The Cheapest New Nissan Leaf You Can Buy Is Also The Best Nissan Leaf You Can Buy

The more I drive new Nissan products the more I believe that multiple generations of terrifying Altima drivers, the rapid propagation of rental spec Rogues Sport a few years ago, and the possibly well-earned poor reputation of the company’s dealers have all conspired to make people overlook the brand.

For example, did you know that the Nissan Leaf is a completely nice electric car that has over 300 miles of range and costs about $30,000 with just about every feature you could possibly want? That’s kind of a big deal and, yet, the car isn’t selling particularly well and hasn’t generated a ton of buzz.

Some of this is the larger thrust of the EV market and some of this is reputation. I also think that there’s a bigger issue in terms of what trims are available nationwide, because the Leaf is one of the better examples of a car that gets worse the more money you spend on it.

Why This Car Exists

Nissan deserves its share of credit for believing in electric cars before almost anyone else. Nissan also deserves its share of scorn for absolutely blowing it by not offering a better cooling system when the car launched. The early success of Tesla should have shown Nissan the way and, instead, the company absolutely biffed it.

This Nissan Leaf is a complete do-over. A rolling mea culpa. A “my bad you guys” with heated seats. Most of the questionable decisions of the first generation have been resolved, and the result is a surprisingly complete and attractive vehicle.

It is the only car under $30,000 (MSRP, it’s a little more with destination) that gets over 300 miles of range, putting it ahead of the slightly cheaper Chevy Bolt, and it has CarPlay and Android Auto as a standard option. Granted, we’re not getting the even-cheaper Leaf, but that probably would have had crap range, so the $30,000 one seems fine to me.

[Full disclosure: Nissan gave me a full battery and a week to play with the Leaf. – MH]

The Basics

Drivetrain: Single front-mounted permanent-magnet synchronous motor

Drive: Front-wheel drive

Output: 214 horsepower, 261 lb-ft of torque

Range: 303 miles (S+), 259 miles as tested

Base Price: $29,990 before $1,495 destination and handling

Price As-Tested: $41,835 (Platinum+)

How Does It Look?

My most millennial quality is probably that I quote the Dan Flashes sketch from I Think You Should Leave way too much, but just look at the wheels. They’re so complicated! There are three unique wheels for the three trims of the Nissan Leaf and all of them are good.

This is going to be a theme for the entire article, but the more money you pay for something on the Leaf somehow the less you get, and the wheels on the Platinum are the most conventional and least interesting of the bunch.

Look at the S+ wheels, they’re so much cooler:

Maybe I’m just a sucker for three-spokes. It’s possible. Isn’t it also possible, though, that I possess the most delicately honed sense of wheel design, and that my appreciation of these cheaper wheels speaks to their obvious superiority?

The rest of the car is nearly identical in every trim, offering an upright hatchback that, like the Model Y, has been sculpted by the air as much as by a designer. It somehow manages to look both like an electric car and also blend in with everything else.

Nissan’s overall design language is in transition, meaning there’s a bit of a mish-mash of everything right now across the range. The Leaf’s roofline is meant to evoke the Z and, yeah, I sort of see it on the C-D pillar and in the taillight design. It’s subtle, which is probably a good thing here.

Less subtle is Nissan’s “2-3” iconography, which reflects the fact that 2-3 sounds like “ni-san” in Japanese. Basically, you see two parallel rectangles and then three perpendicular ones (look at the taillights). A Leaf isn’t going to stand out next to a new Sentra or a Rogue, which is the point. Friends who saw it were like “It kind of looks like a Model Y.”

What’s It Like On The Inside?

Like most modern Nissans, the interior is straightforward with a few unique touches. If you look at the floor mats, you’ll see the 2-3 pattern repeated, for instance. The cabin feels quite roomy for a smaller (by modern standards) vehicle, which is enhanced by the dimming roof, which transitions from fully opaque to clear with a touch of a button.

My daughter and I geeked out over this feature, while my wife was completely uninterested in the technology. In Platinum+ trim, the Leaf also gets the company’s TailorFit seats, which is a synthetic material that’s supposed to feel like Nappa leather, just tougher.

Does it actually feel like Nappa leather? Maybe. Something felt slightly off about the seats, which might just be my unfamiliarity (MB.Tex, for instance, doesn’t bother me). Given that I’ve seen what children can do to a car’s interior, I’m open to a sturdier alternative.

The Platinum+ also has a feature I don’t love, which is the Bose speaker in the headrest. This is a new trend, and it makes phone calls in the car awkward, as the audio source of the person/s you’re talking to is now behind you.

Kinda strange! Less strange are the touch capacitive buttons built into the dashboard. I don’t love these, generally, even though Nissan’s version seems to work most of the time. The integration at an angle is a unique approach, and I found them to be, at the very least, superior to the absence of buttons entirely.

Any time I don’t have to go into a menu to turn on the heated seats, it feels like a luxury.

How Is It As An EV?

I’m going to speak generally about the Nissan Leaf and not this specific trim because the different trims are, for the moment, mechanically identical (the incoming Nismo Leaf is apparently sportier).

When thinking about an EV, the biggest concerns aren’t performance in the traditional sense of being fast. Efficiency is key, and in my testing, the Leaf got the promised 3.6 miles/kWh, which puts it on par with the improved Toyota/Lexus/Subaru vehicles and means it’s better than the BMW i4 eDrive 40 with the 18-inch wheels.

The cheapest version, the S+, gets 303 miles of range, whereas the most expensive Platinum+ only gets 259 miles due to the 19-inch wheels. This is madness and gets into my larger theme of: Just buy the cheap one.

Credit to Nissan engineers for also putting in a J1772 port on the left front fender, which is probably where most people have their home AC charger set up, and the NACS port on the front right, which helps it reach the typically shorter cables of a Tesla Supercharger station.

The Leaf isn’t as fast as other EVs, and it’s FWD, which is rare in this country. It is competent, doesn’t torque steer too much, and is pleasingly refined over rougher roads. Because there’s no complex suspension at work here, the tradeoff is that it doesn’t feel EV zippy and leans a lot when pushed. Of course, the only Leafs that should be pushed are ones you buy used for $2,000 or the kinds that fall off trees in the fall.

If there’s one oversight, it’s that the vehicle doesn’t have true, full one-pedal driving.

Does It Do Some Super Annoying EV Things?

WHY? WHY????????

Sorry, I can’t help myself. Nissan has delivered on the cheaper EV that Tesla has ultimately failed to bring to market. Eventually, Ford will have an offering in this space, but we’re just going to have to wait a little longer for that.

Nissan had the opportunity to rid the market of one of the worst aspects of any electric car, which are the stupid motorized flush door handles. Not only does the Nissan Leaf have them, but they also broke during my test, forcing me to have to get a trim tool to pry it loose. Please, please, get rid of these.

The Leaf also is priced in a ridiculous way. The one I tested costs $41,835 delivered. For what? Weird speakers in the headrest? Larger wheels that make the range of the car worse? The only option worth paying for is the $300 battery heater and, maybe, the $170 CCS adapter.

Otherwise, the cheapest Leaf is truly the best Leaf, which costs $31,535 out the door. That’s almost exactly $10,000 cheaper to get–on paper at least–a much better car. In what universe is it worth it to spend more money to get a car that performs so much worse?

Why Isn’t This Thing More Popular?

I think the Nissan Leaf should sell better than it has (Leaf sales are down 57.1% year-over-year through the first half of the year). Some of this might be the introduction of a new generation. Some of the downturn is certainly due to the extinction of the federal tax credit. Since this car is built in England and Japan, tariffs might also be at play.

Other than the incorrect notion that people have because of the 1st-gen Leaf, I think one of the bigger issues is just trim availability. According to Edmunds, right now there aren’t that many for sale, and the ones that are for sale are more likely to be higher trim.

In fact, there are 119 listings for SV+, 98 listings for Platinum+, and just 48 for S+. At $40,000, there are way, way better EVs for sale for your hard-earned dollar. Just get a Model Y or an Ioniq 5 or whatever. At $30,000, your choices are limited to something used or a new Chevy Bolt. That’s it!

Nissan has built a good car, and now it just needs to offer the right ones for sale.

All photos author unless otherwise noted.