How much!! (New Leaf related content)

[T5GRF]

Thanks for the advice and replies.
After the traditional 30 min call queue I got through to RCI this morning. There are currently no options to extend the PCP deal, refinancing is at "an extremely generous" 8.9% apr with no 0% option and no actual access to talk the department that issue the financing quotes. Instead I've been told to call back again a month before it's due back, so it's the usual helpful RCI customer service.
I've probably underestimated the change in the EV market since our first Leaf went back, that car had a GFV of £16k and actually sold to a dealer for under £10k... on balance I'll prob stump up the £15.5k required to buy it, maybe I'll get lucky and score some interest free finance..

[raspy]

onedsla said:

I'm also coming to the end of a cheap (£198pm) Tekna 30 deal. Managed to get a 'cheap' I-Pace and, all going well, the timing should work out quite well.

Had I not, and bearing in mind that I'm generally happy with the Leaf, I would be looking at one of the following:

1) Keep an eye out on what RCI are offering - surely they don't want thousands of flame red Leaf Teknas coming back to them in March?
2) Pay the balloon. The full £15.5k at 3.3% would be £450pm over 3 years - cheaper than a Leaf 40 and you'll have a car worth probably ~8-9k at the end.
3) Hand back and look at a BMW/Merc plug-in hybrid - the 2 year old ones are in the £16-17k range now. The 15-20 mile electric range would suffice for a good 80% of our miles.
4) Stay flexible and pick up any good lease / PCP offer that takes your interest / meets your financial criteria and handover timing.
6) As this is PH, check out the BMW M6 or E63 on autotrader around the £12k mark. They look better, sound better, go faster and depreciate slower than a Leaf. Man maths.

A slight correction to option #3. 2 year old Merc plug in hybrids start at 20k for base models, and would be 23k+ if you wanted one with a few options from a main dealer. The real world range would be no more than 12-13 miles in the summer, and closer to 6-9 in winter time.

[scotlandtim]

REALIST123 said:

scotlandtim said:

Ouch! I paid £6 for mine 2 years ago. Not had a single issue with it. was on 50k when i bought it. Checked battery health via "leafspy" and all good. Had a new zoe on the stupidly cheap 2 yr pcp prior to this - the leaf is far superior in every way despite being 2 yrs older and many more miles. I commute 50 miles a day in it 5 days per week. Does exactly what it says on the tin - no need for a bigger battery for me, or a new car. When the battery finally dies I'll have saved so much on fuel I can afford to scrap the car or take pennies for it! Still showing 10 bars and 98% battery health. Charge overnight, drive daily. Usually get down to between 15 and 30 % by the end of the day. Pre-heat these mornings is bliss!

£6? At that price a new battery wouldn’t have been too bad anyway?

That was my thinking - Seems I got a good deal there - just put it into WBAC - offered £5000 for it. £1k depreciation over 2 years and 30,000 miles seems pretty good to me! Not that I'm planning on selling .....

I bought from Chorley nissan - they had a huge stok of second hand leafs at the time. Just checked the website - nothing like it available now as others have said! Seems I'm got in at the right time. Guess I'll be hanging onto it for a while yet!

[anonymous-user]

scotlandtim said:

REALIST123 said:

scotlandtim said:

Ouch! I paid £6 for mine 2 years ago. Not had a single issue with it. was on 50k when i bought it. Checked battery health via "leafspy" and all good. Had a new zoe on the stupidly cheap 2 yr pcp prior to this - the leaf is far superior in every way despite being 2 yrs older and many more miles. I commute 50 miles a day in it 5 days per week. Does exactly what it says on the tin - no need for a bigger battery for me, or a new car. When the battery finally dies I'll have saved so much on fuel I can afford to scrap the car or take pennies for it! Still showing 10 bars and 98% battery health. Charge overnight, drive daily. Usually get down to between 15 and 30 % by the end of the day. Pre-heat these mornings is bliss!

£6? At that price a new battery wouldn’t have been too bad anyway?

That was my thinking - Seems I got a good deal there - just put it into WBAC - offered £5000 for it. £1k depreciation over 2 years and 30,000 miles seems pretty good to me! Not that I'm planning on selling .....

I bought from Chorley nissan - they had a huge stok of second hand leafs at the time. Just checked the website - nothing like it available now as others have said! Seems I'm got in at the right time. Guess I'll be hanging onto it for a while yet!

Ah, so £6000; not £6 as you said?

Not so good then..............

Never mind.

[DonkeyApple]

T5GRF said:

Thanks for the advice and replies.
After the traditional 30 min call queue I got through to RCI this morning. There are currently no options to extend the PCP deal, refinancing is at "an extremely generous" 8.9% apr with no 0% option and no actual access to talk the department that issue the financing quotes. Instead I've been told to call back again a month before it's due back, so it's the usual helpful RCI customer service.
I've probably underestimated the change in the EV market since our first Leaf went back, that car had a GFV of £16k and actually sold to a dealer for under £10k... on balance I'll prob stump up the £15.5k required to buy it, maybe I'll get lucky and score some interest free finance..

The AA is throwing debt out at 3% and they are a skin so adding a slice on for themselves. Barclays before Christmas sent me something about 1.8% loans again.

Don’t forget that there is no such thing as ‘interest free’ finance. Where the explicit rate is advertised as zero it means there is an implicit rate buried in the package and you don’t know what that rate is but can be assured that it is pricing you as junk. This is why you tend to get zero deals on new goods where the rrp is controlled as opposed to used goods which are much harder to hide the implicit charge in.

You can see from the PCP firms offer of 8.9% an indication as to their true rate behind all the clever number juggling. 9% secured is a junk rate. You can see that when it is explicitly quoted but no one ever sees what they are paying when it’s implicit. Although the purpose of PCP is its high rollover achievement so the high rate will also be part of the incentives to ensure a consumer rolls into a new deal.

A quick look on Autotrader suggests that £15.5 is very high for a 2016 Leaf? They seem to be around £13/14 on Autotrader and that price is factoring in dealer risk, costs and margin so the PCP firm doesn’t look like it would get anything near £15.5 for your car but the problem in terms of actually doing a sensible deal is that it’s probably not their car and they are just agents of the deal, which is probably why their customer service is stripped down and seemingly inflexible.

Frankly, in terms of basic numbers, the best deal looks to be a 3% loan to buy a £13k 2016 car on the open market which would have a monthly cost of £250-350 dependent on time frame etc?

[scotlandtim]

If you're in Scotland worth considering an interest free loan from the energy saving trust to buy your EV:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/grant...

[gangzoom]

DonkeyApple said:

A quick look on Autotrader suggests that £15.5 is very high for a 2016 Leaf? They seem to be around £13/14 on Autotrader

Nearly all the 'cheaper' Leafs on Autotrader are not battery 'owned' cars. So if you buy one you have to keep on paying Nissan £70/month to lease the battery. Nissan will let you buy the battery out, but last time I checked they were asking £5k+ to convert a battery lease car to a battery owned one.

[sjg]

The very cheapest 30kwh Tekna on Autotrader is £13995, for a flame red car with 46k miles on it.

The PCP settlement figure is reasonable value IMO.

[DonkeyApple]

gangzoom said:

Nearly all the 'cheaper' Leafs on Autotrader are not battery 'owned' cars. So if you buy one you have to keep on paying Nissan £70/month to lease the battery. Nissan will let you buy the battery out, but last time I checked they were asking £5k+ to convert a battery lease car to a battery owned one.

That explains that. Thanks. So if 15.5 is a fair price then a private loan around the 3% and keep running the same car seems to be the logical option.

[kambites]

I can't see the supply catching up with demand for EVs in the next few years, so coupled with very low running costs I can't see the total cost of ownership of a 15k Leaf bought outright now being very high.

[jjwilde]

You can still get the Kia Soul EV for about about £200/month, or you could when I last checked. It's pretty similar to the Leaf.

[gangzoom]

62kWh Leaf just announced, 230 miles of EPA range - so a massive jump from the original 24kWh car which had a 84 miles EPA rating.

Pricing is not cheap though, Nissan website seems to suggest £36K including the £3.5k plugin grant, so £40K without the grant for a 'normal' family hatchback......All of a sudden £50K for an AWD Tesla Model 3 and its 310 mile EPA range doesn't seem so bad.

One thing is for sure inflation is a pain

https://www.nissan.co.uk/vehicles/new-vehicles/lea...

Edited by gangzoom on Wednesday 9th January 13:06

[jjwilde]

These guys seem to offer the best collection of deals: https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/vehicle/

[kambites]

gangzoom said:

62kWh Leaf just announced, 230 miles of EPA range - so a massive jump from the original 24kWh car which had a 84 miles EPA rating.

How have they made it so inefficient when Kia and Hyundai manage 300ish with a marginally smaller battery in a similar sized car?

The Hyundai and Kia are around £5k cheaper, too, I think.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 9th January 14:37

[mattcov]

gangzoom said:

62kWh Leaf just announced, 230 miles of EPA range - so a massive jump from the original 24kWh car which had a 84 miles EPA rating.

Pricing is not cheap though, Nissan website seems to suggest £36K including the £3.5k plugin grant, so £40K without the grant for a 'normal' family hatchback......All of a sudden £50K for an AWD Tesla Model 3 and its 310 mile EPA range doesn't seem so bad.

One thing is for sure inflation is a pain

https://www.nissan.co.uk/vehicles/new-vehicles/lea...

Edited by gangzoom on Wednesday 9th January 13:06

That doesn't look too bad + more power too. But needs to be under £40k bang on the road full list price otherwise you hit the £40k car tax...

[TooLateForAName]

sjg said:

The very cheapest 30kwh Tekna on Autotrader is £13995, for a flame red car with 46k miles on it.

The PCP settlement figure is reasonable value IMO.

Look around - I bought a 30kwh acenta for £10k at the end of last year. 66K miles but battery on 95%

[covmutley]

kambites said:

I can't see the supply catching up with demand for EVs in the next few years, so coupled with very low running costs I can't see the total cost of ownership of a 15k Leaf bought outright now being very high.

I agree. Used leafs have gone up on value. More people want an EV now, but limited used supply.

I also don't agree with the 'old tech' argument either. How exactly does ice fit into that argument? More people would be happy to own an EV, more people want one, More people understand the low running costs. I think (hope!) used values will continue to do relatively well

Plus ULEZ charging in London and no doubt other restrictions coming down the line

Edited by covmutley on Wednesday 9th January 15:21

[Tophatron]

I'm in a similar boat to the OP - 17 plate Leaf Tekna 30kwh on a 2 year PCP coming to the end of it's agreement. The £15.5k final payment actually sounds like good value compared to what the same 17 plate car retails for - cheapest is £16,450 for one with 32k miles (mine is on 16k currently).

I have a Tesla Model 3 on order, but the ones coming first will be pretty pricey - especially compared to what the Kona/Niro offers. I managed to order a Kona too before the delivery times went crazy so I'm thinking of taking that and cancelling the Tesla. The demand is outstripping supply for the Korean cars and that's likely to be the case for the next year at least so the value retention should be ok. The new Leaf is ok but really it's just a thorough facelift of a 2010 car, the prices for the larger battery one seem steep.

Longer term I'm liking the look of the VW i.d. - I think once VW get fully up to speed they could be the best EVs around.

In short, if I were the OP I'd look into a bank loan for the final payment, keep the car and see what happens in the coming months/year. One thing to remember is that the EV drivetrain on Leafs has a longer warranty - think it's 5 years.

[gangzoom]

kambites said:

How have they made it so inefficient when Kia and Hyundai manage 300ish with a marginally smaller battery in a similar sized car?

The Hyundai and Kia are around £5k cheaper, too, I think.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 9th January 14:37

EPA range of the Kona is 258 miles, about 20 more than Leaf. The Leaf is a much bigger car though.

300 mile numbers come from the joke 'new' European WTLP tests which are looking just as flawed as the old NEDC rating.

EPA range ratings in my experience is spot on for average range. In summer you can get more range, winter less.

If you want to see inefficient look at EPA rating for the iPace, bigger battery and smaller car than a 75D Tesla Model X but less range!!

Edited by gangzoom on Wednesday 9th January 18:41

[kambites]

So on ETA the Kia Niro gets 12% more range than the Leaf; on WLTP it gets 25% more despite being a wider and shorter car, both of which hurt aerodynamics. I don't think Nissan have published a weight figure for the 62kwh car yet but I doubt they'll be very different..