Another LEAF, are you insane?

 Yep, #3 is in the driveway. Previous one (2018 Leaf S) is for sale. [Edit: SOLD!!]

NOTICE: I was wrong! see **  below.

2021 Nissan Leaf S ePlus. 225 Miles of range on the hoof.

And yeah, the 50% increase in range is real. 30% more power ain't bad either.  See below.  

Insanity arguments:

Q: This thing has been in production for over 10 years! Why not get a newer design?

A: Money,    ...well, and in that 10 years it's proven fairly reliable.

Longer answer: Lots of money. Tesla and GM (Bolt) do not qualify for the federal rebate. $7500 is real money. Kia/Hyundai are about $8000 high for similar capabilities during real-world negotiations. Availability on those isn't great, and $8K is real money. Jaguar and Audi are expensive jokes. Ford? maybe someday. VW might be worth a look.  

Leaf dealers are already getting antsy about their stock levels so between Nissan's reductions and dealer reductions you're looking at $10K off the top. A $42K car is suddenly $32K, -before- federal and state rebates. Deals are out there. With the right combination of time of year (dealer incentives), state, federal, and sometimes local electric company incentives it is VERY possible to get the lower range model (40 KWh) down to $18K by the time all is said and done. Don't believe Idjits who tell you how expensive electric cars are. Teslas, yes -they- are expensive

Q: Leases are insane!

A: This was pretty thoroughly covered during the post on the previous Leaf purchase (the 2018.)

Besides, per another previous post leases are great if you don't qualify for the full federal tax credit.

And another thing that's not so obvious: The two previous Leafs have/had market values AT LEAST a couple $K more then the 'buy-out' cost at the end of the lease. Ya buy it out, title arrives, you sell.  That, plus Oregon rebate(s) have MORE than covered all DownPayment + Fees + Licensing +Taxes and leave something left over.

As a result total cost of operation; MonthlyPayment + Tires + Licensing + Maintenance + Electricity (fuel) + Insurance (yes I mean EVERYTHING) averages out to below 20 cents/mile. 

Try doing that, INCLUDING Depreciation, time-value-of money and Interest, on your current and previous vehicle(s) and you'll probably come up with double that amount, unless you're driving an unusually efficient and reliable older car. Personally, I'm driving new. Nice new!

Or, stated differently: Averaged across all three cars we've been looking at effectively below $200/mo. 
 ...total of all transportation costs for our average 1200 mi/mo.

Q: This has the old style Fast Charging connector that they're not installing many of any more. Isn't buying into that kind of dead-end technology at least sorta nutzo?

A: That's a good point. If we were keeping it for The Long Haul it might turn into an issue. However the first big batch of fast charge connectors/stations put in Oregon and Washington were mostly the kind the Leaf uses. Especially true of the parts of the states that are NOT Portland or Seattle. Yes the rate of build-out of the newer CCS charging connectors is about 5X more than the older one, but there's still plenty to cover the next three years of the lease. Even Electrify America (the 'charger' arm of VW) who have been most aggressive about phasing out older charge connector types, is still putting in new Leaf-style fast chargers throughout 2022 and it's not like those are just going to get turned off thereafter. At least in most places.

Besides, we charge at home 90+% of the time. Probably more-so with the longer range:

Yes that's our first full range run, full charge, driving home new from the dealer. 225 miles to empty (the --% remaining at the bottom).  About 80% freeway at 70 mph and the remainder in town at 'slow' with AC on around half the total time. And yes we went around the block a couple times to get to -just- zero out the charge% remaining.    Kids: Don't try this at home!.

____________

So how is it?

It doesn't feel insane at all ;-)

The Center dash screen is bigger and now supports more 'phone' functionality via Apple/Android compatibility. Having your phone's mapping app up on the big screen is nice, and you don't have to buy the up models (SV or SL) for $3-7K more to get 'navigation'. ...Besides, we hate leather seats.

Other than that and the slightly quicker acceleration (trust me there was PLENTY before) and the 50% longer range, it's essentially identical. The big front quarter blind spot for tall drivers is still present and they did NOT bring back the cool 'side shade' that was part of the visor in 2017. (see ** below)

The revised tires seem just a little quieter and maybe 2-3% more efficient. We're seeing 4.0 mi/kwh now in situations where 3.8 mi/kwh was the norm. Not a big deal but these things add up.

Mike Hendricksen, the Internet Sales Manager at Alan Webb Nissan in Vancouver WA was nice and responsive throughout the process and matched the lowest price elsewhere. Kudos!

The other six dealers we talked to? Not so much...

We'll edit this if anything new pops up. Thanks for reading!

** NOTICE: I was wrong! I've been beating up every LEAF version since our 2017 for not having the nifty sunshade/visor extender so you're not blinded from the side when you have a low sun angle therefrom. On the 2017 there was a panel you could slide out so your eyes were protected when you had the visor popped loose and flipped over to the left side, to make it 'wide' enough for when the sun was directly from the side, like driving North at sunset or South after sunrise.

While they DID remove that panel, it turns out they just made it so the entire visor slides sideways. This doesn't work quite as well, but better than nothing. I hereby apologize to Nissan for all the Darning to Heck things I said about them, or at least those related to this topic. 
Why didn't we see this or figure it out sooner? The text they added to explain about it is lightly embossed light grey on light grey and you can only see it when lit from a certain angle with the visor down. It took us over two years to find this 'feature.' We must be extra dense.