Nissan Leaf: 4 year experience and depreciation

Rafal

Our 161 30 kWh Nissan Leaf was the best car my husband and I have ever owned (Renaults, Fiats, VWs, Prius) in every way I can think. My other “car” has always been a bike, by the way (CBRs and GSX-Rs). The Leaf has never caused any problems, never run dry—though arrived at a few destinations with 1-3% charge left, while planning for 5-8%... Comfy, more than excellent acceleration for a day-to-day car, plenty big inside, tons of storage, reasonably quiet. In-car software totally ****e.

The biggest surprise, however, was the cost of ownership.

Bought as new: 30 kWh Leaf SVE tricked up with 6,6 kW charger, folding mirrors and parking sensors in Jan 2016 for €33.5k before the SEAI grant, so 28.5k after the grant.

Sold it yesterday for €19800 with 80,000 km, battery still showing all the segments on the dash, and LeafSpy reporting 91% SoH.

Petrol would have cost 7k for this mileage. About 40% of the charging was at home, on night-time prices, and we drove at an average of 181 WH/km. This means home electricity cost us €460, and we did not pay more than €50 in total on away electricity costs—I realise free electricity days may be over.

Maintenance was cheap: Nissan gave us 3 years free servicing. Paid for replacement of a lost set of keys €120, wipers €130, washer liquid, cleaning products and waxes at €200. We did a ceramic coat on it immediately after the purchase at €500—unsure if it made a difference, but washing was easier in the first year.

Toll savings were about €300.

Adding it all up, and including the €5k grant, and petrol savings, but excluding motor tax and insurance it means the brand new Leaf cost us €2700 in total, or €675/year to to own. Pretty amazing, and entirely surprising to me. I expected it would cost much more.

Without including petrol savings, ie. assuming an EV-to-EV comparisons, as I will be doing going forward, and adding insurance and tax, the cost was €12k, so €3k/year.

I miss our Leaf a bit—but the brand new M3 will make longer journeys so much easier and nicer. Also, I don’t think I could stand the Nissan software for a day longer..

Final two thoughts: getting the 6.6 kW on-board charger was essential to a good few longer journeys, and nice to have on many occasions. Having a tethered Type 1 home charger was very convenient, and relatively inexpensive to recable for Type 2 for the M3.

JPA

I don't know how you got that much for it.

Gumbo

JPA wrote: »

I don't know how you got that much for it.

Tesla paid out 20k for a 161 30 KWh trade in this week to a new M3 buyer.

slave1

I'm amazed you got that amount for that car, that's a good €3k-€4k more than you can get a Tekna with lower mileage and garage warranty right now on DoneDeal.

Does not make any sense you got that much cash for it.

slave1

kceire wrote: »

Tesla paid out 20k for a 161 30 KWh trade in this week to a new M3 buyer.

That's not a sale, that's a trade in, big difference between getting €20k trade in and €20k sale (cash)

Mickeroo

slave1 wrote: »

That's not a sale, that's a trade in, big difference between getting €20k trade in and €20k sale (cash)

Don't you usually get less for a trade in than a private sale though?

slave1

Mickeroo wrote: »

Don't you usually get less for a trade in than a private sale though?

Not always, good few years back I was give 2.5k for my Megane trade in when I could only get 1.5k for it in private sale, depends on motivation of garage wanting to make sale.

Anyhow, my point is I can't believe that car was sold for €19,800

KCross

slave1 wrote: »

Anyhow, my point is I can't believe that car was sold for €19,800

I'd agree its a ridiculously good trade-in price but I wonder do Tesla offer better trade-in prices for BEV's... because they're BEV's!?

KCross

Rafal wrote: »

Final two thoughts: getting the 6.6 kW on-board charger was essential to a good few longer journeys, and nice to have on many occasions. Having a tethered Type 1 home charger was very convenient, and relatively inexpensive to recable for Type 2 for the M3.

I remember your install. It was one of the snazziest one's I've seen on here!

Did the Rolec give you any trouble at all?
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98134825&postcount=5


Were you simply able to swap that Type 1 cable to a type 2 and everything else just worked? No need to change the internal controller, for example?

Gumbo

slave1 wrote: »

That's not a sale, that's a trade in, big difference between getting €20k trade in and €20k sale (cash)

Well aware of that, i've probably bought and sold more cars than anyone else on this forum, including unkel

Usually we have to fact in cost to change, ignore the headline trade in price etc but this was Tesla, RRP is fixed so a trade in of 20k was fantastic.

Did the OP sell privately?

unkel

Rafal wrote: »

Sold it yesterday for €19800 with 80,000 km

How on earth did you manage that? :eek:

Gumbo

I met this guy at a charger this morning. Said he bought a Leaf for €19,800 yesterday. Has to be the same car. He said he was happy with it.

KCross

unkel wrote: »

How on earth did you manage that? :eek:

It was a Tesla trade-in against a new Model 3. My guess is that Tesla give better trade-in values if its a BEV.

slave1

Fek, going off to do some maths now because of that.....I'd surely get €21k, a 162 with less mileage (haven't checked SOH in a while)

Soarer

Tesla might give me 10k on my 2011 8 bar!

Gumbo

I’ve already submitted my trade request for the i3.

unkel

KCross wrote: »

It was a Tesla trade-in against a new Model 3.

Would explain the high value if it was a trade in for any other car, but not Tesla. Tesla don't do trade ins. If you want to get rid of your car while buying a Tesla, they will ring a few of their trade contacts and give the highest figure to the buyer. This is trade value and at least a good 10% below private sale value

KCross wrote: »

My guess is that Tesla give better trade-in values if its a BEV.

It's a better guess than anything I can think off

But why on earth would Tesla do that, it makes no business sense. They don't have to offer more because it's a BEV. It's bad for business so it should be the opposite of what Tesla should do.

unkel

Soarer wrote: »

Tesla might give me 10k on my 2011 8 bar!

kceire wrote: »

I’ve already submitted my trade request for the i3.

Maybe I can afford a brand new Model S after all, if Tesla are giving me €35k for my Ioniq :pac:

gpk

Traded in our 32kWh Leaf for a Niro PHEV in Sept 2019.

Loved the Leaf but didn't love the progress of the charging infrastructure.

Worked out that it cost us €53 per week.

KCross

unkel wrote: »

It's a better guess than anything I can think off

Or its a mistake... realistically the car is only worth about €14k... its a big step up to €20k so it does sound too good to be true tbh.

drunkmonkey

KCross wrote: »

Or its a mistake... realistically the car is only worth about €14k... its a big step up to €20k so it does sound too good to be true tbh.

Hold up, this is Tesla, how much confusion has there being over even the price of the Model 3. The cost to change is what we really need to know, how much cash did he have to lump up?

Gumbo

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Hold up, this is Tesla, how much confusion has there being over even the price of the Model 3. The cost to change is what we really need to know, how much cash did he have to lump up?

Website price minus €19,800. Simple as there’s no haggling with Tesla like a traditional car purchase.

unkel

drunkmonkey wrote: »

The cost to change is what we really need to know, how much cash did he have to lump up?

Doesn't work like that in Tesla. Buying the new Tesla and "trading in" your old car are two separate transactions in the view of Tesla. You buy their car (for full asking price), grand. If you really want Tesla to get rid of your old car, then they will make a few phone calls to traders

Normally you'd lose out big time, it's only really suitable for people who have plenty of money (and little time) who don't want to be dealing with selling their car (and don't mind missing out on several thousand quid)

In the case of the OP, it is just extraordinary what happened here. So fair play OP, have you any more details of exactly what happened?

Lumen

If I want to get rid of a car quick I just take it to auction.

Amazing what people will pay for absolute ****e at auction.

drunkmonkey

kceire wrote: »

Website price minus €19,800. Simple as there’s no haggling with Tesla like a traditional car purchase.

Yea but which figure on the website, how many people have asked how much is the car in the model 3 thread, my Mrs asked how much I was spending and I sent her to the website to see the colours, a couple of minutes later she announced I wasn't to buy off these chancers. I don't think she's still figured out how much it is.

Casati

Is it this car? https://m.carzone.ie/used-cars/Nissan/Leaf-SVE-TEKNA---30KW---SAT-NAV---BLUETOOTH-STREAMING--/201910103165605

V similar car either way - dealer is looking for 16k and likely would take less than that, would assume they are buying it for maybe 13k at most - by the time they make a few quid, pay for service, maybe tyres and stick warranty on it. Tesla aren’t going to trade the car for free either so likely the most they could give would be 12k - and that’s if they are happy with only a grand for the job of buying and selling it in the trade.

V hard to believe 19800 was paid by Tesla for that car

krissovo

Tesla offered for my 172 fully loaded I3 with 30,000 km’s a similar price so it was a cracking deal as Tesla have been offering significantly less than market rate.

charlieIRL

slave1 wrote: »

Fek, going off to do some maths now because of that.....I'd surely get €21k, a 162 with less mileage (haven't checked SOH in a while)

you need to buy something different, there's 2 model 3's in town now - getting common!!!:p

Rafal

I guess it makes me feel great that the trade-in offer seems hard to believe. Anyone still on the fence about buying a Tesla—go ahead and value your trade-in on their site, you may be nicely surprised. And in any case, Tesla is an incredible car—I just realised today that when I overtake it in it, it feels more like my GSX-R than a car.

In the spirit of openness and to address several questions I attach the final invoice subtotals and the trade-in offer. As others mentioned, there is no way to discount or haggle the price of a Tesla, so the price we paid was web price less this trade-in, labelled “Settlement payment” on the invoice. It was a private purchase, by the way, not business:

From: EMEA Trade-ins <emea-tradeins@tesla.com>
Date: 4 July 2019
To: ****
Subject: Tesla | Trade-in Offer

Thank you for requesting a trade-in. Based on the information you have provided, please find our valuation of your vehicle below. Contact us HERE for any additional support.

Vehicle Information:
- Registration : 161****
- VIN : ****
- Make : Nissan
- Model : Leaf
- Current odometer : 69.000

Prepared for:

Trade-in Offer incl. VAT:
EUR 19.800,00

This trade-in offer is valid for 24 hours from the date below
4-7-2019

Trade-in date and maximum mileage:
The offer is based on trade-in within 90 days with a maximum additional mileage of 2.000km per month.

The offer would have expired 3 months later. Since Irish M3s were not available yet, we called their Dutch HQ before the expiry and the offer was very kindly extended to us till we were able to collect the M3. Mileage increased since then to 80k, which was honoured, as it was still within the rules of the offer.

All I can say is that I am rather happy with the outcome, and I think it was awfully nice of Tesla to stand by their word considering how long we waited for the new car. I wish other companies did right by their customers like Tesla did.

drunkmonkey

They gave you ten thousand for your trade in.
The car is 55k, You get 10k of grants brings it to 45k and you paid them 35k, your trade in was worth 10k.

Rafal

KCross wrote: »

I remember your install. It was one of the snazziest one's I've seen on here!

Did the Rolec give you any trouble at all?
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98134825&postcount=5


Were you simply able to swap that Type 1 cable to a type 2 and everything else just worked? No need to change the internal controller, for example?

Thanks! I should post with new pictures the updated version of the charger. Quick answer is that yes, it was as easy as replacing the Type 1 plug with Type 2 plug. A longer version is that I replaced with a Tesla RF-enabled plug, which means the plug has a button that makes M3 open its charge port. I got it from here: https://www.evchargeking.com/en/tesla-connector-kit-32a-crimped

It requires professional crimping of the terminals to the cable, but the electrician (Nigel Daly) was perfectly able to do that. It works very well!

On the question of the Rolec itself, I’d say it was OK, but not perfect. In the 4 years I had it it developed 3 issues. Early on, it started interrupting the charge. This was fixed with a new MCB. Later, the nice terracota fascia developed a small crack on top/front, which grew over a year. This was replaced with a new fascia. Finally, the domestic 3-pin socket stopped accepting plugs (“safety” live/neutral shutters would not open even when earth plug was being inserted). Overall, I’d say sub-par, but the main function of it, charging the Leaf has been excellent. Seems as good with the M3.

Rafal

drunkmonkey wrote: »

They gave you ten thousand for your trade in.
The car is 55k, You get 10k of grants brings it to 45k and you paid them 35k, your trade in was worth 10k.

I am not sure I follow you on this. The price of the LR AWD M3 was, and still is, 58,970 including VRT (at BEV rates) and full VAT. The SEAI grant was 5000. The trade-in was 19,800. That left the 35,610 which was paid by bank transfer.

I fail to understand what do you mean by 10k of grants, and I do not follow your calculations—please explain.

drunkmonkey

Ah right it's the long range you have I thought it was the standard the way Tesla presented the figures. You got a great deal.
The long range is €65k, less 10k grants, less 20k trade in.

unkel

Fair play, Rafal. I don't know how the hell Tesla made that error. Or more likely it was one of their trade connections that made the error. But for sure you got the best deal on a Model 3 in Ireland

Tell us more about the process details though. I take it Tesla explained to you they would contact the trade and give you an offer? Or did they just come up with the figure as were it their own trade in? Was there any negotiation about it?

KCross

unkel wrote: »

I don't know how the hell Tesla made that error. Or more likely it was one of their trade connections that made the error.

The dealer must have quoted for it sight unseen and are expecting a 40kWh Leaf to arrive!
Someone got roasted somewhere anyway!

slave1

Super super result, well done, you're up there in terms of value gained, Unkels €26k Ioniq (think he mentions it time to time), Kceire's cash gaining leaf and I'm still chuffed with my €16k 6month old L30 in showroom condition with 2,600kms on the clock

unkel

slave1 wrote: »

Unkels €26k Ioniq (think he mentions it time to time)

Obviously not often enough, it was €25k, including metallic paint

Rafal

unkel wrote: »

Fair play, Rafal. I don't know how the hell Tesla made that error. Or more likely it was one of their trade connections that made the error. But for sure you got the best deal on a Model 3 in Ireland

Tell us more about the process details though. I take it Tesla explained to you they would contact the trade and give you an offer? Or did they just come up with the figure as were it their own trade in? Was there any negotiation about it?

It was very straightforward. We used the “request a trade-in offer” page on at: https://www.tesla.com/en_IE/tradein

Details of the car, including VIN, license plate, model, trim etc, were submitted, and an offer came back by email (see above), and which asked us to formally accept it within a day. We accepted it by clicking a link. There was nothing linking it to the purchase/invoice/reservation, which was a little odd. We emailed them to link the trade-in to the invoice, but no reply came.

The offer was valid for 3 months, which was about to expire before M3’s arrival. We called them about a week before the expiry, and they kindly agreed to extend and honour it till the new car came. That was very nice of them.

A few days before we got the final invoice, last week, we started chasing them by calling the number to their Dutch HQ (shows on the purchase Manage page), as our scheduled delivery date was approaching, but they have not invoiced us yet. They confirmed that the trade-in was holding things up because they needed to get the car’s Certificate of Registration. Once that was emailed the trade-in value was applied and the final invoice issued (see attachment above).

There was no negotiation or discussion involved, everything was automated at first, till the point of getting the only (and very good) trade-in price, which stayed unchanged throughout.

While it was accepted sight unseen, there were T&Cs to ensure it was in a good state etc.

Overall, I’d suggest to anyone thinking of getting a Tesla to apply for the trade-in using the form at https://www.tesla.com/en_IE/tradein and see what happens. Until you accept, it is non-binding, but you may be pleased.

Casati

Fair play to you! Did your old car make it into carzone etc yet? Be v interesting to see what the asking price is for it on the market now

I can’t see the trade buyer making a mistake and my guess is that Tesla took a big hit on it, or indeed its a car that will be sitting out in Sandyford for some time

Rafal

I have not seen it on carzone etc. but will keep an eye out of curiosity—ping me if anyone spots it, too. It is a brown SVE, with 6.6 kW charger, folding mirrors, parking sensors front and back, just under 80000 km. 161WW. Very good shape, battery and otherwise, but I realise that does not make too much of a difference.

I can only assume that, occasionally, Tesla make good trade-in offers, perhaps to attract more business. Well worth trying their trade-in page if anyone is thinking of buying a Tesla.

Other than that, I can definitely see that EVs’ originally steep depreciation rates have normalised, and so some owners of 2nd hand ones have even seen them appreciate from their point of view—but EV is still a car, a wasting asset, hence it must drop value over time...

Gumbo

Should stand out once it becomes available.

Not many brown ones.
Not many 161 WW ones
Not many with front sensors either.

discostu1

I popped into my own Nissan dealer yesterday I have a 171 Leaf SVE with Cold pack 6.6kw and just under 47k on the clock. These are just back of a fag box figures the trade in value is circa €15k a new 40kw including the trade in would be around €17k the 62kw would be around €24k

Gumbo

Rafal wrote: »

It was very straightforward. We used the “request a trade-in offer” page on at: https://www.tesla.com/en_IE/tradein

Details of the car, including VIN, license plate, model, trim etc, were submitted, and an offer came back by email (see above), and which asked us to formally accept it within a day. We accepted it by clicking a link. There was nothing linking it to the purchase/invoice/reservation, which was a little odd. We emailed them to link the trade-in to the invoice, but no reply came.

The offer was valid for 3 months, which was about to expire before M3’s arrival. We called them about a week before the expiry, and they kindly agreed to extend and honour it till the new car came. That was very nice of them.

A few days before we got the final invoice, last week, we started chasing them by calling the number to their Dutch HQ (shows on the purchase Manage page), as our scheduled delivery date was approaching, but they have not invoiced us yet. They confirmed that the trade-in was holding things up because they needed to get the car’s Certificate of Registration. Once that was emailed the trade-in value was applied and the final invoice issued (see attachment above).

There was no negotiation or discussion involved, everything was automated at first, till the point of getting the only (and very good) trade-in price, which stayed unchanged throughout.

While it was accepted sight unseen, there were T&Cs to ensure it was in a good state etc.

Overall, I’d suggest to anyone thinking of getting a Tesla to apply for the trade-in using the form at https://www.tesla.com/en_IE/tradein and see what happens. Until you accept, it is non-binding, but you may be pleased.

How long did it take them to come back with a trade in price?
I submitted during the week but have heard nothing yet.

unkel

Rafal wrote: »

Overall, I’d suggest to anyone thinking of getting a Tesla to apply for the trade-in using the form at https://www.tesla.com/en_IE/tradein and see what happens. Until you accept, it is non-binding, but you may be pleased.

Submitted. I'll get back here when I get my offer

Rafal

kceire wrote: »

How long did it take them to come back with a trade in price?
I submitted during the week but have heard nothing yet.

It took 2 days only, very quick.

discostu1

THank you I threw my details in so we shall see

Rafal

I am curious if any of you get a good offer, too, esp. on an EV.

Gumbo

Still no reply to my trade in request so maybe i3’s are not wanted

unkel

Rafal wrote: »

I am curious if any of you get a good offer, too, esp. on an EV.

So are we

Rafal

kceire wrote: »

Still no reply to my trade in request so maybe i3’s are not wanted

If nothing comes through, I would call them to see why.

krissovo

kceire wrote: »

Still no reply to my trade in request so maybe i3’s are not wanted

I got my quote a few months back for an i3 in 6 days, I should have imported a leaf:D