Living with a £1,500 electric car: what we’ve learned after one year with an old Nissan Leaf

This is our 2013 Nissan Leaf, an electric hatchback which we bought a year ago for £1,500. Fans of the Carwow YouTube channel will remember the video in which Mat Watson drove it until it died, and since then it’s been in use as a city runaround.

In that time we’ve learned a thing or two about running an electric car with sub-70 miles range. It sounds awful, but in reality it has its uses as an urban runaround. So is it worth spending £1,500 on a 12-year-old Nissan Leaf? Let’s take a closer look at ours to find out.

Living with a cheap electric car: mileage, range and price

Our Nissan Leaf is a 2013 model with 48,000 miles on the clock, and it’s in great condition for its age. There are very few marks on the bodywork, and the light interior has aged pretty well too.

Powering the Leaf is a single electric motor driving the front wheels with a hair-raising 109hp, and it’s fed by a tiny 24kWh battery. The claimed range from new was 124 miles, but, as we’ll get onto in a bit, it won’t return anything like that now.

When it was new this car cost £26,000, however there was a £5,000 government EV grant at the time which brought it down to £21,000. That still works out to £29,000 in today’s money, £6,000 more than the new Renault 5 E-Tech.

Living with a cheap electric car: what’s good?

Over the past year we’ve found that there’s a lot to like about this cheap and cheerful electric car. Here are three things which stand out.

It’s really comfy

As a car for tackling pothole-ridden city streets, the Leaf has been perfect. The suspension is really soft and floaty, so it does a great job of ironing out the bumps. It doesn’t translate to great handling on a twisty road, but seeing as we rarely take this car out of the city that doesn’t matter too much.

There’s plenty of interior space

We regularly use our Leaf for carrying four people across London, and there’s loads of room for everyone to stretch out. The seats are all comfortable as well, and there’s even a big boot for your luggage. It’s a very practical car.

Charging is (surprisingly) easy

This one will depend on your personal situation, but we’ve found charging our Leaf quite straightforward. The 24kWh battery takes four to five hours for a full charge from a normal three-pin socket, so we’ve just been trailing the cable from the living room window during the day. This obviously relies on you being able to park that close to a socket though.

Living with a cheap electric car: what’s bad?

Not everything about this car is great, and there’s one big, glaring issue with this car which you need to consider before buying one.

The range

This is the biggest drawback. When it was new, our Leaf had a claimed range of 124 miles. That’s not stellar, but now it’ll do 60 at most. It’s fine for just pottering around town, but if your commute is more than 20 miles each way then you’ll want to look elsewhere.

The range also depletes rapidly as soon as you go over 40mph. This isn’t a car which loves back road blasts. It’s also annoying that the predicted range figure seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes you’ll get in with a range of 70 miles on a full charge, or sometimes it’s 50.

Verdict: should you buy a cheap Nissan Leaf?

Our Nissan Leaf has been a great city runaround for the past year, but it’s not without its limitations. It only really suits a very specific set of circumstances.

If you’re after a second car purely for short trips around town, and you have easy access to a plug socket, the Leaf could be a great option. It’s comfy and spacious, and really easy to drive.

In this scenario, the Leaf is a bit of a bargain at £1,500. It’ll cost you peanuts to run, maintenance is cheap and you’ll save some wear and tear on your main family car by not using it for those short journeys.

However, it’s unlikely to suit you as your only car due to the poor range, and if you don’t have anywhere to charge at home then it’s best avoided.

Something else this Leaf has taught us is just how far electric cars have come in the past decade or so. This Nissan cost the equivalent of £29,000 back in 2013, but these days that sort of money will get you a top-of-the-range Renault 5 with over 250 miles of range, or you could even have the spacious and well-equipped MG S5 EV. It’s certainly good progress.

Car change? Carwow!

Looking for a new set of wheels? With Carwow you can sell your car quickly and for a fair price – as well as find great offers on your next one. Whether you’re looking to buy a car brand new, are after something used or you want to explore car leasing options, Carwow is your one stop shop for new car deals.

Click here to follow us on WhatsApp, where you can keep up-to-date with all the latest news, reviews, advice guides and videos.