It's challenging to find an objective arbiter of taste on cars. I happen to like the look.
> slow
I presume you mean something like "doesn't have as much power (and thus less acceleration) as my preferred style of car".
That may well be true, but it's completely irrelevant to me how fast a car accelerates. Most of my time is spent at the speed limit (+8mph).
> and expensive
Well that is just ill informed. Prius consistently comes out on top (it's the cheapest) on total cost of ownership studies. And that's in the US, with its ridiculously low gas tax.
The relative cheapness of a Prius is much more obvious in cultures that don't abhor Pigovian taxation.
I thought it was ugly as well before, but it grows on you. Honestly I think it's more of a familiarity thing.
It's far from slow. It's faster than most hatchbacks in it's price range for city driving. You get a loaded Leaf for ~$27K (off the top of my head, after tax-credit). Anything faster is going to be in the same ball-park if not more (ie: VW GTi).
I bought it because it saved me several hundred dollars a month and I've always liked hatchbacks. After test-driving it I was pleasantly surprised at just how much fun it was.
Honestly I never considered it until a co-worker came back from a test-drive raving about it. Then I spent a few seconds thinking about it and realized it actually made some sense for my short commute.
All in all, the Leaf seems like a very expensive and very average small hatchback. I'm not trying to detract from your experience, I catch a lot of flak for driving a Fiat and I know how it feels. The comparisons you're using, however, are far from unique to vehicles like the Leaf. I would love to drive an electric car, but a small efficient hatchback running on gasoline (though I wish it was diesel) just makes more sense to me given the realities of electric car ownership.
That said, I have zero maintenance beyond replacing tires. Something I never thought about before seriously considering the Leaf. All in all "very expensive" seems like a great injustice to the Leaf. It's not competing against a 500 for my dollar. It's competing against VW's and Volvos. It comes out with a lower payment, zero maintenance expenses (no oil, and I've always used Mobil1 so that's $100 pop), no engine air filter, no transmission fluid, no accessory belts, and it's cheaper to "fill up" than even the most efficient small car, while being a lot more fun to drive than most (especially if the comparisons are narrowed to high-efficiency gas vehicles).
For me the Leaf doesn't compete with Fiestas and Aveos. It competes with Volvo C3's, VW Golfs, etc. It's got an average MSRP in that range and much lower cost of ownership.
Frankly, I just don't see mounting a serious argument on a cost basis (as long as the tax credits still apply at least) without having a big blind-spot for the European imports in the same category to be honest.
So they can use renewable energy and their engines are energy efficient -but who cares?
- It's quick enough to merge onto any highway around Boston safely, without waiting at on-ramps. I don't notice it being slow, and my previous car was a BMW 330.
- it's more than big enough for my wife, 2 young kids and 90lb dog to take on a weekend trip (with all our stuff.)
- I drive it as hard as I can, and it consistently gets 42 mpg average in mixed city/highway. It's cheap as hell to run.
- It's really nice inside, with lots of gadgets that most cars didn't have 5 years ago (like auto-dimming mirrors, reverse cameras, bluetooth, etc)
- I bought it used, but new it was roughly the same price as a similarly sized and equipped (as in, not base model) conventional engined sedan.
I'll agree, it is sort of ugly, but the new ones are much nicer, and actually one of the nicer looking non-performance cars on the market, in my opinion.
Looks are subjective. I think they're not ugly, not the prettiest cars either. As a motorcyclist all cars feel slow. Most people don't need a high-performance car. They might be expensive today, but you need to take into consideration lower usage costs.
Ugly? They can't be uglier than, say, an FSO or a Dacia :) .
Slow? Many cars are slower than a Prius (I drive a Renault Twingo). See also http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130725164108AA...
Expensive? Yes. That's the dealbreaker for me, otherwise I'd buy one in a heartbeat.