We're considering pulling the trigger on a Leaf, but have theoretical anxiety... How's it been for you?
I loved the test drive and love the idea of going electric for 95% of my use (and possibly just renting a car for longer road trips).
I loved the test drive and love the idea of going electric for 95% of my use (and possibly just renting a car for longer road trips).
But I would definitely not buy a Leaf unless you're a 2-car home and have something else for a backup and long trips.
If you have any fun with your car, as opposed to driving in eco-mode all the time, never accelerating hard, coasting down hills... you won't get the rated range. If it's cold out, you won't get the rated range. If you like to blast the heat and A/C, you won't get the rated range. Which means you will limit yourself to a 20-30 mile radius to feel safe, which is much less than the 80-100+ miles the sticker says you'll get.
The battery also degrades pretty fast. You can't tell what you're buying used unless you buy a copy of Leaf Spy Pro for your phone and hook up a bluetooth OBDII scanner to the car to actually find out how much of its battery life is usable. My 2012 model has 16kWh of the original 24kWh available for driving, though the dashboard shows 11/12 battery life "pips" remaining. That means I get a max of 70-some miles driving conservatively in good weather. It'll only go down the longer I own it, which is why I'm looking forward to that Chevy Bolt, hopefully before winter when my usable range drops even more.
But from what you're saying, it sounds even worse!
We really aren't expecting to do any road trips with the car, instead opting to rent a car for that occasional weekend trip. Seems like a good balance. Why choose a car for the 3 road trips you take every year?
I already didn't expect the Model 3 to really ship to 2018, and since I'm in Massachusetts, if/when we get them they will be maybe a year later than the west coast.
I have the option of extending my lease a bit, but I don't think it will go out far enough to include the Model 3. If the Bolt arrives and is as good as the Volt has been, I will likely get that instead.
FWIW, driving electric has been incredible. Quiet, smooth, and really get acceleration (100% torque when you step on the accelerator). We've got a dozen charging stations at work so I do almost all my charging there. There's been no maintenance cost on the car so far; $0 total in almost 2 years.
My normal commute is 16 miles round trip, and I regularly get 4 days out of a charge in the summer and 3 in the winter before deciding (not "needing") to charge.
We also have my wife's 11 year-old CR-V, so I've never felt really "stuck" with the range. The one day I needed the 90 mile range for 2 factory tours, I drove carefully and extra-economically, but also had several charging stations picked out to bail out to.
I'm happy with mine, but would be less so if it was our only car.