I Drove the Nissan Leaf: Here's What I Love and Hate About It | In-Depth Review

I drove the Nissan Leaf. Here's what I love and here's what I hate about it. Welcome back to the channel here guys. So if you're buying the Nissan Leaf, here's some things you might want to know about it before you make your decision. I want to share with you what I love and what I hate. Now let's start off with some of my favorite things. For 2024, the Nissan Leaf is one of the lower priced EV models. It has a Canadian MSRP of $44,592 or about $36,040 USD. That's for the 2024 models. That's without any dealership discounts, without any government subsidies or rebates that you can get for being an EV. So if you're looking to buy an EV without breaking the bank, the Leaf has always been in one of the lower priced classes. What I love the most about having an EV is the low cost of ownership. It certainly was nice not having to go to the gas station, stop and get gas, get that little delay and obviously not paying for gas. Now everyone's situation is a little different. I work about 10 kilometers from my house and there's a charging station at my work. So all I would have to do is drive home, do my things at home, and then the next morning I would drive to work and charge it. For the little driving I'd be doing in the evening, I always had enough range. Now where the situation changed is on the weekends. If I was doing a day trip or a longer trip over the weekend, 100 kilometers on the Saturday and then 100 kilometers back on the Sunday, I would have to charge it either at home or wherever I was, which is somewhat cumbersome, a little bit of a pain. Here's a quick comment answering your questions. KevinBennet1460 commented on our Nissan Ariya video. It comes to a five mile an hour crawl. It does not stop like the E-Pedal in the Leaf. So that's a great comment. Thank you so much for all your knowledge about the Nissans, Kevin. Greatly appreciate it. This E-Pedal in the Leaf will come to a complete stop versus the Nissan Ariya where it only just comes to a little crawl and you still have to apply the brakes. See now I'm using the E-Pedal and here it is, boom, coming to a complete stop. So this one boasts a 342 kilometer range and you can charge it from zero to 80 percent in about 40 minutes. So that's not too bad, but here's one of the things that I hate about the car. You don't get that exact range that it's rated at. You'll never get the 342 kilometers on a full charge. Once you start using things like the air conditioner, you start using the radio, you're driving without the E-Pedal. When it starts off and it tells you 300 kilometers to a dead battery, once I go about 60 kilometers, it drops down to about 200 kilometers. So really you're getting like 200 to 250 kilometers per charge. That's one thing that I don't like. One of my favorite things also is the car is incredibly quiet. However, it can be a double-edged sword here. It's great that it's quiet, but the negative thing is often like pedestrians or other cars don't even know you're coming. Like you'd be waiting for people to cross the sidewalk and they don't even see you there. They don't even hear you there. Other cars don't hear you on the road. He's silent if he keeps that under five miles per hour. He deserves the win. Nissan's kind of made themselves aware of that. They put the rear sonars on the back and it actually makes a noise outside the car, which will help when you're reversing. If someone was walking, they'll hear you reversing out of parking spots or out of driveways. The other negative is the air conditioner. I'm going to turn the air all the way up, but because the car is so quiet, it seems like the air conditioner sounds so loud. Normally in a regular car, it doesn't feel like it's this loud. I don't know if it's specific to the LEAF, but I attribute it to the fact that the car is so quiet. So my definite favorite thing that I like about the LEAF is how fun it is to drive. Like the power that goes to the front wheels is phenomenal. And this is certainly a fun little grocery getter. I love how you can just zip in and out of parking spots, put it in reverse right away. You can slap it and drive so fast and instantly take off and you can accelerate. Like for a small hatchback, it does accelerate like a rocket. It's great for zipping in and around the city. That's what this car is perfect for. Now, one of my biggest negatives, the break-even point happens very late. And that's what a lot of people don't understand when they're purchasing these cars. With the $44,000 Canadian MSRP, the break-even point on this is going to be about year four. That's based on the average Canadian. They do about 20,000 kilometers a year. Me personally, I drive less than 20,000 kilometers a year. So my break-even point might not be till year five or year six. What do I mean by break-even point? You're going to be spending a higher price tag at $44,000. So you can save money on gas. Based on a typical $35,000 gas car, the break-even point would be around year four. So it's averaging out. And I did my calculations at about $1.5 per every liter. So $1.50 per liter. And we know the gas prices are higher than that at the pumps. But let's be honest here. You can get a lot of great four-cylinder SUVs or cars that are $35,000 or less. Probably wouldn't even spend $35,000. I would try to find something cheaper. And again, that's not factoring in the rebates that you get from the government. But what people don't understand, especially when you get up to like the $60,000, $70,000 electric cars, the break-even point is not until really like year seven, year eight, year nine. And you need to ask yourself if you really want to keep a car for that long. Big negative two is the space in the car. Now this one, there's no frunk in the electric car. So all you really have is the trunk in the back. And they even give you the charging equipment that they leave in the back there, which takes up a little bit of space. So for me, it's not too bad. If you had kids, you need to put a stroller back there, maybe groceries, cooler, things like that. It's going to be tight. Tight, tight, tight. Yeah. It is still tight feeling. I'm 5'9". Lots of headroom. That's great. But leg and knee room is limited in the driver's seat. But I'm sure I would feel that in any sort of small hatchback that I purchased. Another feature that I love or features that I love, that is the safety features, the Nissan Safety Suite. So you get the pro-powered assist, you get the blind spot warning, the lane departure warning, the high beam assistant. Everything is nice and automatic. And it really helps when you're making those long drives. Now, we've done a full POV test drive of me testing all those features out and going through using the Nissan e-pedal, the pro-powered assist, the intelligent cruise control. So stay tuned for that, guys, next week. Based on driving this car and my positives and negatives, I'm going to let you know if this is a flex or a next. Flex being would I buy this car or next would I pass and check out the next vehicle. Now, the Nissan LEAF, I'm going to say is a next. Comment below what you guys think, if there is a better electric car on the market, or do you think this would work for you? Love to hear it. Have a great day.