Is the 2023 Nissan Leaf SV Plus a SERIOUS EV competitor?

Welcome back to another video here today, guys. We are with the 2023 Nissan LEAF SV Plus. Electric, electric, electric is what I've been hearing a lot these days. So let's go through the ins and outs to help you determine if this EV is the right one for you. So for 2023, the Nissan LEAF saw a few changes. And with an MSRP of $45,998, there's definitely lots to love here. And it's going to help save on fuel. The question that's probably right on your mind is what is the range? This one being the SV Plus, you get the longer range. It has a 343 kilometer range. Now, what they've added here for 2023 and what you get with this SV model, you have this nice front end kind of spoiler-ish front hood there that you can see comes right below our Nissan emblem. And it is a pop-up camera that comes right out for our front around view monitor. And we have the new Nissan emblem. This is where our charging port is. With this one being the SV Plus, you also get the larger motor. So it's a 60 kilowatt lithium ion battery, 160 kilowatt synchronized electric motor. Technically, you got 214 horsepower and 250 pounds feet of torque coming out of this thing. Let's take a look at the headlights. You have LED headlights as well with this Nissan LEAF. And you have things like automatic high beam assistant. You have auto on-off headlights. And look at these rims. Right away when I see the new models, my eyes gravitated right towards these 17-inch aluminum alloy rims. Really cool. Kind of looks like a cone. I could use one for my hair. No remote starter on this SV. But because it's battery operated, you don't really need that. If you download the Nissan Connect systems, you can view all your features of the vehicle right from your phone and you can remote start it from your phone. So you can see your charging, how much time you left. You can schedule charging. You can locate your car, lock, unlock your car and remote start it. What I really like is how quiet the car is. So you can hear us on the road now or you can't hear us on the road now. It's extremely quiet. That's the benefit of any electric car. And the Nissan LEAF using the gauges at the front here really helps you gauge how efficient the car is being. There's an economy mode, which is great in the city. And then I always have to talk about this e-pedal. So the e-pedal kind of helps you drive with one foot and it really just maximizes the efficiency of the vehicle here. As you decelerate, it regenerates the power that you've generated and puts it back into the battery. So right now I can slow down and I don't even have to touch the brake. It will just automatically decelerate as I kind of come and go with the e-pedal. And this one being the white exterior, it comes with the black roof, the black mirrors, chrome body handles. This one, it will come with, like I said, the fast charging connection. That's one advantage of going up to the SV. You get that portable charger and it's going to charge to 80% in about 40 minutes if you use that fast charging system. Now, if you're plugging in to just a regular 120 volt overnight thing, you would take about 11 hours is just the regular from zero to full charge. So if you are considering buying an EV, there's a lot of questions to consider and I posted a detailed video on this about what to consider before purchasing an EV. But you need to consider how close you are to charging stations. You need to consider, is there a charging station at your work? You need to calculate what your average commute is to work. Is your average commute 100 kilometers or more or is it less? Can you charge your car on the way to work? Is there places to stop during your commutes to charge? Those are all things you want to consider. You also want to look into if there's any incentives from your government. A lot of incentives are being offered by provincial, statewide, nationwide governments to purchase electric vehicles. And that's something that you need to consider because you could probably save some money and get a rebate after you purchase the vehicle from the dealership. Also note to ask your dealer if they can apply for the rebate for you. At my dealership where I work, we submit the rebate for the customer so they don't have to go through all that trouble. Some other dealerships will make you pay full price for the car and then you submit the rebate later and you don't get the tax savings. So inquire at your dealership about the rebates that are issued from the government. Coming around to the back, we have our boomerang style taillights, rear parking sensors as well, backup camera, and it's just going to make it easier for parking. The wheel is heated. That's one thing I noticed right when I jump in. We have features like push button start. This kind of different shifter knob that they've had in the Leaf catches a lot of people by surprise, but once you get the hang of it, very easy to use. Electric parking brake, heated front seats as well. It's an eight-way power adjustable driver's seat. And then you have this kind of graphite style trim here and just a lot of hard surfaces in the Leaf. I wish there was a bit more softer surfaces, but lots of love. Let's check out the infotainment. So quite a few modern features in here. You have the eight-inch touchscreen display. You can do things like GPS navigation, points of interest. You can also connect to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. There's Bluetooth audio streaming as well. Sirius satellite radio. And then down below, we have our digital temperature control, which you can see comes up on the screen there. In our center stack, we have our heated seat controls. There's two USBs as well to charge your phone. There's a little cubby here to place your phone. And then our e-pedal and our economy mode, we're going to test out when we drive. In terms of drive-wise, it's a comfortable drive. It accelerates nice. I haven't fully tested the range for on a monthly basis to see the range. But obviously, whatever electric vehicle you purchase, you're obviously not going to get the range that's advertised. So that 343-kilometer range will probably get more closer to 300, maybe a little less, especially in the winter months when you're using the heater and the air conditioning or there's heavy winds and things like that. All those factors are going to affect your range. So if you have kids, you probably want to know how much space is in the back. Now, I'm 5'9", and it's a little tight back here. This seat is all the way back. So normally, you would probably pull it a little forward when you drive. The cool thing is, is these two seats are heated. There's a little hump here. That's because the battery is underneath. There's all the batteries underneath here. So they have to protect the battery there. Let's check out the trunk. There's quite a bit of space in the trunk. With the LEAF, you do have the battery-operated motor and engine at the front. So you don't have like a frunk, but you do have all the space in the trunk here. This is all of our charging accessories. So it comes with the cable. It comes with the adapter for you to plug into a regular 120-volt, or you can plug right into like your dryer outlet if you want to plug in there. But quite a bit of storage space. And then you can fold the seats down like this, and they fold down there. It's a 60-40 split for the seats, so you can fit those large items. Hopefully, you guys learned something here about the Nissan LEAF today. If you guys have questions, post them in the comments. As always, follow me on Instagram if you want to see my day-to-day life selling cars. And don't hesitate to drop a thumbs up if you learned something here today about the LEAF, about electric vehicle. Comment below what you guys think, and we'll see you in the next one. Have a great day.