New Nissan Leaf
Discussion
sawman said:
I know the answer to this is probably out there somewhere , but how much would it cost to run a leaf for 15k miles?
Depends where and when you'll charge it. I charge mine at night which works out at 2p a mile on my tariff and not so careful driving. So £300 which isn't bad!Greg_D said:
too right, my i3 Rex was £1500 down and £260+vat/month - that's for a £45k car.
they must have zero faith in residuals... the sums point to it being worth about £10k after 3 years.
I guess they are worried about the not so secret ~300 mile range version/Tesla Model 3 killing the residuals on this one. As this one appears to be a short term stop gap I'm disappointed they are passing on a large amount of depreciation to the customer rather than starting with a cheaper RRP. they must have zero faith in residuals... the sums point to it being worth about £10k after 3 years.
Thought this might be the car to induce me into the electric arena.
Had a test drive and the performance is reasonable.
Unfortunately the interior is just too hideous for me to live with. The top model leather looks nastier than cheap plastic.
See what gets released in 2019 but I guess I'm still 3 years away from taking the plunge.
Had a test drive and the performance is reasonable.
Unfortunately the interior is just too hideous for me to live with. The top model leather looks nastier than cheap plastic.
See what gets released in 2019 but I guess I'm still 3 years away from taking the plunge.
tankplanker said:
Greg_D said:
too right, my i3 Rex was £1500 down and £260+vat/month - that's for a £45k car.
they must have zero faith in residuals... the sums point to it being worth about £10k after 3 years.
I guess they are worried about the not so secret ~300 mile range version/Tesla Model 3 killing the residuals on this one.they must have zero faith in residuals... the sums point to it being worth about £10k after 3 years.
The Model S also has horrendous residuals.
As do all EVs.
Too Drunk to Funk said:
Of course they are.
The Model S also has horrendous residuals.
As do all EVs.
The older Leaf has seen its used value increasing rather than depreciating, so I don't agree about all EVs all the time. The Model S also has horrendous residuals.
As do all EVs.
The Tesla Model S has struggled a bit because they keep changing the spec of just about everything (batteries, motors, auto pilot). However I don't think the current price of the oldest P85D I see for sale from Tesla UK at ~£50k for a 3 year old car, ~55k on the clock as nose diving. What would it have been new? £80k plus options? Seems pretty good return for a large saloon, I'd expect a petrol or diesel 5 series or E class to depreciate more than 37% of the Tesla.
I have just test driven the new Leaf.
Drove a Tekna, and there was also an N Connecta in the showroom.
Range goes up from Visia, Acenta, a new N Connecta to bridge the Acenta-Tekna gap, and the top spec Tekna.
Visia is basic, no heat pump heating, but you do get e pedal on all models. Acenta is still 16” wheeled, gets apple car play and a leather ‘wheel. N Connecta gains 17” wheels, privacy glass, parking sensors F and R, and the same 360 degree camera the old Tekna had. Tekna has LED lights, Bose, and heated ‘wheel and seats, plus ProPilot. Probably all on the website anyway - I'm going off a photocopy the salesman gave me.
I think we’d be happy with Acenta again – cloth seats, higher profile tyres for better ride, and hopefully DAB this time please – not sure which models get that.
First impressions – it looks more conventional. Fiddly styling here and there, try-hard black/chrome 17” wheels on the one I drove, overall looks are improved. Maybe a foot longer, with a noticeably bigger boot but no real increase in legroom that I could see, not that the old one was cramped.
Inside, the dashboard is a cut above, much better materials used with less shiny black plastic, but as already said the leather is very cheap looking, I bet it'd scuff very easily. Definite improved interior plastics to it overall whereas the old one always felt like they were trying to save weight everywhere. Dash moulding actually looks like they tried this time.
Speedo is a conventional dial, which I prefer, dash display is more conventional and easier to look at, all the info on one screen rather than split up like the old car. Centre console is better and switches did seem a bit less scattered – power button is better placed, now completely visible in the centre console, big plus is the steering wheel buttons are infinitely better organised – the old cars are absolutely terrible. ‘Gear’ selector is the same, Tekna had an electric handbrake but the Acenta still has the pedal operated hand brake which I like a lot. Heating etc is pretty much identical to the old car, as is the panel of switches down by your right knee for charging flap etc.
The 'slow' charging socket is now a Type 2, not the old Type 1 - so if you already have a wall charger you'll need a new plug. Fast charge socket is the same.
Seats in the Tekna are possibly not as comfortable as the half-leather ones in the N connecta that was in the showroom. I think I’d have to try both cars on the road to see – but after a quick jump into the N Connecta seat it felt better. You sit down in the car, not on it – the driving position was less sit up and beg than the old car. Probably more comfortable on long trips – which it’ll now be capable of. Range is roughly 200 miles, about double that of our 24kw 2015 car.
E pedal – it’s intuitive, brilliant in fact. I thought beforehand that it’d feel odd – but it doesn’t. It’s just regen-max. You still have the option of D (drive and coast) and B (regen on liftoff) but now a third e pedal option with even more regen capability. Car has a brake and throttle as before, but flick a switch into e pedal mode and you can drive completely with one pedal. Lift off and the car brakes (illuminating the brake lights on regen – old Leaf never did this) and you can then feather the throttle to pull up exactly where you want to. Lift off suddenly and it’ll ‘brake’ harder but not to the point of emergency braking.
It’ll hold the car perfectly on a slope, therefore e pedal must use the braking system to operate, at rest at least. I’d guess it also uses the brakes on full-lift-off too.
Old Leaf, like an auto, creeps at standstill with your foot off the brake – in e pedal mode it won’t, it holds the car still, so I can see commuters switching between B (where it’ll still creep) and e pedal modes depending on traffic flow. No need for brake pedal or handbrake in normal driving at all. Genius. I’m completely sold on it for traffic, commuting, busy slow moving motorways. One pedal operation just seemed so simple and relaxing.
It’s faster – 0-60 is around 8 seconds, instead of 11.5, but because the car feels bigger and is quieter and more refined, the extra acceleration from rest wasn’t a huge improvement – but on the motorway it felt much more at home compared to the old car with good acceleration at speed. Road noise is better, with less noise from the wheelarches – in the old Leaf you can hear surface water or the dinks of grit in the arches quite clearly.
ProPilot - Tekna I drove had lane departure warnings and the new ProPilot – it scans the white lane markings and when set (over 40mph only) will act like active cruise, slowing down (regen) and keeping up with the car in front, as well as steering for you. It’ll steer very well up to a point, making minor adjustments, and keep control for you as long as you lightly touch the wheel every few seconds to prove you’re not dead.
It will not cope with a real bend in the road – M60 at Bredbury has a tightish bend to it with a 50mph limit and it lost it spectacularly there, veering onto the hard shoulder quite easily.
Keep your hands in your lap when it’s working and it’ll keep steering but flash and beep a warning, then the warnings get louder, then it assumes you’re dead or asleep so it will finally brake, bring the car to a halt ( still in the lane you’re in) and switch the hazards on. At which point you’d be awoken by a juggernaut entering your boot at 50 mph.
Good for motorway commutes, but I’m not sure I’d trust ProPilot 100% without a lot of practice with it to try and find it’s limitations.
ProPilot Park is a self parking option on the Tekna only, but from looking on youtube it’s slow and pointless unless you really really are unable to park. Hello dear
We’re paying £150 a month 6+36 contract hire plus vat until later in the year on our 2015 car – the new one appears to be about £50-60 a month more for an Acenta, with an extra £10/month for N Xonnecta or £20/month for Tekna. Specifically - £239 contract hire including vat according to the salesman on an Acenta on a 7,500 mile per year 6+35 deal but that vat inclusion needs confirming. I think you’d get a free 6kw charger install on a new car at the moment. There is a launch edition of some sort but I’m not sure what you get with that.
We’ll see what the prices are like closer to the end of the contract, but right now I’m guessing we’d be looking at buying a used Leaf rather than renting again, now we have a better idea of reliability (perfect) and likely repair costs (zilch). Used prices are, if not increasing, most definitely holding steady. We’ve done 12-13k miles so far, and it’s needed two tyres (damaged) and ideally needs a new wiper blade – and that is the sum total of repairs in over two years. I suspect it may need front suspension bushes at some point, but not before we give it back.
Interesting point – salesman said Nissan worldwide have not yet had to replace a single Leaf battery due to loss of capacity. They also seem to be selling well straight away. 300 pre orders nationwide before demos were in the country and the salesman I had had already sold into double figures personally.
If you get the chance go test one
Drove a Tekna, and there was also an N Connecta in the showroom.
Range goes up from Visia, Acenta, a new N Connecta to bridge the Acenta-Tekna gap, and the top spec Tekna.
Visia is basic, no heat pump heating, but you do get e pedal on all models. Acenta is still 16” wheeled, gets apple car play and a leather ‘wheel. N Connecta gains 17” wheels, privacy glass, parking sensors F and R, and the same 360 degree camera the old Tekna had. Tekna has LED lights, Bose, and heated ‘wheel and seats, plus ProPilot. Probably all on the website anyway - I'm going off a photocopy the salesman gave me.
I think we’d be happy with Acenta again – cloth seats, higher profile tyres for better ride, and hopefully DAB this time please – not sure which models get that.
First impressions – it looks more conventional. Fiddly styling here and there, try-hard black/chrome 17” wheels on the one I drove, overall looks are improved. Maybe a foot longer, with a noticeably bigger boot but no real increase in legroom that I could see, not that the old one was cramped.
Inside, the dashboard is a cut above, much better materials used with less shiny black plastic, but as already said the leather is very cheap looking, I bet it'd scuff very easily. Definite improved interior plastics to it overall whereas the old one always felt like they were trying to save weight everywhere. Dash moulding actually looks like they tried this time.
Speedo is a conventional dial, which I prefer, dash display is more conventional and easier to look at, all the info on one screen rather than split up like the old car. Centre console is better and switches did seem a bit less scattered – power button is better placed, now completely visible in the centre console, big plus is the steering wheel buttons are infinitely better organised – the old cars are absolutely terrible. ‘Gear’ selector is the same, Tekna had an electric handbrake but the Acenta still has the pedal operated hand brake which I like a lot. Heating etc is pretty much identical to the old car, as is the panel of switches down by your right knee for charging flap etc.
The 'slow' charging socket is now a Type 2, not the old Type 1 - so if you already have a wall charger you'll need a new plug. Fast charge socket is the same.
Seats in the Tekna are possibly not as comfortable as the half-leather ones in the N connecta that was in the showroom. I think I’d have to try both cars on the road to see – but after a quick jump into the N Connecta seat it felt better. You sit down in the car, not on it – the driving position was less sit up and beg than the old car. Probably more comfortable on long trips – which it’ll now be capable of. Range is roughly 200 miles, about double that of our 24kw 2015 car.
E pedal – it’s intuitive, brilliant in fact. I thought beforehand that it’d feel odd – but it doesn’t. It’s just regen-max. You still have the option of D (drive and coast) and B (regen on liftoff) but now a third e pedal option with even more regen capability. Car has a brake and throttle as before, but flick a switch into e pedal mode and you can drive completely with one pedal. Lift off and the car brakes (illuminating the brake lights on regen – old Leaf never did this) and you can then feather the throttle to pull up exactly where you want to. Lift off suddenly and it’ll ‘brake’ harder but not to the point of emergency braking.
It’ll hold the car perfectly on a slope, therefore e pedal must use the braking system to operate, at rest at least. I’d guess it also uses the brakes on full-lift-off too.
Old Leaf, like an auto, creeps at standstill with your foot off the brake – in e pedal mode it won’t, it holds the car still, so I can see commuters switching between B (where it’ll still creep) and e pedal modes depending on traffic flow. No need for brake pedal or handbrake in normal driving at all. Genius. I’m completely sold on it for traffic, commuting, busy slow moving motorways. One pedal operation just seemed so simple and relaxing.
It’s faster – 0-60 is around 8 seconds, instead of 11.5, but because the car feels bigger and is quieter and more refined, the extra acceleration from rest wasn’t a huge improvement – but on the motorway it felt much more at home compared to the old car with good acceleration at speed. Road noise is better, with less noise from the wheelarches – in the old Leaf you can hear surface water or the dinks of grit in the arches quite clearly.
ProPilot - Tekna I drove had lane departure warnings and the new ProPilot – it scans the white lane markings and when set (over 40mph only) will act like active cruise, slowing down (regen) and keeping up with the car in front, as well as steering for you. It’ll steer very well up to a point, making minor adjustments, and keep control for you as long as you lightly touch the wheel every few seconds to prove you’re not dead.
It will not cope with a real bend in the road – M60 at Bredbury has a tightish bend to it with a 50mph limit and it lost it spectacularly there, veering onto the hard shoulder quite easily.
Keep your hands in your lap when it’s working and it’ll keep steering but flash and beep a warning, then the warnings get louder, then it assumes you’re dead or asleep so it will finally brake, bring the car to a halt ( still in the lane you’re in) and switch the hazards on. At which point you’d be awoken by a juggernaut entering your boot at 50 mph.
Good for motorway commutes, but I’m not sure I’d trust ProPilot 100% without a lot of practice with it to try and find it’s limitations.
ProPilot Park is a self parking option on the Tekna only, but from looking on youtube it’s slow and pointless unless you really really are unable to park. Hello dear
We’re paying £150 a month 6+36 contract hire plus vat until later in the year on our 2015 car – the new one appears to be about £50-60 a month more for an Acenta, with an extra £10/month for N Xonnecta or £20/month for Tekna. Specifically - £239 contract hire including vat according to the salesman on an Acenta on a 7,500 mile per year 6+35 deal but that vat inclusion needs confirming. I think you’d get a free 6kw charger install on a new car at the moment. There is a launch edition of some sort but I’m not sure what you get with that.
We’ll see what the prices are like closer to the end of the contract, but right now I’m guessing we’d be looking at buying a used Leaf rather than renting again, now we have a better idea of reliability (perfect) and likely repair costs (zilch). Used prices are, if not increasing, most definitely holding steady. We’ve done 12-13k miles so far, and it’s needed two tyres (damaged) and ideally needs a new wiper blade – and that is the sum total of repairs in over two years. I suspect it may need front suspension bushes at some point, but not before we give it back.
Interesting point – salesman said Nissan worldwide have not yet had to replace a single Leaf battery due to loss of capacity. They also seem to be selling well straight away. 300 pre orders nationwide before demos were in the country and the salesman I had had already sold into double figures personally.
If you get the chance go test one
andy43 said:
Keep your hands in your lap when it’s working and it’ll keep steering but flash and beep a warning, then the warnings get louder, then it assumes you’re dead or asleep so it will finally brake, bring the car to a halt ( still in the lane you’re in) and switch the hazards on.
If it assumes you're dead shouldn't it drive automatically to the nearest funeral firm instead of just stopping on the the road?andy43 testing the new Leaf said:
Information
Interesting thoughts. Thanks for posting.Bit surprised on a couple of points. I'd hoped the new car would feel faster than the old one, bearing in mind the increase in torque from the new motor. However, having said that that, I always thought the old Leaf felt faster than the official 0-60 time would suggest.
On the ProPilot, I recall hearing on another review that the Nissan system was powered by Mobileye's tech. I wonder if this is the first incarnation of their tech being installed in a car since they split with Tesla and were purchased by Intel (happy to be corrected on this point).
Of course I wasn't expecting the driving assistance used by Nissan to have the same performance as Tesla Autopilot 1.0 as I think Nissan use fewer sensors, but I thought it would be able to turn sufficiently to hold a turn without veering into the hard shoulder.
EddieSteadyGo said:
Interesting thoughts. Thanks for posting.
Bit surprised on a couple of points. I'd hoped the new car would feel faster than the old one, bearing in mind the increase in torque from the new motor. However, having said that that, I always thought the old Leaf felt faster than the official 0-60 time would suggest.
On the ProPilot, I recall hearing on another review that the Nissan system was powered by Mobileye's tech. I wonder if this is the first incarnation of their tech being installed in a car since they split with Tesla and were purchased by Intel (happy to be corrected on this point).
Of course I wasn't expecting the driving assistance used by Nissan to have the same performance as Tesla Autopilot 1.0 as I think Nissan use fewer sensors, but I thought it would be able to turn sufficiently to hold a turn without veering into the hard shoulder.
The extra power might be more apparent with more use. I drive the existing Leaf like I stole it a lot of the time, and with wet roads and the salesman sat next to me maybe I didn't try as hard as usual from traffic lights Bit surprised on a couple of points. I'd hoped the new car would feel faster than the old one, bearing in mind the increase in torque from the new motor. However, having said that that, I always thought the old Leaf felt faster than the official 0-60 time would suggest.
On the ProPilot, I recall hearing on another review that the Nissan system was powered by Mobileye's tech. I wonder if this is the first incarnation of their tech being installed in a car since they split with Tesla and were purchased by Intel (happy to be corrected on this point).
Of course I wasn't expecting the driving assistance used by Nissan to have the same performance as Tesla Autopilot 1.0 as I think Nissan use fewer sensors, but I thought it would be able to turn sufficiently to hold a turn without veering into the hard shoulder.
Much better at speed however - old Leaf at 70 will accelerate, but the new one was definitely more powerful, more suited to motorway work.
The ProPilot was set to 48mph, slow lane, clear weather, and it totally lost the plot on the bend. No alarm sounded either, it just took two wheels onto the hard shoulder, at which point I intervened. What it would have done if I hadn't intervened could have been interesting!
I was told if you have wipers set to 'fast' you cannot set ProPilot as it's visibility might be impaired. If you have your wipers set to 'normal' you can still set it...
I also used it while leaving the motorway, I applied just enough steering movement to get onto the slip road across the white line, onto a slip road which splayed out - it then followed the right hand white line meaning it was way off the correct position.
Works in easy situations, and works well. Give it a curve ball and it struggles to the point of being out of control and potentially, possibly, imho, dangerous - which I think is probably why I wouldn't use it personally.
andy43 said:
I have just test driven the new Leaf.
Lift off and the car brakes (illuminating the brake lights on regen – old Leaf never did this) and you can then feather the throttle to pull up exactly where you want to. Lift off suddenly and it’ll ‘brake’ harder but not to the point of emergency braking.
It’ll hold the car perfectly on a slope, therefore e pedal must use the braking system to operate, at rest at least. I’d guess it also uses the brakes on full-lift-off too.
i3 uses eMachine to hold vehicle on slope. It'll allow a small amount of creep (<0.5mph) in the direction you have selected on the gear selector, but none in the opposite direction ie in FWD it won't roll backwards, but on a downhill slope will very very slowly creep forwards. Brakes not used unless slope is V steep ime. I wish it had true zero speed hold tbh, that would make it even easier to drive in traffic on hills. They could use the Acc. pedal is torque control mode above say 5mph, then blend into speed control mode below that speed, including true zero speed hold in either direction in either gear.Lift off and the car brakes (illuminating the brake lights on regen – old Leaf never did this) and you can then feather the throttle to pull up exactly where you want to. Lift off suddenly and it’ll ‘brake’ harder but not to the point of emergency braking.
It’ll hold the car perfectly on a slope, therefore e pedal must use the braking system to operate, at rest at least. I’d guess it also uses the brakes on full-lift-off too.
EddieSteadyGo said:
I always thought the old Leaf felt faster than the official 0-60 time would suggest.
My feeling (and I've done 36k miles in a Leaf) is that 0-40 is very quick and whilst there's not much more feeling of pulling once you get above 40, it reaches 70 and is still accelerating nicely.Will I get the new one? I doubt it to be honest. Once my four-year deal is up I'll just give them the £6k and keep the one I've got. OK I'll still be paying £74/month for the battery but that's cheaper than petrol, a much nicer drive, and we have another car for longer journeys.
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