We sold our 2018 Nissan Leaf last year.

We purchased the car in 2020 with 7,000 miles on it. We drove it 53,000 miles while we owned it.

We paid $19,200 for it and sold it for $7,800. It depreciated around $2,300 a year.

Here is my review.

2018 model vs. earlier years

The 2018 model improved a lot of things:

  • Better driver and passenger seats
  • Better body/frame
    • Looks like a normal car!
    • Handles better while driving.
  • Software UI is full color (not black and white)
  • 40% longer range
    • 2017 range 107 miles
    • 2018 range 150 miles

Range

Even with the improved range, we did not think this would be a good road tripping car when we bought it. We were right!

150 miles is great for around town, but not enough range for convenient road tripping. This is because you end up stopping every ~90–120 minutes and because we found the Level 3 charging network to be unreliable.

Our next EV should have 250+ miles of range and be compatible with the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Then we could stop less and have a much better selection of chargers to choose from.

Charging networks

We were continually disappointed with level 3 (CHAdeMO) charging in and around Washington state. Around 50%+ of the time our car would fail to charge. We didn’t feel we could depend on them. Part of the problem is that the CHAdeMO standard isn’t very popular in the USA, so when a charger failed us, there weren’t a lot of backup options. A more common port (like NACS) would have ameliorated some of this pain. 1

Similarly, we found that many level 2 (J1772) chargers had a high failure rate, though not as bad.

Exacerbating the issue was that sometimes the chargers were broken (e.g., charging cords cut off by junkies) for months on end.

This made road tripping uncertain because we knew charging would be hard. We basically didn’t do it.

Why we got rid of it

We sold the car in the middle of 2025 for three reasons:

  1. After I hurt my back, the front seats were uncomfortable for me.
  2. My wife wanted to ski more. For that, we needed an all-wheel drive car. (The Leaf was front-wheel drive.)
  3. We wanted to road trip more now that we have a toddler.2

Things we really liked

The Leaf was sooooooo quiet to drive. Internal combustion engines are noisy by comparison!

Instant acceleration/torque: So. Fucking. Peppy. A common misconception is that EVs have poor acceleration. This is wrong. Our Leaf was much more responsive than our current BMW X3.

The cost of fuel (electricity) for the Leaf was ~20% the cost of gasoline. Gas feels stupid expensive in comparison to electricity.

Vehicle maintenance was virtually non-existent. While we owned it, we only replaced:

  • Tires
  • Windshield wipers
  • The 12v battery (one time)
  • Windshield wiper fluid
  • Cabin air filter

The HVAC controls were excellent because they were simple and intuitive. In fact, they are much better than our current new car’s control. Nissan’s design is perfection.

Bullshit we did NOT have to deal with the Leaf

Here’s a list of things which I’ve remembered I hate now that I own a ICE3 car again:

  • Oil and oil filter changes
  • Brake pad replacements
  • Going to gas stations
  • Paying $250 a month for gas

Seriously, the amount of maintenance on our new car is insane!

In closing

The Nissan Leaf was the perfect “get around town” car. It is was a pleasure to drive, affordable, and cheap to operate (compared to ICE cars).

The only caveat I’d mention is the seats on the base model (which we had) may not work for you if you are really tall or have back problems. Also, don’t plan to do a lot of road trips in it. If those don’t apply to you, then this is a great vehicle!

  1. But when they did work, they were shockingly fast! ↩︎

  2. Interestingly, we haven’t done that much road tripping. ↩︎

  3. ICE: Internal Combustion Engine ↩︎