard of, that means it's actually $12,500 for the 75 and $14,200 for the 85 (assuming linear pricing, which makes sense since fitting a 60, 75, 85, 90, or 100 battery is basically the same as a process). Which basically means the new battery costs the same as the car itself - so it's functionally a write-off.
Love the Leaf. I've got a 2014 24kWh with 80k on the clock and it still on full SOH, and will do 80 miles on a warm day, can carry 4 people and a decent amount of luggage and it's very comfortable. Cheap motoring if you don't need the range or if you have the luxury of it being a second car.
People justify these things as if they are ancient cars - it's only 10 years old 😂. An ICE of the same age has no compromise on using as 'just a local commuter'.
@@Stubbari re-read my post. I'm saying it doesn't have the compromise of solely being used as a local commuter. It can do everything needed, whereas a 10 year leaf is pretty much stuck as a local car. I agree that's ok if all that's needed, but it's an expensive item to do just that.
Usualy, the older models BMS gets lost and goes fast to 0, but then drives for the the rest of the missing range. I had exactly the same with my Renault Zoe, I had to empty it until full stop and then recharfe to full, reset the BMS and the problem was fixed.
Actually, you probably want the variant with the leased battery. That way when it dies Nissan have to change it out and lease you a brand new battery with brand new range expectations
@@Kraven83 Yes. If you're leasing something then you don't own it. If that thing stops working then it has to be replaced because they cannot lease you something that doesn't work.
@cwwiss1 there are people that pay 1200 per month for an outrageous mid car. Granted, since someone like me can afford a 1500 car and get a 1200 lease battery for a year, that's not really bad.
@@cwwiss1 Bwahahaha... Put down the bong!! Think about it, they're not making the 24Kw/h batteries anymore so they're going to be forced to replace it with the newer bigger battery which we know from the video is thousands of pounds second hand. 100/month to ensure you always have a viable battery is actually a really good deal.
I had a 2015 leaf for 6 years, was super reliable, and took me to work and back for free. When i got hit and totalled, i got more than i paid for it. Just had to make sure i didnt forget to plug it in.
Awesome video. Now can you do another similar one with the Zoe? The difference is that the Leaf is among the very few cars with no battery cooling whatsoever (Zoe has air cooling) which in theory has been an engineering tragedy because it needlessly aggravates battery degradation. So with a similarily old Zoe we should in theory see much better battery condition. Would be very interested in seeing something like that. Cheers.
Indeed but i know for a fact that you can upgrade it to a more modern battery, one that lasts longer (finally has termal management), and goes way far, and still for less than buying a new equivalent EV. But still, imo for that to be worth it the rest of the car would have to be spotless...
@@Argoon1981it is a great car, and with a good battery it is a good city car. The batteries have improved massively and from 2017 ISH they are extremely capable of doing 250,000 miles while still retaining 80% of range. The incoming battery technology is a game changer, and the future looks awesome.
There's a reason the orignal Leafs are still on the road in everyday use. Even new chargepoints still carry Chademo because there are so many Leafs on the road that were supposed to have conked out years ago. Don't believe everything Jeremy Clarkson says. 10+ year-old Leafs still have between 75% and 95% battery capacity unless they have been severely mishandled. The battery chemistry actually worked better than even Nissan predicted.
This is worst case scenario. Newer EVs are much better to buy used and their batteries last much longer
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I had my original 31kw Leaf from 2016 until last month after it was deemed total loss by my insurance company after a small debt on the side. And what did I do with the money that the insurance paid me, do you ask?? Well... I bought another leaf from the exact same year with the battery still with 12 dots as mine had. I'm been extremely happy with leaf over the year, and I hope I will continue with this "new" one. I never spent a penny with the previous leaf after all these years. I have always charged at work and I haven't done service since 2017 at all. Never had to buy anything apart from tires
Only shows how far battery tech has come in ten years, it's even taken a quick hop these last five years, with VW battery packs now really focussing on longevity and only losing 1-2% in 10 year sims. Recycling batteries is all fine and dandy, but even better is to not have to, right?
The best use case scenario I've seen for used EV with battery depreciation is as gifts for your children as their first car. #1 These things are heavy and offer more protection from many impact angles. Low center of gravity means they ain't flipping. #2 Your kid doesn't need much range to get to and from home and college. #3 You can track their energy usage closer. #4 There isn't much space in these little cars for your daughter to get pregnant.
No. It charges at a ratio to what the battery will take. Mine had 3 bars when I sold it and a range of 39kms... It took about 3 hours to charge when empty and I guessed it had about 5 kwh of battery remaining based on 2 kWh charging and slow down when nearly full. So cost is much cheaper as a good battery would take many more hours from zero, but you basically have no range. If you used the A/C then you would kill it super quick!!! I still enjoyed it and had it a year and sold it for €3000, same as what I paid for it ..
It's quite satisfying to see that, despite your initial doubts, the LEAF has managed to pleasantly surprise you in many ways. I've owned one for the past year, and I can honestly say it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. Now with an EV charger at my home, it's incredibly convenient too. The car performs well and is equipped with several luxuries, including a heated steering wheel and heated seats both in the front and back. It's a truly remarkable vehicle. I believe it's the most reliable car I will ever own, and it still drives like new after 50,000 miles.
"Older EVs will help people!" HOW lmao, the older they get, the more the batteries degrade, then you pay as much as the car for the new battery. Not to mention as Lithium batteries break down they get dangerous AF
Have had one of these for 9 years. Still get exactly the same milage as I did when it was new. Wife drives it on ECO mode all the time and gets 5.1m/kwh. Use 3 pin socket to charge it. Only thing I’vehad to replace is the 12v battery. Never been serviced. Great car.
In 2019, I bought a 2013 Nissan Leaf with a bit over 30,000 km on the odometer. It initially had 11 bars of battery health, which decreased to 10 bars by the time I sold it. I drove it for 1.5 years, covering approximately 10,000 km. During the summer, it offered a range of 100-120 km, while in winter, the range dropped to 80 km. Unfortunately, in Germany, the purchase price was 10,000 Euros, and I sold it for 6,700 Euros. Nonetheless, it served me well for my daily round trip of 28 km to work, and I could easily charge it using a standard Schuko plug in my garage. I appreciated the ability to schedule preheating for every day of the week, and the rear camera proved to be very useful. Additionally, I utilized LeafSpy for monitoring purposes. Overall, it was a great car, but I decided to switch to a Tesla Model 3 Performance in 2021. 🙂
This old EV, with old tech, no battery management like today, used, is still going. Sure it only ever had a small battery, what exactly would you expect?
@@davidziegenhorn6913 "So that makes his range loss really quite impressive." ... as opposed to his actual remaining range which is not impressive at all
That was an early leaf, probably a 2012 or 13. What you don't mention is that you do not drive the car until you run out of energy. The effective range of that car without further damaging the battery is about 20 miles between charges. I owned a 2015, and had 90 percent battery after 90K miles. The early ones were not good with the batteries.
I've owned this car for several years, that was bought in 2021 for 4k€. It was updated AZE0 version with Heat pump and bigger trunk, SOH was 82%. And it was the best city car for me ever. Also the highest trim and white interior. I miss it so much.
From someone who is programming Battery Management Systems for a living: On a cheap EV, I would suspect a short development time for State Of Charge and State Of Health calculations. Getting this stuff right is not easy, so the computer repeatedly makes wrong guesses and (luckily) corrects itself after it has noticed that the previous guess was wrong. Cell age affects a few important characteristics of the cells, making predictions very difficult.
EVs are a fad, during covid I would say at least 40% of the cars I saw on the road were an EV and now I see 1 EV for ever 50 or 60 cars with the early 2000s and 90s cars making up at least 50%.
I drive a 64 reg Leaf (original 24kWh) had it for 8 years, it has done over 70k miles and on switch in the morning it still has 72miles. Note that if you use the high power chargers I have been told that they damage the range maybe that's what had happened here. The range change may be due to the regeneration. Maybe you could check the truth of that idea (range damaged by high power chargers)
There’s not much evidence that lack of active cooling is the issue compared to simply the battery chemistry. Leafs in very moderate climates that hardly get hot show similar degradation.
The original source of that was from Arizona where people were charging them to 100% and leaving them at that level in +50c heat. Nowhere near such issues if the battery is kept in the 20-80% range and in the milder UK climate.
My 2015 Leaf has done over 93,000 miles and still going strong after 8 years of ownership. The problems with the battery are greatly exaggerated even by people who should know better. My car battery has actually cooled down while charging when there's been a breeze passing under the car. This has even happened on my 890 mile two day road trip to Edinburgh and back when I did eight consecutive charges on the way up and eight more on the way back. Despite all the negative rumours the battery did not overheat and the Leaf charged as normal every time. The battery warranty runs out in a few months and the Leaf is in no danger of breaking it. The battery is still safely above the 70% warranty level. And mine is not nearly the healthiest battery in a Leaf of this age.
My old 22KW Zoe is about 10 years old, according canZE software I still have 5% unused capacity before real world capacity decrease from 100% (you can see each battery cell and a ton of other data using free canZE for android software written by users). It drives to the Hague and back 2 days a week, which is equal to its advertised range with the eco button pressed. Not bad considering everyone told me the battery would die in a year 😂 Also still on its first brake pads, they only get used if I stop really hard. Which I don't... It's a great town car, not a touring car obviously 😅
I broke down in Fort William in Scotland some yrs ago. and managed to stop in a supermarket car park. Rang the recovery, Britannia ,and to my surprise ,the recovery truck was there before we could drink the coffees we bought.Now beat that.
The battery is 10 years old so it's normal for a battery to lose capacity over that time. Only way to keep capacity would be to never use the car and keep it topped up.
@@4TheRecord point taken about the age, although even at 10yrs I wouldn't expect quite such bad degradation with that mileage. Keeping the car unused with full battery is specifically warned against in the manual, where it mentions something like if you have to leave it, ensure it's between 20 and 80% charge. Full discharge and max charge is known to be worse for the battery than maintaining moderate charge.
Remember, a battery is an array of cells. Depending on how they're wired up within the pack (in parallel or in series, likely a mix) you're probably looking at one bad cell spoiling a group. A skilled electrical engineer with time on his hands could probably diagnose the fault and swap out just a few cells. Any EV is going to benefit from this every few years.
We've got a 2013 Smart ForTwo ED. Has about the same range. It gets charged to 100% every night (just like you are NOT supposed to) and is used for local journeys which it is ideal for. Costs pennies to run (about 2p a mile). Flies through the MOT each year and the last MAJOR service was £80 - it's on variable mileage servicing, so that was for almost two years. Low cost insurance. Not every EV needs 200+ mile range. Our other car is a VW ID.3 and that is the one we use for longer journeys.
Sadly, that "generous" subsidy has been phased out. When you consider an ev costs at least £10.000 more than a petrol or diesel car, and the grant to buy has been reduced to a pitiful amount. It really isn't worth a private buyer making the changes. The trade in's on ev's, plus the battery degradation and cost to replace, really means that after a few years they are worth nothing. 😢
I purchased my 2018 BMW I3 which was returned at end of lease. I bought it for 70% off MSRP and it's been flawless, after 105,086 miles (169,493 km) the HV battery has lost about 5% of its original capacity.
Good to hear. There is such a lot of misinformation promoted on social media - 😞. When our eNiro goes back at the end of its 4 year lease it will still be doing over 250 miles and would be a bargain for whoever buys it.
Sell your car for free with Carwow: bit.ly/-Sell-Your-Car-For-Free-1004
I have not even a car 😅 im 8...
No thanks, if I'm gonna sell my car, I expect to get some money for it. Technically, "selling something for free" isn't really selling, that's just giving it away.
The Nissan Leaf looked good,@@zlozlozlo
EVs are still rubbish
@@zlozlozlo Glad you said it 😂
The most unrealistic thing on this video is the fact RAC actually showed up within 12 hours!
I agree, Years ago I broke down in a company car and we had 5 star cover. After many calls to their head office the tow truck finally turned up 10 HOURS later. They then said I could not have a loan car which was part of our package because all the depots had closed for the night.
Strange that - the few times we have called them out - they have been with us within the hour.
Your talking rubbish
@@simony2801 sure; with a fleet of over 60+ vehicles, all “benefiting” from RAC breakdown cover through our fleet insurance, I’m pretty sure we have a good hand in experiencing their p*ss poor performance. Over the past 8weeks, we’ve needed 7 recovered for different reasons, and the FASTEST RAC have ever arrived is 5 hours!
@@MrMainty1 They probably prioritise consumers over companies.
Also, did you miss the part where he said he pre-booked?
The car's original price was 24,000 pounds AFTER government subsidies, which means the actual cost of the car was about 30,000. And now you can buy it for 1,500. That is a 95% loss in resale value. CRAZY!
But it like a super cheap for a reliable, shopping car.
This is the earliest model of relatively new tech, and one of the worst implementations possible. Teslas from just few years later tend to level off at ~80-90% of their original charge, with ranges starting at ~250 mi.
@@robertgworek2497 50km on full charge isn't reliable by definition.
@@thimblemunch24 60 miles is not equal to 50km.
Yes but your current pairing the cost of at least 10 times more for the Tesla it's not worth it
The most shocking thing about this video is the calling the RAC and it still being daylight when they turned up!
They prebooked them, it said so in the Video
It probably was the next day
Your sarcasm is not grounded. in the last 20 years, I called RAC maybe 4 times and I have never waited more than 1 hour.
@@5084204 5 hours for me the last time
@@5084204 damn, wtf do you do to your cars?
For a two car family, £1500 for a car that will cost about 3p per mile when home charging is perfect for all the school runs and short trips that make up 95% of journeys for the average family. If you scrap it after 5 years you’ve still had some pretty cheap driving
Or you can just buy a normal car for not much more and have complete driving freedom
@@ilianivanov2709 not at 3p a mile
so its battery is about 24kwh, we can calculate some losses of charging and it needs about 25-26kw to charge it all up, so 25p per 1 kw = 6,25 to 6,5 pounds for 60 miles. Slightly cheaper than small engined petrol/diesel car. But nowhere near 3p a mile mark.
@@zerobudget8355 Original capacity was 24kw, or about 22kw usable storage. That's now reduced by around 75%, so only has 16.5Kwh storage left. Even if it needs 18kwh (to count for some power lost from charging) x 0.065 (EV tarrif) = £1.17 for a full tank. £1.17 / 60 miles = less than 2p a mile.
@@tallgeezer6445 Good points about reduced capacity, but you are dead wrong about ev tarif, which is subsitized for now and its extremely unrealistic price. So you should still calculate at 25p a kwh.
My country had these tarifs as well, once they got cut off, people started to cry that they got scammed. aka public charging stations were for FREE and now they charge you about 0,60 to 0,65 euro per kwh.
While at home you get about 0,20-0,25 euro kwh.
Never base your long term calcualtions and purchase strategies on goverment subsidies, which will run out, sooner than later. Especially when they are there just to push the agenda for that time.
(example my country, all stations were FREE, now its free for 2 years if you buy a new EV; then it was 0,35 eur, then 0,45; now 0,60-0,65 eur.
It got to a point where evs are very short lived, unconvient and pretty much cost in fuel barely cheaper than small engined car, unless you charge at home, buy charging plans or brand new evs.
The problem is, the sort of people that would want/benefit most from a £1500 EV are also the sort of people that probably don't have anywhere to charge one at home. They're utterly useless for anyone living in a flat or with communal parking, and next to useless for anyone with on street parking, all left at the mercy,expense and inconvenience of the public chargers.
Add first time drivers to that list and shared housing, in a future where potentially two parents already have an electric car, so what at a minimum a first time driver you will have 3 cars plugged into house electrics? Never mind siblings etc. Can a house even support that amperage, no idea? My house 5 cars currently 6 people living here no way we could all be plugged in at once, running cables across the road. Also charging a car with no driveway, theyl be cables running across the street everywhere.
I think its looking like carbon neutral combustion or hydrogen is clearly the way!
99% of people with £1,500 won’t ever get an EV well not for at least 20 years. This video is stupid.
@@mgproryh the car has only 15kwh of capacity. That's just 10 hours at 1.5kw. That's a very low load for any domestic electric supply.
Yes, easily @@mgproryh
@@ISuperTed No, but your comment is stupid, altho I don't mean that is a nasty / flame-y way. This tec is hurtling down the pike at us, and in 5 years all sorts of cheapy used-car EV deals will be out there. In 2030 the Chinese will be making wonderful 500-mile range EVs for under-$10k new price. So the MG4 you bought in 2024 for 16K GBPs will be worth a fraction of that. The sub-1500 GBP crowd - of which I have been a proud member so many times - will have lots of choice.
The early leafs had the worst battery chemistry, and no thermal management. Undoubtedly fully charged to 100% after every trip. Both of which killed the battery much quicker than more modern ones.
Yes and also they have very few high voltage cells instead of many low voltage cells, which is cost efficient when producing but not very well for long term life of the batteries.
The same thing will be said about today's wonder EV's in 10-15 years as well. This, of course, means that your 1-3 year old EV today will be just as worthless in value in less than a decade as this Leaf.
@@markmonroe7330 not if you buy a NIO, then you will just upgrade your battery.
@@markmonroe7330 Depends. The battery tech today is vastly superior to 10 years ago, which means a modern EV should hold its capacity/age less than an original Leaf so you'll have way more capacity left both in percentage terms but also because it had more to start with. Unless there's a dramatic shift in tech, such as solid state batteries that double the range and lower the weight or something, you won't see nearly as much crap around. Sure they will still have lost capacity, but you're average 300 mile Tesla Model 3 will still be able to do 3/4 times the range of this leaf.
@@markmonroe7330 incorrect battery chemistry has changed significantly in the last 10 years, new batteries have cars running high mileages ie over 250k with minor degradation th-cam.com/video/tcJrUrp_Ygs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=lYJXhkG3QlRRIgf_ and this will only improve. Also ICE cars also degrade over time ie they have huge hp losses, their mpg decreases yet no one seems to think that is news worthy.
So the car’s estimate at the beginning was pretty much spot on - it said 59 and you got 60.
On a full charge.
@@tooyoungtobeold8756 That's why Leaf drivers drive at 50 on the motorway !
@@o00scorpion00o I drive at 60.
Good thing he didn't drive anywhere hilly, on a cold day
Stick to 560 miles in my diesel thanks
Interesting that almost all the comments from people that have, or have owned, a LEAF are positive and the vast majority of negative comments are from people that haven't (or any EV for that matter). I've had a 2015 24kW LEAF from new and the range is the same as when I bought it. (70 in the Winter, 90 in the Summer). Always charged to 100%. The key to battery longevity is not using rapid chargers and don't leave it fully charged or depleted for long periods. Have replaced the 12v battery once, but thats the only issue it's ever had. Very reliable car
Same. They tend to get through 12v batteries every 4-5 years. Perfect little town car.
Same I currently own a 2015, replaced the 12v which is no big deal. In fact it lasted 9 years which is long for a 12v in an ICE car.
this is one of the top cars on CR
So out of your 70-90 range, there is about 20% that you should not use😂😂😂. I get the same range on the Diesel warning light
@@Jack-lo1ucthe point is that if you rarely go more than 30 miles in a day (which accounts for actually a lot of people, especially older retired people) and have the facilities to charge at home, you'd probably be saving a heck of a lot of money even if you need to take a taxi or rent a car a couple of times a year for longer trips.
The nissan leaf isn't *meant* to replace your diesel car which you drive long distances in, any more than a bicycle is.
My 2013 Leaf still has >80% original capacity and does most things it did when new. The biggest issue is that the tech has moved on massively, and with it peoples expectations.
How many miles more or less?
You must live in a cold climate. In places like Florida, the Leaf's of this era all died due to Nissan's decision not to cool them.
@@aussie2uGAwell seems like it turned to be a costly decision for Nissan.
The problem isn’t the range decline but that some battery’s cells sometimes go short what requires immediately needs repairing
So did this one but after full charge only 54 miles range.
Few things as an ex-Leaf owner (2015 version):
• I think the 124 range you mentioned, was the "rated" range, which is about as reliable as the range-o-meter in the dash. I had the Tekna (top spec at the time) and I used to get about 90 miles safely with normal driving style.
• The range-o-meter was affectionately known as the "guess-o-meter" in the community. It bases the range of current driving so the estimate changes wildly as you drive.
• I opted for the Tekna model as it had a heat pump for the climate, other models had a resistive heating system that would eat battery!
• The map in the car used to make me chuckle, especially as I used to potter over to the Trafford Centre a lot and it had the "Manchester Ship Canal" listed as "Manchester Shit Canal" which was classic as there is a sewage works next to the motorway as you went over it.
• It uses a CHAdeMO rapid charging connector which in the UK is getting harder and harder to find. CCS2 is the standard now and CHAdeMO has been phased out a lot over the past years.
Honestly, when I had the car I loved it. I made some videos on it including charging at rapid stations. When my finance finished I switched to an ICE Ford Fiesta after it and really missed it, but at the time the then "new" Leaf was ridiculously expensive. These days I am in a Model 3 and soon a Model Y as well and it is night and day. Driving down to London I look at the services I use to have to stop at in the Leaf and remember the stop start nature, now the range of the Tesla is longer than I would drive without a break. It was a great car, I used to love the acceleration especially at traffic lights with a Police car next to me, setting the speed limiter to 33MPH and flooring it, I did about 30k miles in it with no charger at home (lived in an apartment block at the time) and I still look back on the car as a great car.
If you bought a used gun metal grey Tekna Leaf with a reg of MK65 KDN, congrats - that was one mine! :D
Its GOM, Guess-O-Meter
Actually CHAdeMO charging is increasing and is a real advantage. No-one is making CHAdeMO cars anymore, but they're still being installed (not in every case, but there are more every year) so the ratio of cars to chargers is getting better all the time, unlike for most electric cars. I've pulled into busy charger stations with huge queues for CCS, and got a charge straight away.
But the range meter was spot on ??
Would you recommend buying a used one for town driving ?
@@TheLeylander Town driving yes! I think if you’re always going to be charging at home or public car parks it’s a great “run around” kind of car.
I live in rural Portugal, 13km from our nearest village and 25km from 4 local towns. I do around 700km of driving per month. Of that, around 90% of my daily driving is less than 60km. I own an immaculate 10 year old Nissan Leaf, which we use for all our local mileage. Our diesel Toyota Avensis estate is used for those rare occasions when we need something with a longer range. Last year we did under 1500km in the Toyota. We have never used a commercial charger. For us, that's the way to use an EV. The plan now is a few solar panels and the set up is perfect.
Let me know how many "a few" is.
Let's assume the leaf uses about 17 kwh per 100 km. You would need 119 kWh per month, not counting charging losses.
Assuming sunlight at soil level has around 1000W per square meter, using 20% effective panels and 8 hours of sunlight per day, one square meter would get you 8 x 200 = 1.6 kWh per square meter per day. So in a month that would be 48 kWh. To get your 119 kWh you will need at least 3 square meters.
That does not sound like a lot, but considering the panel is stationary and we have not accounted for weather, a more realistic value is at most 0.4 kWh per square meter. This would up your required surface to 12 square meters already.
If you add charging losses (loss of about 12% of energy) you are already looking at 14 square meters.
If you then add a little extra capacity to add range on cloudy days (where I live, not having significant sunlight for 2 weeks is quite common) you are easily looking at 20 square meters. 4x5 meters. That is a decently sized roof.
An installation like that will set you back several thousand euros. Probably more than the car is worth and then there will still be days where you will be charging from the socket or having to drive another car to achieve the desired range.
The past year I have tried to figure out what it takes to operate a mobile phone off of solar 100%. With a 100W panel and two lead acid batteries in parallel, I could do it easily in summer. In winter it was barely doable. I was very close to running empty on several occasions. Also note that the hardware to do this cost me about the price of the phone.
Solar is interesting, but it has severe drawbacks. The problem is not even solar itself. The real problem is the storage of electrical energy. We need solid state batteries that have 2-3 times the capacity and 100 times the charging rate without degradation. Then EVs would be superior.
Until then, I would rather use an old diesel. I can power that with oil I press from sunflower seeds if need be. 🤷♂️
CRAP!!! I've been ripped off! I got a an 2019 EV bike for $1900 and it only went 20 miles (32km) with throttle only (recently stolen out of my porch). This Nissan is a steal of a deal!
I bought a pre owned 7 year old smart ForTwo electric drive for only $3400 in great condition. I’ve had it for 3 years now and is driven on average 5 days a week. Has been super reliable and fun to drive. No maintenance needed still and all I’ve done to it is wash and vacuum it from time to time. Great little car. Liked it so much, I bought a 9 year old smart cabriolet electric drive as well. This one set me back several thousand more, and is not as quiet as the coupe, but boy is it fun zipping around in an electric drop top.
Bonus: I can fit two in the space of one car in my garage, leaving the other side for my wife’s Model S. Lots of fun. Great value. Reliable. And each cost less than the average golf cart (and the coupe cost less than many electric bicycles I’ve seen advertised) - I call the pair of smarts my 90 mph golf carts 😅
.. sure, they only seat two, and the ride can be a bit on the bumpy side, but they’re a nice way to zip around town and a great alternative to a used LEAF imo, as my smart electric drives can still go about 65 -70 miles on a charge, which is about what many older LEAF’s manage. The LEAF of course has seating for four, but I’d personally rather drive a smart than a LEAF for about the same range and purchase price. I’d also wager the battery and BMS hold up better in warmer climates than the LEAFS too. And that’s to pick on the LEAF, but they are well known to degrade more quickly in warmer areas of the world, such as the area I live in. - but in any case, as the OP said, as good or better values compared to many pricier electric bicycles. Of that I think most can agree on.
Yes, but could you park the Nissan in your porch?
The bike on your porch was an even better steal of a deal for whoever has it now 😂
@@Muzly oh snap!
@@Muzly huh huh huh 😂
The cheapest "anything" in the country probably won't be a good indication of what you can get if you go to the used market in general.
Except in this case it was. Car prices deflating is a ticket to some decent cars at reasonable prices, for a change
@@PJWey EV's are. EV's with little range left.
Especially when it's using battery technology from over 10 years ago, in an industry that has rapidly progressed in the last 10 years.
@@WIImotionmasher The tech it's using is actually older. As they used already old battery tech in that car. We are not talking Tesla's here. As the 2013-14 Tesla's are only down 2/3 of their original prices at most.
But especially EVs. Buy a used ICE car the petrol tank won't have physically shrunk. You may have slightly fewer miles due to out of tune. But batteries are totally useless.
I still have one of these, alongside my Kia EV6. Its not a long range, but fine as a city commuter. Costs virtually nothing to run, and if you can buy them for £1500 thats less than an electric bicycle.
I'd take the electic bicycle
@@ybergikthe car has free road tax. I would always take a car over a bicycle. Unless they start sorting out decent cycling routes.
@@chrishart8548even then... Rain.
@@ybergik Of course you'd take the electric bike, because getting pi$$ed wet through is fun, isn't it?
Well there's more cost involved, like insurance for the car, bike doesn't have that
Cost of new battery= new Nissan 😂😂😂
= cost of German car options
= cost of Rolls Royce button
You understand you also have to pay for the work hours?
DANKPODS NUGGET!
Why would you buy a new battery, when refurbishing the existing battery would cost around the same as fitting a clutch in an ICE car? It seems you've not heard of battery pack refurbs.. There are already EV specialists doing this work. You just didn't know anything about them....
A family member bought one of those three years ago. It was used for shopping and dropping the kids off at school. They thought as stated here, they would be more reliable than the petrol corolla they traded in. Then after three months the range dropped off slowly until it simply didn't go. The replacement battery is worth more than the car. No one wants to buy it including the car wreckers and so it sits in his yard - useless.
Sounds like a HORRIBLE story. No way the battery would degrade that quickly unless there’s a defect. So they just got unlucky.
I bought one of these for the same purpose and it’s been AMAZING thus far. 12 years old and 95,000 miles on ‘er. 🤷🏻♂️ battery is perfectly healthy. 👌🏼
There's a lot of examples of the battery's degrading quicker than usual. That's why I wouldn't want to buy a used EV.@@I_know_what_im_talking_about
i'll buy it!
@@I_know_what_im_talking_aboutdont lie on the internet
No car built in this century lasts longer than a Corolla. It's not a very pleasant car, but it will outlast everything.
£1,500 in Australia would be around $3,000 AU. The problem here is that second hand car's are still pretty expensive. The cheapest second hand LEAF. I could find in Victoria was $13,000 which translates to around £6,500. For that sort of money I'm sticking with a cheap ICE 4 cylinder which won't give me range or charging anxiety. Car's are way overpriced here in Australia
Car wow ripped off the seller here
These still sell for about 4K in the uk
You think Aussie car prices are expensive… Wait til you see how much cars cost in Singapore
I think that some used Australian Leafs are shipped over from Japan.
Leafs are more expensive in Australia than they are elsewhere because they are imported. We have a Nissan factory in the UK so we don't pay the higher prices.
@@boyasaka The cheapest on Autotrader (one minute ago) is £2000. 81000 miles though. I'm not sure if age or use is the biggest factor in battery degradation though. Every Li-ion battery that I have had fail has been through not being used.
At the opposite end of the price range electric cars are depreciating badly in the U.K. because all the tax benefits are for leasing a new one.
I swear that at first I was reading the licence plates as "Big Nope" 😂😅🤣
That's a lot better than what _I_ was reading.
😂
That's a stretch mate
@@maccoretti51 He's dyslexic.
😂
I was remembering that the early Leaf's only had an effective range of about 80 miles at least here in the US. So, an 11 year old car that now has 60 miles, I don't think is terrible for 1500 quid. For an around town car, I think it is a great deal.
Its awful. I can get a Mercedes A class, with 32k miles on it, and it wont be mouldy inside. Its a car for doing run arounds, and school runs yeah? What about when the child says their school won a sports match or got entered into a karate competition and its in the next county over? Or have gone off with the scouts and you get a phone call saying they fell and broke an arm?
If you are getting a car, get one that you can throw all the neighbours kids into and take them to an event, get one that you can drive across the country should a friend be in a medical emergency, get one that can fit all the kids gear in, get one that you can drive a few towns over to pick up a cheap sofa you seen online.
I live in a city so I got a 1L petrol car that is very small, but it can still fit two adults or 3 kids in the back, and I spend 90% of my time actually cycling instead of driving. I drive in very bad weather, or when I have to go places outside my cycle limit. I also drive places to go for a walk. My car is topped out on the motorway going at the speed limit, but I can actually make it to the scenic areas on my day off and spend the day out. The limit of this thing isnt 59, its 30 mile. I need to find a charger to get home then.
Its the whole point of the minivan being a family car, because it does everything a family can need in one vehicle.
@@geroutathat Different people different wants and needs. I am not familiar with the London inner city charges, but can your car(s) get through those without any fees? That is one possible reason to own a car like this. It is small nimble has reasonable power and can ignore metro rules. But again everyone has different wants and desires. I see people on the road in cars I would never own, but doesn't mean that I would tell them never to buy it. I do have to admit the leaky window is a bit of a pisser.
@@geroutathatfirst off, bless you for cycling! We need more folks like you. If you think about it, you're already in a 2-vehicle home: you have the bike and the 1L petrol car. In that case, you've already got the ultra efficient hyper-miler: the bike! You'd need something different to fit a different use case, like moving kids around, helping a friend in an emergency etc. For other folks, the EV is their "bike", and a minivan/truck/sedan is their "people/stuff mover".
I maybe wouldn't recommend this Nissan Leaf, which is gen1, mouldy, and very limited in range. But this might make sense for me to get the kids to school/daycare, me to work most days. Better than the pickup truck.
I had a Leaf in 2015-2017. 24kWh battery. He keeps quoting 124 miles which was the stated range but I never got that in reality. A full charge would get me 90 miles on average
As someone who owns a 2012 Nissan LEAF my battery is also at about 70% and my experience has been similar. I bought it in May 2022 with about 92K kms and have had no issues with it as it approaches 122K km. Range is an issue, but for in town daily driving it can’t be beat!
Neither can a petrol
@@petekenny3774 for pure city driving petrols are just more expensive. Between higher fuel-costs, higher taxes and (on average) more expensive maintenance an EV makes more sense for many, many people.
Some extremely useful info regarding batteries:
There are 3 main different battery technologies that were at some point or another used in EVs.
Li-Ion, Li-Po, LiFePo4.
The market right now is almost if not completely exclusively using Li-Ion batteries due to their small size and light weight.
Basically Li-Po are the lightest and smallest, but also have the worst charge cycle count (how many times you can charge the battery 0-100% before it is considered "bad").
LiFePo4 have by far the superior charge cycle count, but are quite bigger and heavier.
So the happy middle ground is Li-Ion. Many times used in this 18650 or 21700 cell form factor.
That Nissan Leaf, might have been using Li-Po batteries just by seeing those pouches and how they got swollen. Generally you can expect up to 100-300 cycles out of a Li-Po, 300-1000 out of a Li-Ion and 1500-6000 out of a LiFePo4 battery.
What is a charge cycle really?
In theory it is the sum of the partial charge cycles (for example 40-100, 15-100, 50-100, 95-100, these four charges would be 2 full charge cycles, because they sum at 200% of charge need). But that's not the whole story. A battery is happier if it's SoC (state of charge) doesn't fall below 20%. Most importantly it's way happier if it doesn't stay below 20% for extended periods of time (not charging it for a day or two...). It's also happy if it doesn't stay at 100% for extended periods of time. So, if you make sure that the battery isn't close to those extremes, you can extend these charge cycles quite considerably.
So, for example a Tesla battery of the last year, should have some Li-Ion cells capable of 1000 charge cycles (impressively high for Li-Ion, best on the market). If tesla engineers make sure their reported SoC is slightly different to the real SoC of the battery, making sure to stay away from those extremes, the battery can last up to 3500 smaller charge cycles (25-90%), which is up to 2500 full charge cycles instead of just 1000...
3500 charge cycles is roughly 10 years somebody might say. And that's pretty much the case if someone totally drains their car daily. However,I don't believe tesla puts so relaxed extremes to their batteries (because they would lose advertised range that way...), so I think it's more like 2000 cycles of 10-90%.
Roughly 6 years for daily draining.
Realistically you will use all the battery every 2-3 days if you drive a lot, so... 12-16 years? Something like that.
Is charge cycle count the only consideration when talking about battery life?
No...
Battery ageing occurs no matter what, it's just faster if the battery is empty or full.
For a Li-Ion battery you can expect 10-15 years of battery life no matter how much you take care of it.
So. What does it mean for a battery to die?
In the world of Lithium batteries, a dead battery is a battery that is below 80% if its original capacity. Why is that?
Basically from 100% to 80% the battery again curve is a straight line, slowly going down in a straight line as the years or the charge cycles pass.
However at 80% of its original capacity, this straight line becomes a more and more aggressive curve.
That actually means that after that 80% point, the ageing of the cells occurs faster and faster and faster. You might need 10 years to go to 80%, but you will need 5 years to go to 60%. 2 years to go to 40%. 1 year to go to 10%.
That's just an example, but these numbers are almost accurate.
So basically, your battery is still ok at 85%. At 80% starts the downhill and nothing can stop it.
So, what does that mean for the Nissan Leaf? First of all, the car already has a kind of bad battery technology if they were using Li-Po cells. So, I assume the 100-80% window closed at around 8 years of use at best. Secondly, the battery that now is at 65-70% is considered dead. You can expect month by month to see a slight reduction in mileage. In the next ~2-4 years, the battery will completely die, unable to do much of anything.
Are 1500£ worth it? Meh... Idk... The car works and it's electric... It might not pay itself because there are too few charge cycles remaining... I mean, for 1500£, you get an electric scooter with less range, so... Yeah. It is kind of value for money... I might would have bought this or something similiral and try to fit my own batteries somehow 😃
That would give me 15 full years of way better range... They only bad thing is that these things have lots of factory locks and stuff... I'd really love to be able to put my own batteries on any of the EVs... Imagine having a second full battery in the trunk... Imagine doing that on a new car. 1000km of range.
Anyways. These were some nice info for Lithium batteries.
Thanks so much for sharing, this is really helpful! I've also heard that you don't have to worry so much about charging LFP batteries all the way to 100%, at least compared to the other two types of chemistry. And that a heat pump really makes a difference for range, especially in the winter time
Thank you - it's tiring listing to TH-camrs like carwow that will discipline their monkeys all day long to 8 cylinder this and 16 valve that, but don't spend any time learning about battery chemistry, rated cycles, SoC estimates etc.
Not to mention other types of Lithium-Ion batteries such as LFP, which have a rated charge cycle of 3,000 to 80% capacity. Newer Standard range Tesla Model Ys and 3s are equipped with this battery.
Shame that this information was not communicated in the video.
Didn't realise the batteries were modular, which is good news if you can get a refurbished one that's not too far gone at a reasonable price. Compared to all the things that can go wrong with modern petrol engines it's worth looking at.
The EPA estimated range of a 2013 Nissan Leaf was 75 miles. Not sure where the 124 mile range came from.
These guys are in the UK area; completely different range rating system, and their miles are NOT 1:1 with ours.
Imagine having a distance measurement unit completely divorced from reality
The WLTP range was 124 KM! Not miles.
@@jacobcarlson4010The difference is so small that in practice, it makes no difference unless you are a surveyor or scientist. That said, it's about time all of you backwards yokels moved to the metric system.
What? UK miles are different than US miles?
I just looked it up and US miles are exactly the same as UK miles. Gallons are different.
My 2014 Leaf, with 240.000km with around 70% SOH. Clocks daily 75km, with no problems and still some electrons left for a few more km, so a great commuter.
if it was German combustion car it would be broken down by then
never had such a problem with my petrol car I don't even check the range 🤣😂😂😂😂
@@Flackoknowsinteresting, you should probably have your engine serviced…
@@lemcakes32422not really.
has it still any warranty left?
Yeah, i have a friend that bought one of these used recently. He is very happy with it. He charges it nightly and most all days he drives less than half of the 60 mile range. If he has to drive further he just takes his wife’s car that day. Its a specific use for shorter commutes but if for a few k you can get a car that does all your local driving without needing gas, its a good deal.
60 miles on a charge is ridiculous, youd be charging up daily.
@@JORDAN-CHRISTOPHERSPENCER yes, he does. He bought it cheap used. The point is just, as a second car it seems to work just fine for him.
We ran a 24kh leaf for 6 years covered 56K miles. Even when we traded it the battery health was 11\12 bars and range was approx 90 miles in summer / 70 in winter - cost buttons to run other than tyres and brake pads and I replaced the front discs as the standard Nissan / Renault ones are cr@p . Great car for local trips if well priced 😊
Absoluttely. My 2015 Leaf has done 53000 miles and has 11 bars leftt too. Your range estimates are spot on.
Yeah, so for an EV - it's not a vehicle you want to keep for 15 or 20 years, the sweet spot is to sell it after 5 years and let somebody else deal with the problems to come. And here in Canada with temps below -20C (and occasional -30C) for December / January, your 70 miles would become 40 miles awful fast (since it's nice to have the heat on a car at those temps).
These are my favourite type of videos, especially with "old" electric cars, great idea!
But then they should get their facts right, but here they didn't.
@@salipander6570you gotta explain that or your comment is just a troll. As far as this is concerned, the second hand ev's are infact rubbish just like the second hand electronics market.
@@FirestormX9no, it depends what EVs you're talking about. Early leafs? Yea probably. Anything made in the last 10 years? Probably quite fine.
@@Cyrribrae yea.. just as much as anything made now as well. Absolutely the same. And if you're one of the Elon musk followers then I can just say that may God guide you on a better path. Amen.
A bit of silicon spray for the slow moving windows can create wonders.
Work
WD40 does the trick too. And sometimes just cleaning them with a rag and a little stick will do it too
until dust gets in it. now you have a scratchathon
Why would you even have to ?!
Why would you even have to ?!
I’ve still got my 2014 Leaf. The battery is down to ~100 km but that usually gets me through a week of driving to work and running errands. The only thing I don’t like is that the telematics don’t work anymore so I can’t pre-condition the cabin while plugged in before leaving.
Also, living in Canada where car thefts are on the rise but it’s almost 200 km to the next city, it’s not a vehicle many thieves target. 😅
How many miles on the clock ? What battery capacity is ?
@@MultiEski ~40,000 km, 28 kWh.
Nice to hear you live in a barbie doll house. 100km is a joke really.
@@B.D.F. You probably won´t pass 80k ever because it would take you 100 years in time to charge the thing to drive that much xD
@@sierraecho884 Cool. I go to work and do groceries. Why would I need more range?
"you can't park here mate."
I own a 2018 Renault Zoe (which shares some parts with the Nissan Leaf) and was leasing the battery for 100€ a month. Last year I asked if I could purchase the lease, and it only cost me 3500€. All in all it cost the same as if I bought the battery with the car originally. After 5 years and 66000km, I've lost about 8% capacity.
Be warned Lithium-Ion batteries don't degrade linearly they will be at a steady decline for roughly their rated cycle life then start to fall off rapidly, so you could get 10 years and lose a total of 15% but at the end of that 11th be down 30%, Also DOD (depth of discard) and charge rates have a major effect run it flat is really bad also fast charging that's bad too
@@shaynegadsden batteries are over at 80% capacity. i never understood why is there a 100% scale if at a 20% loss battery is finished...but, whatever...
Renault Zoé doesn't share any parts with this version of Nissan Leaf. They were developped separatly, starting before Renault-Nissan union.
Only the phase 2 Leaf share some parts with Zoé.
@strigoiu13 it is not that they are over at 70-80% SOH (depends on manufacturer), but rather that that is what is still considered a "healthy" battery. The battery (unless there is a failure) doesn't just die once it reaches 80% soh. Same as with any other wear part. You could drive a tire untill it is completely bald, but you still deem it used up once the profile is down to the tread depth marker.
I got a 2019 Opel station wagon from a lease at 5200 euros. It had 19k miles on it. It will easily get another 100k for low costs.
I have a 2016 Nissan leaf, it still averages 80 miles to a full charge, not that it matters in the slightest because it's used to take me 10 miles to work, to do the school run and the occasional run to the next town (20 ish miles away) I can't remember the last time I fully charged it. Charging it at home on a time of use tariff it costs about 2 / 2.5p a mile to run. Even if the battery lost 1/4 of its capacity it would still be perfectly usable. And even after that it's got enough capacity to be given a second life as a home battery storage.
Yep can't agree more and the story gets even more compelling with EV's with much more range and a better BMS. For most people they will be good for 20 years+
Can you connect your car to your homes switchboard to provide the house power?
so if i bought a combustion engine with a 500 mile tank and in 10 years the tank was no only able to do 60 miles then thata ok? plus im a computer engineer the battery will be dead in 20, get a 20 year old laptop and try and charge it. yes samme batteries as the car.
@PUREBLOODWALES Laptops and EVs don't have the same batteries. Just because both are Lithium-Ion batteries, doesn't mean that their behavior is identical. Cars are designed to last at least a decade or two, while cell phones and laptops can be obsolete in a couple years.
Laptop and cellphone battery packs sacrifice longevity for more power and energy density, allowing for thinner lighter and longer lasting devices. While that might be fine for a cellphone or laptop, which the manufacturer wants you to replace in a couple years anyway, that isn't a sacrifice a car manufacturer can make, since vehicles are much bigger investments that need to last much longer than a laptop.
@PUREBLOODWALES I had more hope in the critical thinking of a fellow computer engineer...
A car that was capable of 90 miles new (actual range, not rated), can do 60 now, would be going down for your example from 500 new to 333 after 10 years.
And regarding death in 10 years, you forgot the top and bottom of the charge buffers, not sitting at 100% all the time as most laptops do, the fact that they have a significantly better thermal and voltage management, alongside with other differences in chemistries.
I had a 2013 Leaf Tekna (the late 2013 upgraded version with LED lights and a few other stuff) that I sold last fall. It had done 105 000 km and still had 12 bars of health. The LeafSpy app showed that the actual health was 86% so just about to lose a bar. It still did 130 km in the summer. Only reason I sold it was the poor winter range and I had a regular need to drive 2 hours there and back, so the car just wasn't keeping up.. That being said I really loved that car. 5 years of ownership and it was such a comfortable and good ride. I replaced it with a cheap 2010 Ford Fiesta 1.6 TDCi and that has been such a downgrade in every conceivable way, except range. Full tank of diesel can get me at least 800 km away from home.
My next car is likely gonna be a 2018-2020 40 KWh Nissan Leaf Tekna as I wanna go back to the reliability and comfort it has to offer.
A neighbour has one of these, the range nowadays is around the 60 mile mark. He says its fine for his commute and he treats it like his phone-plugs it in every night, and its ready to go.
What documentation did you find where the 24kwh leaf did 124 miles of range? All the documents I've found on my 2014 with the same 24kwh battery says 84 miles from new.
Mine has 10/12 bars and says it should get 70-75 miles depending on the temps. I usually drive it 30 miles / day and charge it over night on house voltage (120v here in USA).
It will be whatever the WLTP equivalent was in 2013. Which generally skewed higher than EPA.
Old Nissan Leaf, is an original and very early EV. The battery is small at 24kWH but has very little of the new battery protection tech that is in the newer EV's. At £1500 it is a great run around, where you can charge at home overnight. You should try this with a 4 or 5 year old EV and see how good that is.
So basically all these Leaf's and similar EV's from that era are now useless - how's that "eco-friendly" in any way if all those resources were spent only to make cars with a service life of 10 years?
@@cikuuzis The car paid off its emissions debt within a year (assuming all energy for charging was from fossil fuels). 10 years of operation is very eco friendly.
You'd have to be out of your mind to pay anything for a car with 60 miles of range, and delusional to think that's not gonna go down even faster with time since you'd have to change it very often. Don't get me started on winter ❄️ conditions.
9 bars in a LEAF doesn’t mean it’s got 75% left, it means the SOH is somewhere between 66.25 and 72.5%
Exactly this. The degradation on the battery means the range is compromised. Most likely due to rapid charging too much.
@@kitcht probably, either that or it’s just because it’s a very early LEAF (made clear by the light colour interior and intrusion into the boot from where I believe the inverter / charging electronics are). The very early ones were known to have pretty terrible batteries and they were quickly changed. The later 24kWh batteries appear to be the most robust of the earlier shape LEAF’s as the 30kWh is known to degrade quite fast especially if rapid charged a lot.
Yep, its a non-linear gauge.
@@kitchtnope. The Leaf battery declines with age, regardless of charging history….
@@gary3074- The difference between “perfect” and “terrible” charging behaviors will determine whether your battery lasts 3 years or 20. This is according to several really detailed studies on the topic.
Not only that, but the Leaf is especially sensitive to your charging habits, because it has no thermal management.
When I owned a Leaf I plug in every night at home. I had a routine 30km consistent commute, and when I sold the car on it had 125,000 KM with plenty of life left 11/12 bars. It's not a road trip car but for it covered all my city driving entirely, without ever stopping to charge during the day. Perfect for families who want a second car to get off of gas, and cheap as heck to buy.
I stick £45 in my BMW 3series diesel on a Monday morning and don't need to do any "recharging" all week either as six UK gallons will get me 340miles a week which is my weekly commute
My car takes approximately 5 minutes to refuel and it doesn't need a chargepoint at home... diesel is available at every supermarket or service station
Plenty of little cheap reliable runaround ICE's for £1500 without the range anxiety and lifestyle restrictions. EV's are still mainly using fossil fuels to generate the sparks
@@TheComputec It's almost like you don't realise that almost all EV drivers owned ICE cars before or they still do. We do know, you know.
I've taken my 24kwh 2015 Leaf 437 miles to Edinburgh, around the city and back again totalling 890 miles in two days. It IS a road trip car if you allow for charging time on the way. That time was very useful for toilet stops, rest breaks and getting a bite to eat. Occasionally I would have more charge in the car than I needed by the time I'd done what I needed to do at that stop. And on the way back I was able to take 3 hours off of my charging time as I became familiar with how much charge I actually needed.
I've been to Brighton, Kings Lynn, Southend, Harrogate, Farnsbrough... there's nowhere I've wanted to go that I couldn't get to. When I get the time I still plan to go to Edinburgh again with my 77% SOH and I also want to go to see friends in Liverpool and Coleraine in Northern Ireland. I've planned the trips out every year to see how much easier the infrastructure has made it, so I know I can do the trips with little worry.
@@TheComputec1. Your diesel car wastes 70% of that fuel heating air instead of moving the car. This means the electricity can be entirely coal powered, and still much better for the environment. 2. You don’t need a “charge point”, you can just plug it into an outlet. Leaf plug charges at just 10A. 3. Plugging it in or out takes about 5 seconds and you don’t need to drive to a useless gas station. 4. Diesel is funding Putin and other dangerous autocrats. 5. Diesel releases even more NOx emissions which literally poisons people, which is why they are banning it in cities.
EV cars fooled into it then try to justify their conditioning
Imagining driving around permanently with the fuel light on though, would get tiring fast
There are good reasons BEV batteries and their management got FAR better over time. The average US commute is roughly 25 miles, which is TINY compared to the range of the typical modern BEV.
You'll get used to it quickly, especially if you drive the same routes all the time. For example: I know my commute (45km) costs about 15% charge with the current weather, so last week I left home with 20% state of charge and arrived with 4% without ever thinking "will i make it? . The range is a lot more predictable than a petrol car that's low on fuel.
Having said that, you don't want this car if you make 30+ mile trips all the time. It's fine for
Let’s face it looks useless, your range of 60 miles was full on a full charge, using the 10:38 recommended 20-80% charge would leave a real world range of 36 miles
Awful hateful things
😂😂
It did miles before being rescued by a Diesel generator, how is it a win for the leaf
Why not use a diesel engine to start with. Diesel was. Needed anyway?
59 miles is about as much as my car will do when the fuel warning light comes on.
40kmiles car should still be like new. my mum recently got low miles micra 40k and 2005 the engine like new very quite very smooth and still has full range and as very low miles gets done as long stay on top rust mum my said it out live her, 40k miles cars really on beaded in and has easy another 20 years if not more if keep on top rust. 40k miles in this ev its knackered in my eyes more than useless. my i20 done 100k 2011 and it only just had its first big cost a new clutch what was only £500, and timing chain if i don't change it in the next 5k miles but am currently looking for another car just waiting on payment a timing chain replacement as the chain tensioners can fail just over 100k-120k but some say 140k but that £500 job and car be good for another 100k miles as it burns very clean and don't drink oil so its pretty healthy engine and £500 maybe a tad over is great cost to save healthy engine. and had 4 years very reliable and can sell it more than paid for it private or about the same in exchange
Conversely my Mazda 6 ran out of diesel on the A11 while the trip computer said it had 125 left. It never got anywhere near the official consumption, while on many of my cars I’ve beaten the figures. In defence it was more fun to drive than anything like that had a right to be and a lot quicker than expected.
This is a 2013 car that's 11-12 years old, it doesn't matter that it's done 40000 miles, it could have done 20 or 80 it would still be getting old and tatty. I don't think 60 miles out of a car that could do 80 in 2013 is that bad give it a break. Also we have no way of knowing how long this one could last, maybe a year, maybe 10 🤷
@@timscott3027 And my 30 year old Opel still doing the same miles when she came out. EVs are the 4 wheeled iPhones.
@somad6997 ev can be 3x the cost per a mile, with such poor range it will have to use public charging and that way more cost than a petrol or diesel, so more cost per a mile and more cost to buy
I have a 2013 Leaf in Sri Lanka.Most of the cars of similar age and mileage in Sri Lanka have less than 50% of it’s battery left by now(Mine barely managed 30 miles when i bought it lol).It’s probably because the hotter climate coupled with the fact that the thing doesn’t have an active cooling system for the battery unlike almost every other ev.So i swapped in a 30kWh battery pack and it runs like new.Btw mine has that exact same issue with the front window motors lol.As you said it’s a fun little thing to drive and i love it.And considering it’s the first remotely affordable mass produced ev, i think it’s holding up pretty well.
How much did it cost you to swap the battery pack, in dollars or euro?
@@Kraven83 about 5k USD.
They definitely work as a low cost short-run city car, but limited use if your work journey paterns are longer or more random
The last time I went to Sri Lanka, the rental cab I took was a Toyota Prius hybrid, the near noiseless engine was just amazing. The driver told me the car starts off in electric mode, then the engine kicks in whenever power is required. The dashboard had a console that showed the whole process. Hybrids are amazing, I think these are the future, and Toyota seems to have gotten the game plan far ahead of their rivals..
@@arbjful In Oxford, the taxi cartel Royal Cabs have been using prius exclusively since 2012. They operate their own mechanics and used tire vendors to lower overall TCO and every hybrid is racking in 150k-200k miles. Toyota really made them well, very few engine issues too.
My vacuum cleaner has the same problem. Really annoying….
Bruhhhhhhhh😂😂😂😂
I had one of those. At least you can buy reasonably cheap replacement batteries for mine.
Swapped mine out to drill batteries!
Just plug in a couple of AA batteries, should double the range.
@@ScottPCis the batteries engine car can do engine swap?
I loved my Blue Nissan LEAF 2011 29,000 miles looked and drove like new . njo damp issues . the 12 volt battery died .and it needed new wiper blades yearly .still on original tyres slightly age cracked rubber .. i sold it on when I lost three capacity bars almost identical to your miles driving .
The damp smell is because you darent run the heater because of its effect on the range. Condensation over years means... damp. Mine is the same, even with the black spots on the seatbelts.😂
And in my petrol cars, I run the A/C all the time with no worries on range. In the winter, the A/C acts as a dehumidifier with heat. And cools in the summer. My oldest car is now 14 years old, and I've serviced and repaired everything myself since new on all my cars. There are no issues on any of them even after 14 years. I would have an older car from 2005 but had to get ride of that due to ULEZ. Only time I need to take to a garage is for MOT, AC regas, wheel alignment and tire replacement as all that needs calibrated equipment that is not practical to buy for a few cars at home. All other repairs are possible at home with petrol and it works as good as new after so many years. That can't be said for EV
@@teddy6888 I do not agree on that AC thing.
I used to do Lisbon to Porto in Portugal in the summer, some outrageous 40 degree celcius, it would take the car some 25€ of diesel to reach 30km north of Porto, making it a total 360km (223 mile) range trip driving at 120kmh (70mph) (mostly), this in the winter. In the summer, as soon as AC was needed, it would munch more 10€ of diesel, making it 35€, if I wanted to reach Porto (or Lisbon in the way back) still alive and not cooked by the southern european summer sun.
AC will take a toll on the overal car consumption and is no joke on a 2.0l diesel engine, In the summer my cost with fuel would go up by a noticeable amount, sometimes more 30 to 40€ in general, all because I was using AC more than not.
Nowadays EVs can do that trip in one charge that will cost you about 5€ with the AC on, you reach your destination still with charge like some 10 to 15% and can charge it while having lunch, sleeping or working.
About repairability, in that regard you are right, but the trend is the same all over, from computers to cars...I can service my diesel car, at home, easily. Can't say the same about the EV. But, new ICE cars follow the same trend, it is almost impossible to repair a Mercedes at home, they even have hidden batteries that will lock the car if you dare to disconect the main one.
My take on this, keep your old cars running for as long as possible, because the future ir bleak for both EV and ICE.
Haven’t you figured out to run the heater while charging using the Climate timer? Pity….
@@teddy6888 well I've replaced a ball joint and brake pads on the leaf myself. There's not really much else to do on it...
Most overtaken car after a 3 wheeler just slowing down the traffic everywhere 😂
this was a very very long video to show that the battery degraded 30% in 10 years, that the battery expert simply reads the data provided by the car anyway, and that the range indicator surprisingly is spot-on. could've been a 2 minute video.
Degraded 30% from an already overstated range in a mere 2 years (worth of driving @44k miles).
😂
@@melainewhite6409 age degrades batteries too, even if sitting idle
Id buy that 60 miles is way more than enough for my 5 miles daily commute
5 милей? Так можно на велосипеде доехать:)
@@rusbiology3460 He could walk, but perhaps he prefers to drive.
And isnt that the problem. EVs are just encouraging car use.
@@bikeman123atleast they have no emissions
@@hamish2739 they still produce tire dust
Great review Matt, confirmed everything I was thinking, looking for a cheap car for the Mrs to do a 6 mile daily commute and the Leaf looks like the answer, especially when she's a new driver that doesn't like changing gear!
😬 friend had a new EV jag, new. Within 3 months, multiple breakdowns. Problem is when electric cars go wrong, you can't move them. His issue was country lane (narrow) car gave up (all lights stopped working so no hazard lights) and can't be towed, has to be lifted. His kids were in that car. The health hazard that caused alone meant he quickly got rid of it. Get your Mrs a combustion engine.
The Leaf is a good car for around town. Very reliable (especially compared to that guy’s Jag haha).
@@Rampagedd Yes 1 is a really good sample size... Just because you know someone whose EV broke down doesnt mean all of them do. In fact, its much more likely to break down in a used ICE car compared to a used EV because there is much more that can go wrong. And what kind of health hazard are you talking about?
@@fremue9312 to expand, the fleet vehicles with const, engine, housing comp I work with have seemingly all gone back as faulty, new cars? Colleagues 'zoe EV' issue with headlight had head the car off the road for months as can't be fixed 🤣 please, it's your money. Atleast it's not so bad when our companies paying for the mistake..back to combu engine 😄 give it another 10 years.
There are still plenty of things that are mechanical on an EV... It's not a bloody unicorn!
Steering motor
Wiper Motors
Heater box issues
Suspension
Battery Faults (as mentioned in the video)
Ball joints, Bearings and anti-roll bars (more stress on a heavier EV with potholes these days)
Gearbox issues (the leaf has a gearbox)
General electrical issues (ECUs, Relays, shorts in lighting system etc)
Heavy tyre wear
Plus the risk of fire, hence the hike in insurance costs
If the battery degrades to the point of death, then your £1500 suddenly becomes £3500 or it's a write-off
My neighbour uses her ancient Nissan Leaf to get to her teaching job every day. She doesn't need much range as it's about a 25 mile round trip. She can nip and do some shopping on the way home and it still does it comfortably. I don't see the problem to be honest.
The problem is it's unsalable after she uses it, and goes to scrap, meaning more waste. No sane person would buy a 10yr old EV due to the range, battery death and resellability. My car is 15yr old and still has the same range, and parts are cheap.
@@Jin-Ro1. your name is misspelled
2. a 15 year old car is a polluting mess and probably cost far more to repair and keep operational than a comparable ev
3. seeing how little modern ev batteries degrade, your complaints are meaningless
@@MaticTheProto 1: I know, but Roh is taken and I don't like numbers :)
2: It may pollute a little more, but it's still perfectly usable where as an EV would be in a junk yard, and more resources mined to make another one. Disposable cars are not green, they're worse than what we have now.
@@Jin-Ro ev batteries last for ~600k km
So… about as long as most cars
@@MaticTheProto I'm talking lifespan. ICE engine can last millions of miles or decades. EV, not so.
Cheapest Leaf here is 9500€ , it makes zero sense to buy it.
You’d have to be mental to buy a used electric
The cheapest Leaf where I live is the same. That is ~8 months of wage fully saved, just to have 100kms of range + charging costs. At least I can park for free (for the time being) while I decide what to do with the 10-years-old car once no more batteries will be available or charging stations drop compatibility.
No thanks. Sticking to the 20yo ICE Ford C-Max. Plenty of parts, relatively rugged and hard to break. Only thing getting more expensive is petrol. The gap between a used electric and petrol prices? Can spend it on fuel...
@@556poor7 Yeah I don't get this video at all. Most people are only interested in an electric car if can get away with charging it once a week and preferably for free at work due to costs. These used Leafs are just not practical at all.
@@forresten Then buy a diesel. Less energy to produce than petrol and better fuel consumption and longevity.
Bought one for 9500, love it. They sell like hotcakes here in Norway.
In the U.S. 44k miles for a car to already be essentially junked is an absolute joke. That's like 2 years worth of driving when compared to our best ICE vehicles that run 300-600k miles for 15-20 years.
Even here that’s ridiculous, we don’t tend to keep cars until 600,000 miles in the uk but atleast 150k but to be fair we drive less here
You are comparing apples with screwdrivers TBH. This is a 10 year old car, its not a modern EV which as you've said will run for hundreds of thousands of miles with only mild batter degredation.
@@glowwurm9365 yet the vast majority of EV batteries have warrantees under 100k miles and the cars are totaled once they need a new battery. Try again.
That is such a massive amount of e-waste. It seems criminal that its basically junk after only 44k miles. And these things were touted as saviours of the planet? Absolute lies! All the raw material mined out of Africa and Australia to last just a few years and miles?
@@judosteffer Who thinks this is e-waste? Nissan Leaf batteries are often used in home energy storage solutions. The chassis will probably be scrapped but the battery will definitely not be scrapped unless it was faulty beyond repair (which it's not). I think you have a very misconstrued understanding. Modern EVs last for 100ks of miles and become carbon neutral after only 20k miles if charged from green sources. Even with only 44k miles, this car is more carbon friendly than any ICE vehicle of a similar age. Not saving the planet by any means, but if humans demand the need for personal cars, then it's certainly much better than the alternative. Of course walking/cycling/public transport is far more carbon efficient.
I think the takeaway here is how quickly EV batteries have advanced in 10 years. When you think this car didn't start with much range, has much older battery tech, old battery management system and as far as I am aware it is a passively cooled battery. I'll be curious how current EVs fair in a decade.
I think though if you have a new driver or someone who only drives to the shops or local friends, £1500 with dirt cheap servicing and £3.50 to fully charge to do 50-60odd miles, it's not as bad as you'd think
Stuff like this is what drives me insane about all the naysayers tearing in to EVs declaring they are all fatally flawed and will never work. Of course you'll never match a century of development and infrastructure. But just look at how far things have come in ten years, hell their are premium cars less than 5 years old that are being left well behind because of how fast the technology is moving. E.g. The Jaguar I-pace, a perfectly solid and usable car yet left in the dirt by a steadily lengthening list of newer (and often cheaper) cars.
@@Jarrik32 I agree, technology advancement in cars is accelerating at pace. Not to pick on the I-Pace but the issue for that car is reliability often nothing to do with the battery, like weak windscreen seals and onboard electrics like tailgate issues, software recalls dont help either mind..but people tear into the EV's due to these issues, again nothing to do with the actual battery, more level of build quality..
Yeah advanced to the point where 100k evs could maybe do about 250 miles between charges, woopdedoo, I can drive to the other side of Europe in my 320d
@user-fm3pw4jk2x. I run small 1.5 diesels, average mpg 60.
I would get a full EV but the distances needed by me would make it unviable
Costs me only slightly more than that to do 100ish km combined city/country (i live semi rural and have a 60km commute to the city each day) in my kia cerato GT... a 200+bhp midsized saloon that seats 5 and has a huge boot.
And i can go a other 600+km before needing to take what? 3-5 minutes to 'recharge'.
And itll do that range regardless of weather.
Mum has a 2018 holden astra saloon (err...vauxhall something or other in uk. 1.4 turbo)
It does 3.4l/100 hughway cycle. I drove it from sydney to melbourne on ONE tank. Piss easy. Tell me your ev can do that. 900km without stopping. Whisper quiet too. Like an ev.
And my kias tank doesnt get smaller every year...if i service it ( yes i service it) itll last 300,000+km
It wont burn thru tyres like an ev either.
I hope the point of repairability of the battery comes more into focus during tests.
With new ev cars, it's really difficult to find out how complicated a repair would be.
Hyundai Canada just tell you to scrap the car and buy another (and that is on the Ioniq 5).
There are Tesla tear downs on TH-cam. Their battery packs are easily replaced (if you have the right equipment) with a couple of hours work (and a spare ten thousand if you have more than 100,000 miles on the car (otherwise it is a warranty repair)).
@@allangibson8494 oh and you know.. a $15000 lift 😂
@@6Sparx9 Tesla are currently just charging $10,000 (with recent price drops on battery packs) for a 60kWh pack (installed)…
@@allangibson8494 given that 60kwh Tesla's are more or less unheard of, that means it's actually $12,500 for the 75 and $14,200 for the 85 (assuming linear pricing, which makes sense since fitting a 60, 75, 85, 90, or 100 battery is basically the same as a process). Which basically means the new battery costs the same as the car itself - so it's functionally a write-off.
Love the Leaf. I've got a 2014 24kWh with 80k on the clock and it still on full SOH, and will do 80 miles on a warm day, can carry 4 people and a decent amount of luggage and it's very comfortable. Cheap motoring if you don't need the range or if you have the luxury of it being a second car.
People justify these things as if they are ancient cars - it's only 10 years old 😂. An ICE of the same age has no compromise on using as 'just a local commuter'.
But then an ice car costs £1000s in fuel, £100s in servicing and kills people with asthma. But hey, why compromise?
@@noggintube A 10 year old car costs much more to run as a "local commuter".
@@Stubbari re-read my post. I'm saying it doesn't have the compromise of solely being used as a local commuter. It can do everything needed, whereas a 10 year leaf is pretty much stuck as a local car. I agree that's ok if all that's needed, but it's an expensive item to do just that.
@@noggintube Ah, I totally misinterpreted what you were saying.
Usualy, the older models BMS gets lost and goes fast to 0, but then drives for the the rest of the missing range. I had exactly the same with my Renault Zoe, I had to empty it until full stop and then recharfe to full, reset the BMS and the problem was fixed.
Great video, i loved my old 24kWh leaf. I bought it used and sold 1 year later for a profit. Cheapest vehicle i ever owned and ran.
2 years ago I paid £100,000 for a Rolls Royce Ghost. I sold it a year later for exactly the same that I paid for it.
@@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne bet your running costs were way higher.
@@jocramkrispy305 ..as was the ownership experience...
@@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne I remember throwing up in the back of My dad's Lotus.
5 decades later he's not forgiven me for that depreciation...
Actually, you probably want the variant with the leased battery. That way when it dies Nissan have to change it out and lease you a brand new battery with brand new range expectations
Really?
@@Kraven83 Yes. If you're leasing something then you don't own it. If that thing stops working then it has to be replaced because they cannot lease you something that doesn't work.
But you pay £1200 @ year . I'm sure there are companies out there that will repair your battery back to 100% for close to that.
@cwwiss1 there are people that pay 1200 per month for an outrageous mid car. Granted, since someone like me can afford a 1500 car and get a 1200 lease battery for a year, that's not really bad.
@@cwwiss1 Bwahahaha... Put down the bong!! Think about it, they're not making the 24Kw/h batteries anymore so they're going to be forced to replace it with the newer bigger battery which we know from the video is thousands of pounds second hand. 100/month to ensure you always have a viable battery is actually a really good deal.
11:03 CD? WoW that's an incredible extra luxury that modern cars don't have anymore. I ❤ it
There's no soul in SD card players. No skipping when you hit a pothole, no swapping disks tucked into the sunvisor
I had a 2015 leaf for 6 years, was super reliable, and took me to work and back for free. When i got hit and totalled, i got more than i paid for it. Just had to make sure i didnt forget to plug it in.
Awesome video. Now can you do another similar one with the Zoe? The difference is that the Leaf is among the very few cars with no battery cooling whatsoever (Zoe has air cooling) which in theory has been an engineering tragedy because it needlessly aggravates battery degradation. So with a similarily old Zoe we should in theory see much better battery condition. Would be very interested in seeing something like that. Cheers.
It's a shame the original leaf had no battery thermal management and a battery chemistry that was barely up for the job.
How times have changed.
Same with milk floats, battery much improved now
Indeed but i know for a fact that you can upgrade it to a more modern battery, one that lasts longer (finally has termal management), and goes way far, and still for less than buying a new equivalent EV. But still, imo for that to be worth it the rest of the car would have to be spotless...
@@markgt894
I used to drive milk floats, loved them.
@@Argoon1981it is a great car, and with a good battery it is a good city car.
The batteries have improved massively and from 2017 ISH they are extremely capable of doing 250,000 miles while still retaining 80% of range.
The incoming battery technology is a game changer, and the future looks awesome.
There's a reason the orignal Leafs are still on the road in everyday use. Even new chargepoints still carry Chademo because there are so many Leafs on the road that were supposed to have conked out years ago. Don't believe everything Jeremy Clarkson says. 10+ year-old Leafs still have between 75% and 95% battery capacity unless they have been severely mishandled. The battery chemistry actually worked better than even Nissan predicted.
Super informative video..
Always wanted to know how it would be to own an old EV..
Grand job Mat and the crew..
❤
This is worst case scenario. Newer EVs are much better to buy used and their batteries last much longer
I had my original 31kw Leaf from 2016 until last month after it was deemed total loss by my insurance company after a small debt on the side.
And what did I do with the money that the insurance paid me, do you ask?? Well... I bought another leaf from the exact same year with the battery still with 12 dots as mine had.
I'm been extremely happy with leaf over the year, and I hope I will continue with this "new" one.
I never spent a penny with the previous leaf after all these years. I have always charged at work and I haven't done service since 2017 at all. Never had to buy anything apart from tires
Losing 30% with just 45000miles is an awful lot of degradation, actually. My tesla has now 62000km and just 5% loss.
Totally different batteries I think.
Only shows how far battery tech has come in ten years, it's even taken a quick hop these last five years, with VW battery packs now really focussing on longevity and only losing 1-2% in 10 year sims. Recycling batteries is all fine and dandy, but even better is to not have to, right?
Tesla is best foe EV thats why
its an 11 year car, i bet your tesla isnt 11 years old
Battery management on older Leafs isn’t great.
I am driving a 25 year old four litre intech Ford. It still has them same range as it did 318,000 km ago.
The best use case scenario I've seen for used EV with battery depreciation is as gifts for your children as their first car.
#1 These things are heavy and offer more protection from many impact angles. Low center of gravity means they ain't flipping.
#2 Your kid doesn't need much range to get to and from home and college.
#3 You can track their energy usage closer.
#4 There isn't much space in these little cars for your daughter to get pregnant.
they manage it in an original mini, this is a Hilton by comparisson
Does it still cost the same to charge it to fully charge it. Even though it cannot store that charge anymore.
No. It charges at a ratio to what the battery will take. Mine had 3 bars when I sold it and a range of 39kms... It took about 3 hours to charge when empty and I guessed it had about 5 kwh of battery remaining based on 2 kWh charging and slow down when nearly full. So cost is much cheaper as a good battery would take many more hours from zero, but you basically have no range. If you used the A/C then you would kill it super quick!!! I still enjoyed it and had it a year and sold it for €3000, same as what I paid for it ..
It's quite satisfying to see that, despite your initial doubts, the LEAF has managed to pleasantly surprise you in many ways. I've owned one for the past year, and I can honestly say it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. Now with an EV charger at my home, it's incredibly convenient too. The car performs well and is equipped with several luxuries, including a heated steering wheel and heated seats both in the front and back. It's a truly remarkable vehicle. I believe it's the most reliable car I will ever own, and it still drives like new after 50,000 miles.
Head over to Geoff buys cars where one Renault owner was quoted £11,000 to fix the heater and another £9000 to fix the charger.
Really? Geoff Buys Cars is a rabid EV hater so I believe nothing he says.
Think he was referring to “The Graun” which tells you everything you need to know- bunch of 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
"Older EVs will help people!" HOW lmao, the older they get, the more the batteries degrade, then you pay as much as the car for the new battery. Not to mention as Lithium batteries break down they get dangerous AF
Have had one of these for 9 years. Still get exactly the same milage as I did when it was new. Wife drives it on ECO mode all the time and gets 5.1m/kwh. Use 3 pin socket to charge it. Only thing I’vehad to replace is the 12v battery. Never been serviced. Great car.
In 2019, I bought a 2013 Nissan Leaf with a bit over 30,000 km on the odometer. It initially had 11 bars of battery health, which decreased to 10 bars by the time I sold it. I drove it for 1.5 years, covering approximately 10,000 km. During the summer, it offered a range of 100-120 km, while in winter, the range dropped to 80 km. Unfortunately, in Germany, the purchase price was 10,000 Euros, and I sold it for 6,700 Euros. Nonetheless, it served me well for my daily round trip of 28 km to work, and I could easily charge it using a standard Schuko plug in my garage. I appreciated the ability to schedule preheating for every day of the week, and the rear camera proved to be very useful. Additionally, I utilized LeafSpy for monitoring purposes. Overall, it was a great car, but I decided to switch to a Tesla Model 3 Performance in 2021. 🙂
Perfect London runabout, as long as you can charge at home. Probably get more miles out of it in city only driving, too.
About time we had another of these bad boys
This old EV, with old tech, no battery management like today, used, is still going. Sure it only ever had a small battery, what exactly would you expect?
It's good to know how these hold up over time, so thank you for running this test
Nissan Leak
The stats for those early Leafs was 73miles/ 117km when it was new. That 124 miles is probably later bigger battery model.
Thank you, I thought I was losing my mind and had to check the stats again. So that makes his range loss really quite impressive.
@@davidziegenhorn6913 "So that makes his range loss really quite impressive." ... as opposed to his actual remaining range which is not impressive at all
That was an early leaf, probably a 2012 or 13. What you don't mention is that you do not drive the car until you run out of energy. The effective range of that car without further damaging the battery is about 20 miles between charges. I owned a 2015, and had 90 percent battery after 90K miles. The early ones were not good with the batteries.
I've owned this car for several years, that was bought in 2021 for 4k€. It was updated AZE0 version with Heat pump and bigger trunk, SOH was 82%.
And it was the best city car for me ever. Also the highest trim and white interior. I miss it so much.
I do like the earlier versions coloured trim. Charcoal interiors, as most cars have, does not give as much driving pleasure of ownership.
It’s pretty much nonsense - my car has done 200,000 miles and still has a range of 600 miles per tank
What sort of amazing technology does your car have? 😂
You should drive in bad weather conditions, frosty or windy day...
You'll be lucky to find a 2014 Leaf here in Sweden with 50% capacity, the cold is REALLY hard on the battery.
Does fin in -25°C and heavy snow
9 bars out of 12 bars = 3/4 capacity of 72 miles = 54 miles so no surprises here !!!!!!
From someone who is programming Battery Management Systems for a living:
On a cheap EV, I would suspect a short development time for State Of Charge and State Of Health calculations. Getting this stuff right is not easy, so the computer repeatedly makes wrong guesses and (luckily) corrects itself after it has noticed that the previous guess was wrong.
Cell age affects a few important characteristics of the cells, making predictions very difficult.
And then you have the dendrite formation, a real battery killer.
Lost mine in an RTA, best thing that could of happened tbh as the battery was knackered! Gone back to petrol, never plan on buying an ev again.
EVs are a fad, during covid I would say at least 40% of the cars I saw on the road were an EV and now I see 1 EV for ever 50 or 60 cars with the early 2000s and 90s cars making up at least 50%.
Excellent, very interesting and informative
I drive a 64 reg Leaf (original 24kWh) had it for 8 years, it has done over 70k miles and on switch in the morning it still has 72miles. Note that if you use the high power chargers I have been told that they damage the range maybe that's what had happened here. The range change may be due to the regeneration. Maybe you could check the truth of that idea (range damaged by high power chargers)
The Leaf is notorious for their battery health since it is not actually actively cooled so they don't last very long
There’s not much evidence that lack of active cooling is the issue compared to simply the battery chemistry. Leafs in very moderate climates that hardly get hot show similar degradation.
The original source of that was from Arizona where people were charging them to 100% and leaving them at that level in +50c heat. Nowhere near such issues if the battery is kept in the 20-80% range and in the milder UK climate.
My 2015 Leaf has done over 93,000 miles and still going strong after 8 years of ownership. The problems with the battery are greatly exaggerated even by people who should know better. My car battery has actually cooled down while charging when there's been a breeze passing under the car. This has even happened on my 890 mile two day road trip to Edinburgh and back when I did eight consecutive charges on the way up and eight more on the way back. Despite all the negative rumours the battery did not overheat and the Leaf charged as normal every time. The battery warranty runs out in a few months and the Leaf is in no danger of breaking it. The battery is still safely above the 70% warranty level. And mine is not nearly the healthiest battery in a Leaf of this age.
11 years seems good to me. most people get range anxiety on their iPhones after three years
My old 22KW Zoe is about 10 years old, according canZE software I still have 5% unused capacity before real world capacity decrease from 100% (you can see each battery cell and a ton of other data using free canZE for android software written by users).
It drives to the Hague and back 2 days a week, which is equal to its advertised range with the eco button pressed.
Not bad considering everyone told me the battery would die in a year 😂 Also still on its first brake pads, they only get used if I stop really hard. Which I don't... It's a great town car, not a touring car obviously 😅
Sounds good, but you should definitely change those brakes, most brands only have a recommended shelf life of 5yrs
@@kie1878 Good point thanks
Literally a time lag of Autotrader. Great copy of Rory.
I broke down in Fort William in Scotland some yrs ago. and managed to stop in a supermarket car park. Rang the recovery, Britannia ,and to my surprise ,the recovery truck was there before we could drink the coffees we bought.Now beat that.
59miles range after 44k miles ??!!! The previous owner must have been absolutely trashing the battery.
The battery is 10 years old so it's normal for a battery to lose capacity over that time. Only way to keep capacity would be to never use the car and keep it topped up.
@@4TheRecord point taken about the age, although even at 10yrs I wouldn't expect quite such bad degradation with that mileage. Keeping the car unused with full battery is specifically warned against in the manual, where it mentions something like if you have to leave it, ensure it's between 20 and 80% charge. Full discharge and max charge is known to be worse for the battery than maintaining moderate charge.
Remember, a battery is an array of cells. Depending on how they're wired up within the pack (in parallel or in series, likely a mix) you're probably looking at one bad cell spoiling a group. A skilled electrical engineer with time on his hands could probably diagnose the fault and swap out just a few cells. Any EV is going to benefit from this every few years.
How on Earth did u get a 44k miles Leaf for 1500??
He used carwow
@@GodMoodAz49 😅
You can buy Tesla's now in the teens so 1500 seems about right for a glorified golf cart with no battery cooling.
We've got a 2013 Smart ForTwo ED. Has about the same range. It gets charged to 100% every night (just like you are NOT supposed to) and is used for local journeys which it is ideal for. Costs pennies to run (about 2p a mile). Flies through the MOT each year and the last MAJOR service was £80 - it's on variable mileage servicing, so that was for almost two years. Low cost insurance.
Not every EV needs 200+ mile range.
Our other car is a VW ID.3 and that is the one we use for longer journeys.
Sadly, that "generous" subsidy has been phased out. When you consider an ev costs at least £10.000 more than a petrol or diesel car, and the grant to buy has been reduced to a pitiful amount. It really isn't worth a private buyer making the changes. The trade in's on ev's, plus the battery degradation and cost to replace, really means that after a few years they are worth nothing. 😢
Putting 3 windows down and up = 15 miles less range 😊😊
A used Nissan Leaf is useful as its cheap but I suggest you keep portable solar panels to charge your Nissan Leaf.
It's also a major factor that it's in England. You basically don't have winter or minus temperature there.
yes we do.....
I purchased my 2018 BMW I3 which was returned at end of lease. I bought it for 70% off MSRP and it's been flawless, after 105,086 miles (169,493 km) the HV battery has lost about 5% of its original capacity.
Good to hear. There is such a lot of misinformation promoted on social media - 😞. When our eNiro goes back at the end of its 4 year lease it will still be doing over 250 miles and would be a bargain for whoever buys it.
One thing is it will also never rust or get dinged :-) A good buy.