I realize my blog is supposed to be about MS stories, miles&points, and reselling, but I feel like it’s slowly becoming more of a personal finance blog.  I hope today’s post made you say, “Hmmm, I never thought about the Nissan Leaf or car leasing at all, but at least he’s a good writer and funny, so I’ll just read it when I’m on the can like I usually do.”  By the way, here’s how I leased the Leaf.

Quick Followup on the Nissan Leaf

Now that I’ve owned the car for a year, let me give you my random thoughts:

• No, I don’t plan on buying the car once the lease ends or EVER.  By year 3, you will most likely lose a bar of battery life and over time, it gets worse.  Buying a new battery costs ~$5K.  No thanks.  Plus, I think the 2017 model will have an increased range.  My current 2013 Leaf gets about 80 miles in a full charge (a little more in traffic.)  Yes, in an EV, your range improves in traffic due to the regenerative braking, unlike an ICE (this is what the cool EV kiddies refer to you gas guzzlers as an ‘internal combustion engine.’)
• Nissan has underestimated the impact of the glut of inventory that is coming once all of these leases expire.  I don’t know what the residual was for my 2013 lease (I’m too lazy to look up terms,) but for a 2016 Nissan Leaf, the residual is 31% after 6 years.  That’s a little aggressive Nissan.  Did you not read this WSJ article?
• Nissan will let me extend the lease a year.  I will certainly do that since I put nearly $3,000 down (A TERRIBLE MISTAKE), and so amortizing it over 36 months is better than 24 months (thus reducing my average monthly cost for the lease.)  And you can understand why Nissan would want me to do that right?  See bullet above.
• Speaking of residual values, I think my 2013 Nissan Leaf’s MSRP was around $35000 due to the added ‘quick charger.’  Take out the $7500 tax credit and I’m at $27,500.  Look at this Seattle Craigslist post for my exact car for $14,200.
  

  THAT MEANS THE CAR HAS DEPRECIATED OVER $13,000 IN JUST ONE YEAR!!!!

  And ladies and gentlemen, that is why I leased it for about ~$3,000 a year.  DO NO BUY A NISSAN LEAF NEW.  Just don’t.  Friends don’t let friends buy new Nissan Leaf cars.

• What do I plan to do after 2 years you ask?  I’m either going to buy or lease the new cheaper Tesla.  That’s the plan right now anyway.
• I’ve done no maintenance on the car whatsoever.  I took it in once to get inspected; it checked out.  Supposedly, the only maintenance are tire rotations and battery checks.
• I do get range anxiety.  My wife commutes 40 miles per day, which is half of the battery.  A full charge plugged into a standard wall outlet takes 19 hours.  Since she has to work the next morning, she needs ~9 hours to fully charge the car back up.  That’s why we usually don’t take it out when she gets home.  We could install an L2 charger, which would charge the car in 4 hours, but since we are leasing and have no intention to buy, we’re fine with the current situation.