Nissan Leaf electric car staggering $33,000 replacement battery cost

Phillip Carlson bought a Nissan Leaf in August 2012, which cost about $53,500. It’s seven years old today, and it’s worth maybe $12,000 - if you can find someone dumb enough to buy it. Let’s let him tell the story.

“I bought an electric car from Nissan with 5 years warranty on the battery. They claimed 175km range. From new I only ever got 120km. Now I can BARELY get 35-40km during winter or even 25km if I use the heater. The warranty says the battery is bad if it drops to 8 out of 12 bars, which mine has.

“I took it in and they claim the battery is totally fine and there’s nothing wrong with it and gave me a $33,000 invoice for a new one!!!!! Nissan just won’t listen and I’ve run out of all hope. I paid $53,500 for this car and it’s pretty useless now.” - Phillip Carlson

Here’s the official battery replacement quote from Lennock Motors in the ACT. $750 to replace the battery, an incredible $29,600 for the battery, you Nissan chumps. Plus GST: that’s $33,385 in total. On a shitheap worth $12k, on a good day today.

I note Nissan and other carmakers bitching and moaning about the lack of government support for EVs in Australia. And I’d suggest that if you’re a carmaker like Nissan, seemingly hell-bent on taking your small group of EV first adopters to the prison shower in this way, then you simply do not deserve any taxpayer support. You short-sighted mother-lovers.

And I say this because that kind of behaviour ignores the fact that the easiest guy on earth to sell a new Leaf to is the satisfied owner of an old Leaf.

This extortionate conduct hardly screams: ‘We’ll take care of you.’ Maybe it does - in a Bill Cosby way.

And if you think that’s expensive, check out this $50,000 Jeep repair bill, on another car worth maybe $15k.

So, let’s think about this, and what it really means, because the conduct of organisations tells you more about them than the statements they make.

This is a tacit admission by Nissan that the Leaf is a disposable car. A $50,000 disposable car. Which doesn’t seem very environmentally sustainable to me.

Obvious conclusion on the fucked-up cost of replacing this battery: For $30,000 you could buy about 20,000 litres of petrol. Which is enough to drive a Leaf-sized conventional car about 400,000 kilometres.

So if you are buying your Leaf EV to save money on fuel, even if you are getting your electricity free from a fat rooftop solar array, every day, you better hope you get 400,000 kays out of the battery. #unlikely.

If you don’t, you’re just kidding yourself. And the leaf is about $30,000 more expensive than a Leaf-sized conventional car. So make that 800,000 kays - to break even, financially. In what universe does that sound like a sound financial plan?