Another "I'm thinking about a Leaf" thread.

Toyotafanboi

I'll shortly have my Civic 3 years and it's been excellent to me in fairness but I'd be somewhat interested in changing it. What i think i'd like is for people to poke holes in my theory, or to at least answer a few of my questions.

I bought the Honda 3 years ago with a personal loan, and would be buying with either a personal loan again or some sort of dealer finance option. I have a commute of 140km per day (70km each way, 95% motorway) and can charge at work.

My average monthly running costs for the Honda is €675 (using slightly rounded figures), they have been €265 (loan), €60 (road tax) and €350 (petrol), maintenance has been minimal really and i'd expect the Leaf to be similar and insurance is too much of a movable feast to quantify but I would expect it to go down when moving from an 11 year old 1.8 Honda.

Taking an example I seen online. A 2015 24kwh Leaf, from a Nissan dealer priced @ €14995, ideally between my Civic and a bit of a haggle i'd be looking to finance €12995 personal loan or possibly less if i can pay some cash deposit and dealer has good finance rate. Lets go with a personal loan scenario of €12995 @ 8.95% APR (AIB personal loan) which works out at €320.00 per month for 48 months. With my commute I would need to charge the car at home daily (and also at work but that's be free), so say 6x home charges a week, so that's 24(kwh)x 0.18(c/kwh)x 6(days)x 4(weeks) so that's €105 per month in fuel and road tax of of €10 per month. or a total running cost of €435 per month.

That is a saving of €240 per month?

Knowing relatively little about Leafs' or EV's in general.

Would a 3 year old 24kw leaf be up to the task of a 140km daily commute for another 4x years with 2x daily charges?

What is the long term battery life like on these cars?

Are there any reliability issues or known faults to be aware of?

What manufacturer warranty (if any) would be remaining on a 2015 ish car bought privately and what warranty could be expected if buying from a Nissan dealer?

What is the cost of installing a charger at my house?

Is there any other cars I should be looking at?

Am I miles out with all this?

unkel

With your commute you will save a lot of money with an EV. A Leaf is very reliable, the only known issue is the rear axle (torsion beam), which would cost a few hundred to fix. Not the end of the world

You will get a EUR600 subsidy for installing a charge point at your home (you have a driveway?) which will more or less fully pay for one

The long term battery life of the Leaf battery - it will degrade, but slowly so. The battery will still be fine for your commute in several years time, provided you charge the car at home and in work. There will be no general manufacturer warranty left on a 2015 Leaf, but it will have 2 year battery warranty left (out of the original 5 years)

There aren't any other EVs to look at within your budget except importing a BMW i3 from the UK. Seriously fun car if you don't need to carry more than 4 people! A budget of 15 grand would nearly get you a 30kWh Leaf though, which will have some manufacturers warranty left and they also came with an 8 year battery warranty

KCross

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

I have a commute of 140km per day (70km each way, 95% motorway) and can charge at work.

I think you should be looking at a 30kWh Leaf (161 or later) since you are 95% motorway.

Do you travel at full motorway speed and then some or are you more a shooting the breeze kind of guy?

If you do that 70km at 120km/h+ then I think you need a 30kWh Leaf to give you some buffer. Even simple things like a road diversion could push you tight on range in a 24kWh Leaf at that speed in winter with rain, wind, lights on etc.

If you are happy to travel at 100km/h then you will be fine with a 24kWh.


Also, with the work charge point... important questions you need answered....
- will you have guaranteed access to the charge point for the entire day?
- Is it a 16A or 32A charge point?
- If the charge point is 32A and if you need to share it with others you need to consider getting a Leaf with the 6.6kW charger so that you can charge the car in <4hrs as opposed to 8hrs which will be no use to you as it will only give you a 50% charge over 4hrs.

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

My average monthly running costs for the Honda is €675 (using slightly rounded figures), they have been €265 (loan), €60 (road tax) and €350 (petrol), maintenance has been minimal really and i'd expect the Leaf to be similar and insurance is too much of a movable feast to quantify but I would expect it to go down when moving from an 11 year old 1.8 Honda.

The cost of fuel should go down by 80% and probably more like 90% since you have free work charging particularly if you are clever about how you charge the car at home (i.e. not to 100%- requires 30kWh Leaf though)!

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Taking an example I seen online. A 2015 24kwh Leaf, from a Nissan dealer priced @ €14995, ideally between my Civic and a bit of a haggle i'd be looking to finance €12995 personal loan or possibly less if i can pay some cash deposit and dealer has good finance rate. Lets go with a personal loan scenario of €12995 @ 8.95% APR (AIB personal loan) which works out at €320.00 per month for 48 months. With my commute I would need to charge the car at home daily (and also at work but that's be free), so say 6x home charges a week, so that's 24(kwh)x 0.18(c/kwh)x 6(days)x 4(weeks) so that's €105 per month in fuel and road tax of of €10 per month. or a total running cost of €435 per month.

That is a saving of €240 per month?

You're fuel savings will be way more than that. For a start you will get a night rate meter at home which gives you a night rate of about 8c/kWh.
What is your total weekly km's?
What l/100km is the Honda giving you? We can work out the exact savings on fuel then


If you are willing to spend €15k you should be able to pickup a 30kWh Leaf for that money but you will probably need to go to the UK for it. Thats defintiely worth doing in your case. You have high mileage so the savings are significant.

Do you go through any tolls? There are reduced tolls for EV's too so maybe factor that into your costs.

Orebro

I'd agree with the advice above. As a L24 driver I wouldn't get one for that sort of commute even with work charging, I'd push for a L30.

unkel

And if you are going to spend over EUR15k it would nearly be a good idea considering an Ioniq. More again, the cheapest ones are just under GBP20k, but a vastly superior car to the Leaf with a range of over 200km and likely to keep its value much better.

Shefwedfan

Move to night meter as suggested, this will lower your electricity costs.
Home charger you will get the grant so expect to pay another 400-500 on top of that. This could lower but better to keep up till you

I guess you are planning now to swap in Jan/Feb of next year? So really a Gen 1 eGolf will probably come into the price bracket. Far nicer drive to a Leaf. As unkel mentioned you won't go far wrong with Ioniq but it will be more expensive. The Golf from my personal point of view is a better drive to the Ioniq.

i3 is an option but it is a love it or hate it car.

You loan rate is farily sh*t. Look at KBC for better rates. If going Leaf as mentioned you probably need to start at the 30kWh

Toyotafanboi

Interesting thoughts guys, thanks. Ideally, yeah I'm looking now with a view to changing in the next couple of months, but would change in the morning if the right car/ deal came along. It's the longest I've ever owned a car with the Civic and I was going to sell it privately and buy something bangernomics wise just for a change of scenery but the whole EV thing sounds appealing.

The lifelong fuel consumption from my Honda is 6.4l/100km. which isn't bad for what it is IMO, don't go through tolls etc. The 30kw Leaf does sound like a more attractive proposition to be fair with the additional range and the longer battery warranty, they seem to be just on the wrong side of my price threshold though. I'd be thinking €15k absolute maximum as even though my monthly outgoings would drop it's still a fair bit of debt to be taking on, so maybe waiting another few months for 2019 to come around might see a few appearing on the right side of that figure. I do like to do the motorway speed limit at every possibility, I think i'd struggle sitting @ 100kmh etc to try and conserve energy.

Buying in the UK wouldn't be for me for a number of reasons, be it right or wrong i'd be happier going through an Irish dealer. The i3 is a bit quirky for me I think but an e-Golf might be a runner alright. The Ioniq is a seriously appealing car too but financially it's a bit out of reach.

KCross

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

The lifelong fuel consumption from my Honda is 6.4l/100km. which isn't bad for what it is IMO, don't go through tolls etc.

I dont know what your weekend mileage is so I'll assume the 140km x 6 days and another 100km to cover Sunday and evening messing about.... so 940km per week and probably a reasonable assumption you do that 48 weeks a year so ~45k km's per year so thats 2880 litres of petrol paying ~1.48c/l so thats €4262

For the EV.... lets say 20kWh/100km since you will be on the motorway so your efficiency will be low in a Leaf and there will be charging losses as well.... so thats 9000kWh's @ 8c so ~€730 for the year.

Thats €3500 in fuel savings per year!!!!

It gets even better when you have free work charging. If you can shift 60% of the €730 to the work charger you now have a close to €4k saving each year and thats just fuel not to mind tax and servicing!!!!

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

The 30kw Leaf does sound like a more attractive proposition to be fair with the additional range and the longer battery warranty, they seem to be just on the wrong side of my price threshold though. I'd be thinking €15k absolute maximum as even though my monthly outgoings would drop it's still a fair bit of debt to be taking on

Well, debt up front or ongoing diesel bill... its all much the same isnt it unless you are worried about losing your job or something. But it is a personal decision as to what you are comfortable with, so I respect that.

But do consider the €4k fuel savings each year.... surely its worth stumping up an extra grand or two in loan now to tap that savings every year from here on!?

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Buying in the UK wouldn't be for me for a number of reasons, be it right or wrong i'd be happier going through an Irish dealer. The i3 is a bit quirky for me I think but an e-Golf might be a runner alright. The Ioniq is a seriously appealing car too but financially it's a bit out of reach.

You will struggle to get a 161 30kWh Leaf at your price point from a main dealer.

There are some independent EV specialist dealers who will source from the UK for you.... electricautos is well known. Might be worth dropping him an email and see what he comes back with.

ewj1978

L30 SVE €16.5k :https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/161-nissan-leaf-sve-30kwh/20012333 (not promoting these guys, but this is actually my old car)

Shefwedfan

Have you driven a Leaf?

Shefwedfan

Ok, one thing to note as well. I use the electric car everyday and most days it can be anywhere between 0-50% full. At the moment mostly on the 0-20% side. My electricity bill before car was 80-100 per month level pay. I am now on 120-130 per month on level pay and another adult was added to the house. So really a 20-30 jump with charging the car everyday. I would say you could count a 10 for the additional adult but take that would for the moment.

What I have done is changed my routine. So I was 90% day rate on 24 hour meter. Now I am 50/50. So washing machines/dish washers etc are all run at night rate.

So if you have white good with timers on them then your sorted :-) not really about the car but something worth noting

DrPhilG

unkel wrote: »

it would nearly be a good idea considering an Ioniq.

Shefwedfan wrote: »

So really a Gen 1 eGolf will probably come into the price bracket.

Ah lads youz are legends. Nothing if not predictable. Don't worry, I'm not about to recommend an i3.

OP, 30kwh Leaf sounds like your best bet. Speak to Phil in Electric Autos and see what he can source for you. And I know you're reluctant to stretch the budget but you really are looking at huge savings per year. You won't be long shifting that debt.

unkel

DrPhilG wrote: »

Ah lads youz are legends. Nothing if not predictable.

Will you read the thread properly? I recommended a Leaf (and an i3) first. And imho it is not wise to spend over €15k on a Leaf as for a few grand more you'd have an Ioniq which is a superior car in that is is quicker, has more range, faster charging and is likely to depreciate less than a >€15k Leaf. But if the budget is strictly €15k or less, that's not an option.

DrPhilG

unkel wrote: »

Will you read the thread properly?

Twas light hearted, relax.