Overview & Reviews

Forget about Who Killed the Electric Car? How about who brought it back to life? While there have been $100,000 electric sports cars and funny garage-built oddities in recent years, the Nissan Leaf made its mark by being the first fully electric car priced and designed for the everyday car shopper.

When fully charged, the Leaf has an effective maximum range of about 80 miles. That's sufficient to schlep most people from home to work and back, but longer trips will, of course, pose a challenge. As such, the Leaf is best for multicar households or those with shorter commutes. Another must is having a garage, ideally with a 240-volt charger. If you can check these boxes, though, the Nissan Leaf could really revolutionize your driving experience. It's an electric car for the real world, and that's an idea that everyone can get behind.

Current Nissan Leaf
The Nissan Leaf is an all-electric, five-seat compact hatchback. It's powered by an 80-kilowatt electric motor that's fed by a 24 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. Output is 107 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque, but we advise taking these numbers with a grain of salt, since the "instant-on" power delivery of an electric motor is vastly different from gasoline- or diesel-fueled acceleration.

The Leaf is available in three trim levels: S, SV and SL. Despite being the base model, the S still features keyless ignition/entry, automatic climate control, a heated steering wheel, heated front and rear seats, Bluetooth, a rearview camera and an iPod interface. However, the S model's entry-level onboard charger needs a lengthy 8 hours to fully charge the battery pack.

Stepping up to the SV and SL adds a more robust onboard charger that cuts the charging time to 4 hours with a 240-volt charging dock. You also get a "B-mode" function that allows for more aggressive regenerative braking in certain situations. Standard and available features include 17-inch alloy wheels, a 360-degree parking camera system, a navigation system with 7-inch display and a Bose audio system. The SL boasts standard leather upholstery and a quick-charge port (enabling 80 percent charges in 30 minutes at high-voltage commercial charging stations).

In reviews, our editors have remarked on how relaxing the Leaf is to drive. Anyone who has driven or at least stood next to a gas/electric hybrid will know how eerily quiet it is when operating in electric mode. Well, such serenity never ceases in the Nissan Leaf, as there is only a high-pitched whine from the electric motor under heavy acceleration. Don't confuse serenity with slowness, though, because there's an abundance of torque available as soon as you step on it, giving the Leaf an alert, energetic feel around town. This fairly heavy car also handles surprisingly well, in part because its batteries lie beneath the floor, delivering a low center of gravity that enhances agility.

With the Nissan Leaf, driving an electric car doesn't mean you have to leave people or stuff behind. This is a mainstream passenger car, not a science experiment with a cramped cabin. The rear seat is comfortable for adults, and the hatchback cargo area can be expanded to accommodate larger items (though its load floor isn't flat with the rear seatbacks folded). Like many other alternative-energy vehicles, the Leaf features a futuristic cabin design, with split-level instruments and a center touchscreen that operates the stereo, standard navigation system and special electric system displays.

Used Nissan Leaf Models
The Nissan Leaf debuted for the 2011 model year with two trim levels: SV and SL. Both came standard with the less powerful (3.3 kWh) onboard charger. The high-powered charger (6.6 kWh) didn't appear until 2013, so expect longer charge times to be a downside of buying any used Leaf from 2011 or '12.

A quick-charge port -- the one that yields an 80 percent charge in 30 minutes when using commercial charging stations -- was optional on all 2011 Leafs. For 2012, this port became standard on the Leaf SL. Also for 2012, every Leaf gained standard heated front and rear seats, a heated steering wheel, heated exterior mirrors and a battery heater.

The SV and SL upgraded to a standard high-powered onboard charger for 2013 -- the one that cuts normal charging times from 8 hours to 4 hours with a 240-volt power source. The base S model was also introduced, albeit with the less powerful charger.

A rearview camera was made standard on all models for 2014.

User Reviews:

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  Excellent Commute Car - But Not for Everyone - 2013 Nissan Leaf
  By A Used Leaf Owner - April 30 - 9:58 am

  Great deals for a used Leaf these days. Youll need to consider your driving range. For this car, range is limited. Im getting about 75-80 mile max range depending on the day, though Im too chicken to ever push it to the max. If you have a second car for longer distance travel, this serves as a great commute car. I live in Southern California and charging has never been an issue. Assuming a 50-miles daily commute, youll need to charge 50 miles on a daily basis since you wont deplete the charge fully. This can easily be done overnight at home even with a regular 110V outlet. The car has very little moving parts (no gas engine, no oil, no transmission, no fuel tank, no oil filter, no muffler, no belts). Its basically battery, electric motor, and wheels connected to motor, which makes maintenance very easy. And because of less moving parts, reliability for a used EV, in my opinion, would generally be better than an equivalent gas vehicle. All else equal, I would choose a Leaf over other used gas vehicle provided the range is within your tolerance.

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  DC fast charger not needed, but 6.6KW is a must! - 2013 Nissan Leaf
  By frugaldave1298 - March 29 - 5:10 pm

  Had the car for 1300 miles and 1 month. Great car. Purchased after I got tired of waiting for the new Smart ED which had repeated delays. We got the base S model with the $1300 DC Fast Charge option. SL, SV models come with the 6.6KW onboard charger that charges your car at about 30% per hour. The old 3.3KW charger (still standard on the S) gives you about half that charging rate meaning youll be forced to wait longer when charging out in town. This is a huge deal! The fast charge option adds the high speed DC charge 30 mins 0-80% and upgrades the 3.3kw to the 6.6kw onboard. That is a big deal! In hindsight, prob should have just gotten the mid-grade Leaf with the 6.6w charger.

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  Great choice for around town use by family. - 2014 Nissan Leaf
  By Abhinav - March 4 - 10:48 am

  This vehicle is proving itself to work very well for the specific purpose we had in mind - to be used to get around our town, school PUDOs, sport, groceries ... all family oriented activity. Charging is really easy as we have a lot of options in the town we live in as well as at home. The range is even good enough for us to use it for short trips to nearby trailheads when were out hiking. The vehicle drives well, is compact so its very easy to park, and the interior is simple and comfortable. Plenty of storage in the back. ECO mode is our normal use case while we switch this off when we need a quick burst of speed. Were shortly going to be charging the vehicle from the new solar array on our house - so its a nice and complete scenario there!

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  An unexpected bargain - 2013 Nissan Leaf
  By Steve H - January 28 - 6:29 pm

  I have to tell you how happy I am with this Nissan Leaf. Its a quiet, comfortable, very affordable "mid-sized-category" little car. It feels spacious and the electric motor is plenty nimble. The super low rolling resistance tires are a limitation, so if you want a car that feels more "sporty" in cornering and handling youd swap those out, at some cost to range. Which brings us to range. My experience for the way I drive, is that I average roughly around 4 miles/kwh and I can reliably count on being able to drive 70 miles between charges no matter what, even including any "range destroying" variables such as using climate control, lights, driving between 65mph and 70mph for the "freeway" portion of my commute; and all this is on a car that I bought used - a 2013 lease return thats about 2.5 years old with already about 27,000 miles on it. But if ever there was a car for which the saying is true "your mileage may vary" this has got to be the one. The instruments give you tons of feedback about how to drive efficiently. But its a simple fact that wind resistance is proportional to velocity cubed and that it takes more energy to accelerate a heavy object quickly. So if youre an unrepentant leadfoot, this is probably not the car for you - look to the Tesla Model S. Now, many folks refill their cars with gasoline at or before the point when there are 70 miles left on the tank. 70 miles is only about a quarter tanks worth. But the electric car is different, you plug it in at your house every night. And that turns out to be far more convenient than stopping into the gas station once a week. Also the new 2016 SV and SL "high end" leaf models have a new 30kwh battery - 25% more electrical storage than the current models 24kwh. But whatll probably surprise you is how *cheap* it is. I bought this one used for only about 11k. Pretty much no other 2013 used car on the market sells for $11k except a high-mileage econobox. And the leafs a nicer car - larger, more electronics, heated seats, etc... And the cost to *operate* it once youve got it is a lot lower than any gasoline car. Electricity is 12cents/kwh (on the night time tiered rate - much higher during peak hours!) New ones are cheap too, though. With the end-of-year incentives available Ive seen "one at this price" 3 year lease deals for a strip model "S" 2015 leaf for only $109 a month(!) Leasing tends to be the preferred option for new leafs, because the leasing company can claim the government incentives and roll that into the price, whereas if you buy outright, you have to wait until tax-filing time to claim the electric-vehicle-tax-credit. Gasolines dirt cheap right now at about $2.75 a gallon. But even a fairly efficient car gets only say, 35 mpg. If like me you drive 225 miles a week, thats $18/week. The leaf uses 56 kwh to go the same distance - about $6.75 worth of electricity. To convert apples to apples, there are 33kwh of energy in one gallon of gasoline. So a car that gets 35mpg gets about 1mi/kwh. Or, an electric car that gets 4mi/kwh basically gets 132 mi/gallon energy equivalent. I didnt switch from a 35mpg car though. I switched from commuting in a 16mpg 4x4 truck. All that said, for most folks a leaf is still NOT practical as the ONLY car in a household. Sometimes you need or want to take longer trips. Anne and I drove up to see friends in Concord yesterday, a 130 mile round trip. Naturally we took the gas powered car. And you need to live in a house where you can install an electric vehicle charger. But if youve got a "two car" household where one car can do pure commute duty, especially if its a pretty long commute, a Leaf could pay off well for you. If you buy used, you want to be aware of how to read the batterys residual capacity (different than state-of-charge) off the instrument panel, and discount the price for reduced capacity. Nissan improved the battery durability (ability to hold a charge) in 2013, and again in 2014. To my mind, the 2011 and 2012 models arent discounted heavily enough yet to reflect this difference, so Id probably focus on finding a 2013 model. Finally, if you live in a hot climate like Arizona, you should probably get a 2015 or newer - as thats when Nissan adopted their newer "Lizard" battery design thats more heat resistant. Conversely, if you live in a colder climate, you should probably get an SV or SL model, since those have a heat pump heater rather than a current drawing resistive heat unit.

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  We love this car! - 2013 Nissan Leaf
  By Kevin Courcey - January 11 - 2:13 pm

  Most dealers will tell you this is a great 2nd car for around town driving. But this has been our only car, and weve taken it on trips numerous times. You just need to plan your route more carefully than with a gas car. I suppose it helps that we are retired and under few time constraints. But we do love this car. The acceleration is fast... surprisingly so. The car is incredibly comfortable to drive, even on long distances. My wife loves the heated seats and steering wheel, I like the Bose sound system with XM and the ability to plug in a USB drive and play music off that. Maintenance is minimal, and its a very safe car. UPDATE 3-15-17 Weve traded in the LEAF for a Volt. This occurred after coming home from the beach and finding that the chargers we usually use were out of service. We ended up running out of charge on Rt 26 outside Portland and had to call a tow truck. The problem isnt with the car. The LEAF is a great car. However, the charging infrastructure is not reliable at this point, and with the current administration so aggressively oil friendly, is likely to degrade further. The Volt allows us to use EV for all our around town driving, while not having to worry about going on day trips and not being able to charge. After owning the Volt for 6 months, we are averaging over 170 MPG.

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  Well built, loved the quiet - 2011 Nissan Leaf
  By rufustf - January 11 - 3:06 am

  We are in TN, so only Nissan dealers are supplying the charging stations making "range anxiety" a very real concern for me after hours driving. It will just take more planning until I adjust to it. When DC quick charging stations are more available, range anxiety will be much reduced. Handles very well.

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  Nissan Leaf - 2012 Nissan Leaf
  By ronokuda - October 11 - 8:19 am

  If you can afford it, this car is fun to drive. Plenty of pick-up (we drive home over 80 mph). It is a commuter car for going to work and coming home. Approximate round trip distance is 100 miles on one charge. If you use economy mode, it can get more miles, but no pick up and go, I mean none. When you go down hill or even flat (not up hill) it can make more miles instead of using up miles on economy. Approximate cost to charge from empty is $2.50. Dont get ripped off when getting your home charger, (see suggested improvements). Go see Gina or Ken at Performance Nissan. I can honestly say you will get an up and up deal, and not get ripped.

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  Initial Purchase - 2012 Nissan Leaf
  By black2green - July 22 - 9:13 am

  The vehicle is every thing that I expected from the research that I did. I would rate it higher but I have only had the vehicle for a week so I still want to evaluate the car more before I determine whether there should be an excellent rating or not. Thus far I am continuing to see the advantages of having a EV. I notice many other people driving smaller gas vehicles and it is there second or third vehicle and I wonder why they have not gone EV.

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  Love this car, but man it cost me. - 2011 Nissan Leaf
  By Zac Held - June 1 - 11:57 pm

  Its a great car. The car itself is completely vanilla, but I love how smooth and quiet it is. At stoplights I think my other gas car has something wrong with all the vibration. The acceleration is linear and totally smooth. Not visiting gas stations is awesome. Its fun to sneak up on people in parking lots. The range anxiety went away after a month of owning the car, although its starting to come back. The BIG HOWEVER, I have had the car for over five years now, it has less than 60k miles and my battery capacity is now half of what it was when new. I was a responsible battery charger, and live in a mild climate. Since it is just out of warranty (4 years) its up to me to cover the cost of the replacement battery. I can currently go about 40 miles if I dont use the heater, and my work is about 40 miles roundtrip. I know all batteries degrade over time, and I was comfortable of having to replace it. What totally caught me by surprise is the cost of a new battery; quoted by my dealer is $8000. A quick blue book value of my car is about $6000. The horrible depreciation of the car combined with the cost of a replacement battery, completely make the economics of owning this car a terrible deal. For $8000 I could buy nearly twenty thousand gallons of gasoline! At 25 miles per gallon I could travel 500,000 miles! All these leafs are going to have to be converted to golf carts in retirement to get any value out of them. Update 2-18. Car has about 68,000 miles now. Still gets me back and forth to work, but due to battery degradation the heater is only allowed for small spurts to defrost the windows in the winter. It is a great car durability wise since I have only had to change the tires so far, and drives like the day it was new. We tend to drive it less miles now because the range anxiety of driving to new places is resurfacing. Bad news is that battery degradation and the cost to replace it is crazy. Buying a used one that doesnt need to go very far makes sense. Today a 2011 leaf in my area goes for 5000-7000. Not sure what a battery costs today, if its still $8000, no way that makes sense. The battery needs to be closer to $1000 to even think of changing it.

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  Money Saving Tips - 2012 Nissan Leaf
  By kool69 - April 15 - 8:17 pm

  When buying the LEAF start off with the lease. This way get the $7500 deducted from the price right away. After that is done, you refinance and buy it. I did this and got my discount right away without waitng. Next, Home Depot has a 240v battery charger online that is a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than what is offered anywhere else. If you have a gas dryer use the electrical connection for that circuit and save more money. Driving tip, I have found that following behind large trucks on the highway increases the range considerably. I auctually got the 100mpg when I drove under 60mph when following these trucks