"Nissan claim that the Nissan Leaf is "affordable" and I keep hearing that this is not the case given its price of about £26,000 OTR. Well I decided to do the sums and see is Nissan was right.
So we know what it costs to buy the Nissan Leaf, but what does it cost to run it and how long would I need to keep it at average mileage to justify spending out on what, on the surface at least, looks to some to be an expensive car.
I used a comparison with what I thought would be a comparable car. I chose a Ford Focus Titanium 1.6 Tdci. It isn't a true comparison as the specs differ in a number of ways. For example, the Focus doesn't have an automatic transmission option. But I think it is fair to say that on balance, these are pretty much comparable in general standard of spec. Basically, they are both cars with many extras making them both well-specified and comfortable (almost luxury). I have used the accepted average annual mileage of 12,000 miles and used todays diesel price of £1.40 / ltr. Road tax is todays value and for the Nissan Leaf I have used a typical cost of electricity at 12p per kWh.
The Ford Focus is quite frugal in its fuel consumption getting 65mpg on the combined cycle. I think it is fair to say that there are cars that can do better than that but not many and not by much. In fact most would use more fuel than this and some cars, particularly older ones, might use double. Nevertheless, for the sake of making this as fair a comparison as I can I shall stick to all the figures for the Focus.
The Nissan Leaf has a 24kWh battery that runs for 100 miles but this is more like a maximum figure. A more typical range might be 80 miles giving a power use of 0.3kW/mile so this is the figure I will use. Road tax is zero of course.
Insurance is about the same for each and servicing a bit less for the Nissan Leaf but these figures are similar enough not to have much difference between them so I have not included them in the calculation.
Well, after doing the sums it is rather surprising indeed. It turns out that using the figures above, at todays prices and average mileage, the Nissan Leaf is actually cheaper own after 8 years. Use more likely figures for a car of this size and it is even more surprising. Using 45mpg and a more typical £155 road tax then the break even point is just 5 years.
So, keep your car for 5-8 years and you are actually better off owning a Nissan Leaf than a Ford Focus Titanium 1.6 Tdci and this is at todays prices. So, what do you think? Are fuel prices going to remain at £1.40 a litre for the next 8 years? I would say no chance! I can see fuel prices going steadily up given the unrest in the middle-east and with the government commitment to reduce CO2 emissions. So what is a sensible fuel price for 8 years time if it is £1.40 / litre now? I don't think £2 / litre is unreasonable. This represents just a 5% rise year on year. So, if we plug in a price escalator for both cars of 5% per year to take diesel to £2 and electricity to 20p/kWh in 8 years then things look even more rosy for the Nissan Leaf. Now the break even point is just 4-7 years.
It is not that unusual for people to keep their car for more than 4-7 years or for a normal family car to do more than 12,000 miles a year.
So, whilst I accept that it might not be affordable for many given that it requires a higher up front cost, or that you do much less miles, but please, don't tell me that the Nissan Leaf is not affordable. It clearly is..."
Em: http://www.leaftalk.co.uk/entry.php/14- ... dable-quot
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