OK, I have until 3/31 to take delivery to receive the local electric company and Nissan $10K and current IRS $7.5K rebate. I’m interested in pros and cons of folks who have experience with this vehicle. My brother just bought his 2nd Leaf and my neighbor has purchased one and let me sit in hers this afternoon.
Net price after rebates should be somewhere under $15K for the basic Leaf after rebates. I’m rounding up quotes to have an electrical line installed in our carport, which is one thing that will need to be added.
We currently have a photovoltaic system in our roof and don’t drive even 5000 miles/year total. The vehicle would mostly be for going around town --mostly under 20 -30 miles/day. H has a used gas Volvo, which would be our other car. I’m aware of the HI state perks (can use contraflow lane, some metered free parking).
Seriously? I am going to look at used Leafs (Leaves?) today! I have been thinking about this a lot. I can’t use the tax benefits of a new one, plus in NC we don’t have a state tax benefit, but I think because there are so many subsidies for buyers of the new cars, the used ones are cheap. 2015 vehicles are advertised for just under $10k, so I will take a look. The only non-obvious concern I have is if repairs are needed I guess I have to take it to the local Nissan dealer, and who knows how good even that dealer will be for repairs, and how expensive might repairs be? The obvious concerns of course are, range and time to charge, and my wife wanting to use it all the time - which I hear often becomes a problem.
We’ve had a Leaf for almost three years now, and I’m not a car person but I really love our Leaf. The furthest we generally drive it is for my work, which is close to 40 miles round trip. I don’t generally make a second outing, but I might stop at the store for groceries on the way home. This is very easy to use in range without issues, and the current Leafs have a better battery. We use a regular 120V outlet in the garage, and I think we have it programed to start charging at midnight so that we are drawing electricity at a low demand time. It is always charged and ready to go in the morning. I love never having to buy gas, particularly since there aren’t many convenient stations near us. It is fun and zippy. I have always driven a manual transmission because I hate how automatic transmissions often change the gears at the wrong time. Not sure what exactly you call the Leaf transmission, but it is very smooth and there are no noticeable gear changes. The only caution I might add, is that I think next year’s model will have a much more powerful battery? I’d definitely look into that if the range is at all a concern for you or if you might regret not having the latest and greatest. The car handles well in the rain and seems to do pretty well in minor snow as well, but I don’t think the latter would be an issue for you.
I think we’d be fine with something that has a better range than most golf carts, though I’d prefer the best battery we can get to start with so that when it degrades it will still meet our needs. It’s funny that H has taken some time to warm to the idea and across the street, the male of the family wants one but his wife is taking time to warm to that idea. They are retired and don’t really drive much, but both he and I think it’s too good a deal to pass up.
My husband is on his 2nd Leaf and we like it. I get battery anxiety, so it is not a good choice for me, but it works for my husband. He’s retired and just runs around town, mainly. We take it to basketball games in Nashville and it saves on my vehicle’s gas usage. We have the big charger in our garage. There was a little bit of a learning curve. Very cold weather really tanks the battery (which HIMom won’t have to worry about) and we had a few close calls. It’s a nice vehicle overall. My husband is looking at the new Chevy Volt for his next car since it has a lot more range, but they aren’t available yet in our area.
Well, I only work part time and H is retired, so we don’t ever drive a great deal in any given day. With the two rebates, the net price is tough to beat right now.
How timely. Our trusted mechanic just informed us this morning that our 15-year-old Corolla is not worth further investment. I will need some time to grieve before looking for a replacement, but a used Leaf and Volt are on the list. The Corolla was our local run-around car. We’re not worried about range, just low-cost transpo to the grocery store, doctor, etc. So, I’m following this thread with interest and reading through my tears.
Wow, those crazy incentives must have cleaned the inventory out! Of all states, HI would be the state to own an EV - lots of solar energy and not a whole lot of miles of asphalt to drive on.
Yes, especially if we don’t need to drive far and the distances we drive are fairly close together. We have the highest penetration of personal / rooftop solar systems in the nation. The very high cost of electricity in our state is a great motivator for folks to have solar water heaters and photovoltaic systems. Our state and islands are ideal for electric vehicles, even the shorter range ones.
We have the highest cost of electricity in the nation as well, so it was a no-brainer for folks. The electric company put a limitation on what % of the state in each region could have net metering via photo voltaic so the system wouldn’t crash and surge too much, since the infrastructure is trained when there’s tons of electricity coming in and then a huge draw down during overcast/cloudy/evening hours.
Presumably, electricity in Hawaii is expensive due to most of it being generated from oil.
Solar makes a lot of sense in Hawaii, but the fact that electricity use does not perfectly coincide with solar electricity generation means that (at the utility scale) there has to be either some form of storage or some other generation source that can be adjusted to match supply and demand at any given time.
Some companies do make house batteries (sort of like house UPS); probably the best known is Tesla’s Power Wall.
Well, I’m still trying to get one to purchase! The crazy thing is that they are selling used Leafs for about the price that the NEW ones are netting ($10-15K), after rebates, except the batteries on the used ones are 4 or so years old!
I don’t know. We weren’t seriously looking until this amazing deal from the electric company and NISSAN appeared. Sometimes such deals help get us off the dime. We have three cars that all work OK right now, so getting a new vehicle isn’t really urgent except that the offer for the electric company rebate is expiring–delivery must be taken by 3/31 but the dealers can’t keep the cars stocked!
We liked our Leaf but eventually wanted a car with a longer range. It bothered my husband that we could not count on chargers if we tried to drive to Portland from Eugene. He also noticed that the range seemed to decrease a bit with age (and with cold weather; something you wouldn’t hopefully have to deal with in HI). He bought a Volt, because the gas backup means we can take it anywhere. I just got a new Ford Fusion Energi plugin, so we have two plugins now (the Fusion range is smaller (15-20 mi vs 50 for the Volt and 100ish supposedly for Leaf?) but there is still gas backup) and we were among the first here to have the Leaf. We love electric cars! And our solar panels are near our charger, so the electric company guy said we are basically driving sun-powered cars!
The Fusion Energi was expensive and had a good tax credit for lease only, curiously.
