How much!! (New Leaf related content)

How much!! (New Leaf related content)

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T5GRF

Original Poster:

1,972 posts

263 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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My wife's Leaf Tekna (our 2nd) is due to leave us in May at the end of its 2 year PCP deal. The first (stupidly cheap) Leaf cost us £4600 over 2 years. The current Leaf is around £5600 over 2 years. A few calls around today looking for a deal on a new Tekna provided some pretty eye watering quotes - it would seem £1500 down and £470 per month is now where things are! I know the government grant has reduced and people now want electric cars as opposed to Nissan having to heavily support the earlier deals, but over £12k to run one for 2 years seems a bit, err excessive!
So what are people's thoughts on replacing their Leaf when they go back this year, what electric alternatives are you considering at a more sensible cost?

Evanivitch

19,803 posts

121 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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I think most people on SpeakEV have had the same issue. The reality is that there's huge demand for the Leaf and most EVs to having to discount them isn't necessary.

soad

32,829 posts

175 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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Tesla? wink

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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I had a similar situation with my i3 but, fortunately, managed to extend the lease for another 24 months. I’m hoping the market prices for a replacement will be lower by then

Europa Jon

554 posts

122 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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It's a bit of a strange idea, but: could you buy a cheapo run about for 6 months (or buy out your Tekna) and wait for some of the new 2019 EVs to appear? The EV market is still tiny so as time goes by with more models to choose from, lease plans should get more competitive.

T5GRF

Original Poster:

1,972 posts

263 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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I think a Tesla is out of our budget unfortunately..
RCi won't allow any extension to the term so it's either buy it for £15.5k (no thanks) or hand it back.
I think sadly we'll go back to buying an ice car for our town and school run duties.

jjwilde

1,904 posts

95 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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It was cheaper to get the iPace until recently.

Fact is they can't meet demand and don't need to have any offers, until they work through the waiting list there isn't going to be a £200/month deal.

Speak to them and they will likely let you continue your current deal or offer you a similar one on the car, I've read you can get 0% if you decide to keep (buy) it.

Edit, oh I see you've tried that. That's weird, plenty of people over on SpeakEV were able to extend theirs, but it's possibly by agreeing to buy it. Your car might be worth more than £15.5k at the moment. Dealers over on SpeakEV are offering to buy them up over what you owe as they are going for £17k+ from dealers right now.

Edited by jjwilde on Monday 7th January 20:07

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 7th January 2019
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T5GRF said:
I think sadly we'll go back to buying an ice car for our town and school run duties.
Do that. As long as people keep paying over the odds for these cars they’ll keep pushing up the price.


DonkeyApple

54,923 posts

168 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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Why not buy the car you e been using? It’s only 2 years old, in an EV and you know it.

T5GRF

Original Poster:

1,972 posts

263 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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DonkeyApple said:
Why not buy the car you e been using? It’s only 2 years old, in an EV and you know it.
Fair point but I just don't see a 30kw Leaf that'll be outside of warranty in 12 months would be an especially good place to park £15k. I've always felt more comfortable "renting" electric vehicles over the last 4 years as the battery technology and ultimately range has improved rapidly leaving you driving something that is pretty undesirable when compared to the rest of the market in a relatively short space of time.

gangzoom

6,252 posts

214 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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T5GRF said:
Fair point but I just don't see a 30kw Leaf that'll be outside of warranty in 12 months would be an especially good place to park £15k. I've always felt more comfortable "renting" electric vehicles over the last 4 years as the battery technology and ultimately range has improved rapidly leaving you driving something that is pretty undesirable when compared to the rest of the market in a relatively short space of time.
Surely the fact used EV prcies are rock solid, and the fact EVs are now been shifted at essentially full list price equivalent deals show demand is going only in one direction.

Looking at Autotrader the cheapest Leaf is a 2012 car with 100K on the clock for £5K, a Nissan Note of the same age/mileage is £3k.

By all means 'rent' an EV, but just don't expect to see the crazy £200/month Leaf deals again. The only reason those deal existed is because Nissan essentially took a massive financial hit by offering 0% APR and undetwriting depreciation, Nissan will have lost money on every Leaf sold.

I went into our £200/month Lead deal with a clear plan to buy a Tesla at the end of the 2 years. I didn't fancy the idea of dropping so much cash on an EV without some kind of EV ownership experience first, and the Leaf deals were a cheap risk free trial. If I didn't like EVs I could swap out at the end of 2 years and spent no more money on the trial as I was doing in petrol costs.

Right now the best value EV on the market is the Kona/Niro. The massive waiting list of people willing to pay £30k for a small Korean hatchback shows you how strong demand for EVs are. With Brexit still to come, a world recession looming personally I can only see prices going one way, £15k for 30kWh Leaf battery owned Leaf is below current market prices. Equally regardless of how the EV market develops, any EV now is much more relevent in the future than a combustion car.

I rember back in 2015 when you could get into a decent spec Model S Tesla for under £50k, now its looking like even the 'mid range' Model 3 will cost almost the same when it arrives in the UK. Price of EVs have been the main barrier to uptake and that doesn't look like its changing any time soon.

The £200/month Leaf deals really were too good to be true, which is one of the reasons why I signed up for within 48hrs of seeing the thread on here about it - Walking into a car show room totally empty handed and than walking out again with the keys to a brand new car without even having to get the wallet out was quite an experience, sadly I don't think we'll ever see those deals ever again.



Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 8th January 07:17

DonkeyApple

54,923 posts

168 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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T5GRF said:
DonkeyApple said:
Why not buy the car you e been using? It’s only 2 years old, in an EV and you know it.
Fair point but I just don't see a 30kw Leaf that'll be outside of warranty in 12 months would be an especially good place to park £15k. I've always felt more comfortable "renting" electric vehicles over the last 4 years as the battery technology and ultimately range has improved rapidly leaving you driving something that is pretty undesirable when compared to the rest of the market in a relatively short space of time.
But if the alternative is £12k cost over two years then it seems like a no brainer. Better range is of course a benefit but the current car has worked for you for two years so Range isn’t a critical issue.

Is the car that you currently have genuinely going to cost you anything like £12k in running and depreciation costs over the next two years? That seems almost impossible and arguably, with the ULEZ kicking in over that period the demand for used EVs is likely to be well underpinned by London commuters and dwellers.

Plus, in terms of underwriting the EV risk via PCP, whichbis an extremely sensible course of action, you’ve just spent two years running pretty much the same risk exposure as you would be now with a £15k car where the expiry in two years has a value of zero. But the expiry value is almost certainly going to be considerably higher than zero so this is almost certainly a much lower risk scenario.

scotlandtim

319 posts

127 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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Simple solution - GO second hand.

I run a 2013 24kwh leaf on 80,000 miles. Cheaper to buy on finance than outright.. no brainer.

gangzoom

6,252 posts

214 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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scotlandtim said:
Simple solution - GO second hand.

I run a 2013 24kwh leaf on 80,000 miles. Cheaper to buy on finance than outright.. no brainer.
Cheapest 24kWh Leaf is £10k. My only worry about buying ANY used EV is you have no idea how the battery has been treated.

Regardless of any application any battery that has been constantly charged to 100% and left sat there will degrade much quicker than a pack thats been used between 30-70%.

The 30kWh pack in the Leaf appears to also be degrading faster than the 24kWh pack, with an even denser pack I suspect the current 40kWh Leaf will be the worst of the lot.

So with EV battery packs there is no certainty a 'newer' battery pack design is going to be better than others, the 24KWh Leaf pack will probably out last the 30kWh pack if treated the same. But with a used EV there is the added unknown of how its been treated. At least with a new car your known exactly how likely the battery will degrade based on your own charging habits.

I'm as guilty as anyone though for abusing the battery packs my 'rented' Leaf. Always charged to 100%, and often runned it down to 5%, because I knew I was handing it back. With my current EV which we own outright, I daily charge to 75% with 100% charge less than once a month, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've let it run down to below 10% over 17K miles. As a result degredation of the pack at 17K appears to be just over 1%, which am happy with.

Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 8th January 09:49

DonkeyApple

54,923 posts

168 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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I agree. In this example the OP knows exactly how the soon to be second hand Leaf has been treated.

Take it away and have it detailed, stick anprivate plate on it and the wife might not even notice that it’s the same car. wink

sjg

7,444 posts

264 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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A few years ago they had to have these incentives to get them out of the showrooms. People have caught on now, EVs are in demand, many have long lead times - it's the diesels getting all the desperately cheap lease and PCP deals.

If you like the car then the buying price is OK, 30kWh Teknas rarely go for less and there's some premium to a car you're completely familiar with. Think of it as another £5600 for another 2 years and I can't see it being worth less than £10k by then. They're a useful range and will be a decent commuter car for many years to come. Borrow the money over 6 years and it'll be the same cost per month as you pay now.

Else you can get into a new battery owned Zoe for £19k, or lease for £233pm (albeit with £2400 upfront and over 4 years).

scotlandtim

319 posts

127 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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gangzoom said:
scotlandtim said:
Simple solution - GO second hand.

I run a 2013 24kwh leaf on 80,000 miles. Cheaper to buy on finance than outright.. no brainer.
Cheapest 24kWh Leaf is £10k. My only worry about buying ANY used EV is you have no idea how the battery has been treated.

Regardless of any application any battery that has been constantly charged to 100% and left sat there will degrade much quicker than a pack thats been used between 30-70%.

The 30kWh pack in the Leaf appears to also be degrading faster than the 24kWh pack, with an even denser pack I suspect the current 40kWh Leaf will be the worst of the lot.

So with EV battery packs there is no certainty a 'newer' battery pack design is going to be better than others, the 24KWh Leaf pack will probably out last the 30kWh pack if treated the same. But with a used EV there is the added unknown of how its been treated. At least with a new car your known exactly how likely the battery will degrade based on your own charging habits.

I'm as guilty as anyone though for abusing the battery packs my 'rented' Leaf. Always charged to 100%, and often runned it down to 5%, because I knew I was handing it back. With my current EV which we own outright, I daily charge to 75% with 100% charge less than once a month, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've let it run down to below 10% over 17K miles. As a result degredation of the pack at 17K appears to be just over 1%, which am happy with.

Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 8th January 09:49
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!

onedsla

1,114 posts

255 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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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.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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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?

mattcov

721 posts

225 months

Tuesday 8th January 2019
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In the same position. The prices they are asking for Leaf, Kona, etc are just daft - you can lease a Seat Leon Cupra DSG Lux pack for less than half what they want as an example.


I will probably buy the Leaf out, however there have been some decent approved Tesla Model S P90DL at good money recently... Not completely ruling out the I-Pace, but it needs to be nearer the lease prices last September - not worth it at what they're asking at the moment.