New guy from Quebec

[Pete]

Sounds like GLADoS should be glad to have a well informed owner like yourself.

[dani3d]

And you would probably need a place to plug it at work, otherwise it will discharge in such cold temperature. Sure there is some battery warmer but how long does it hold on? 4 hours? Lets say you leave your car 8 hours at work without it being plugged, then what? will it be able to make it back home? For me it was not possible because I have 25km to do each way and don't have any way to plug it at work, so going back home would be a challenge as I would need to be 100% sure that the car can take me to and back from work. My next car will probably be electric though...as they will probably get better and better in the future.

[goog1986]

From the experience of other Leaf owners, it is fairly easy to do a 60 km round trip during the really cold days of winter even if you can't charge at work, you need to adapt your driving style though (slow acceleration, reduce your speed on the highway, minimize the use of heating). The battery warmer will keep working even if the car is unplugged and will automatically stop if the battery gets to 30%, at that point the battery will get cold and it will affect range drastically. However, once you start driving (conservatively), the battery will warm up and will gain some range. I will be able to give my own feedback on this at the end of the winter, but some Leaf owners claim they were able to do a 100 km commute on a -25C day (but it was probably challenging!).

But, you are right, the technology keeps getting better each year (which is why I leased my Leaf) and the second generation of electric cars should eliminate most of the range anxiety issues. There are rumors that the next Leaf (2017) will have a 300 km range (and, hopefully, better styling), but nothing has been confirmed yet. Tesla has also announced the Model 3 (also 2017) with a 300 km range and a price tag of around 35 000$USD.

So yeah, in about 2 years the EV offer will probably convince a lot more people to switch to electric and, again if the rumors are true, they will start to become more interesting for families with only one car.

[dani3d]

It's really not worth it to buy a 50K electric car since it would take forever to get back that cost in gas saving. By the time you are getting a bit of your money back with gas saving, there will be time to change the batteries and how much would that be? 3k?

I will never buy an electric car unless it is reasonable in price, and that would be 20k to 25k.

How much does it cost per month to loan a Leaf?

Tesla has also announced the Model 3 (also 2017) with a 300 km range and a price tag of around 35 000$USD.

So yeah, in about 2 years the EV offer will probably convince a lot more people to switch to electric and, again if the rumors are true, they will start to become more interesting for families with only one car.

[goog1986]

It's really not worth it to buy a 50K electric car since it would take forever to get back that cost in gas saving. By the time you are getting a bit of your money back with gas saving, there will be time to change the batteries and how much would that be? 3k?

I will never buy an electric car unless it is reasonable in price, and that would be 20k to 25k.

How much does it cost per month to loan a Leaf?

See, this is what everyone is assuming about electric cars, but when you do the maths, you realize that it is simply not true.

First, apart from the Teslas and the BMW i3, EVs do not cost $50K. The top of the line Nissan Leaf SL is $46K (all inclusive) before the Quebec government rebate of 8000$. Yes, the sale price is still higher than gasoline powered cars in the same class, but when you factor in the money you save on fuel, maintenance (EVs requires no maintenance apart from a battery check every year, which is free for the first two years and costs 80$ the next years) and the insurance rebate (most companies offer a 20% rebate for EVs), you end up saving money.

Second, EVs batteries have a warranty of 8 years / 160 000 km against defect and 5 years / 100 000 km against loss of capacity. There are already numerous Leaf owners around the world how managed to do 200 000 km or more with the original battery with minimal loss of capacity. The replacement cost (out of warranty) is currently around $5K, but it is likely going to get cheaper in the upcoming years as the cost of producing batteries is getting lower year after year.

Third, sure if you compare the Leaf to a Micra, it would take forever to get your money back. However, this is not a fair comparison, you need to compare it with cars that have similar equipment and size. I did a graph where I compare the Nissan Leaf SV to 2 gas powered cars of the same class with almost the same equipment, the Honda Civic EX and the new Scion iM. Here's a screenshot of the cost of ownership of these 3 cars over the years:

Link to higher resolution

In these numbers, I did not factor in the insurance savings for EVs, the additional purchase rebate currently available (4000$), the preferred plans if you became a member of AVÉQ (another 1500$ of savings) and only compiled the cost of 2 oil changes (done at the dealer) per year for the gas powered cars, but past experience with new cars told me that these cost are way higher than that when it comes to scheduled maintenance. Anyway, it shows that it takes roughly 5 years to break even and after that, the EV is cheaper to own than the gas powered car. We can see savings of around $2K after 7 years and up to $8K after 10 years. But again, if you factor in everything I did not put in these calculations, you can break even in 3 years.

Now, I also did a comparison if you lease these same 3 cars. The leasing payments for the gas powered cars come from the internet whereas the Leaf is based on my current monthly payments.

Link to higher resolution

You can see here that even when leasing, the EV is actually cheaper to own than similarly equipped gas powered cars.

If you want more information, feel free to ask!