A well-known EV stalwart spanning almost 13-years is possibly heading to irrelevancy. Wayne Gerdes – CleanMPG – July 11, 2024 2025 Nissan LEAF $28,140 to start for a 149-mile range compact hatch. 2025 Nissan LEAF Overview Nissan’s LEAF continues to offer future owners two battery options and select the driving range that best suits their needs. The LEAF S includes a 40-kWh Li-Ion battery with an EPA-estimated range of 149 miles, while SV PLUS incorporates a 60-kWh battery with a 212 miles of range EPA rating. A large sub-compact hatch offers 92.4 cu. ft. of passenger volume and 23.6 cu. ft. of cargo volume sitting on a 106.3” wheelbase, the Leaf carry’s on as the brands most recognizable EV. The Ariya is the flagship but for now, the LEAF defines Nissan’s EV efforts and unfortunately, that effort is ailing given the models overall sales. In Q2 of 2024, LEAF sales reached 1,925, up 2.4% over the 1,880 sold in Q2 of 2023. YTD however, sales of 3,067 vehicles was down 27.6% below the 4,234 sold through the same period of 2023. More importantly, the yearly total sales over the years revealing a weakening outlook for the sometimes acclaimed and panned compact EV as shown below. 2011 – 09,674 2012 – 09,819 2013 – 22,610 2014 – 27,098 2015 – 15,922 2016 – 14,006 2017 – 11,230 2018 – 14,715 2019 – 12,365 2020 – 09,564 2021 – 14,239 2022 – 12,025 2023 – 07,152 2024 H1 – 03,067 Why the slowly eroding sales? Three items come to mind. Price, capability, and competition. On the pricing front, a 212-mile range 2025 LEAF retails for $36,190 + $1,140 D&H. For $37k, you can easily pick up a midsize and mid-trim 2025 Toyota Camry or RAV4 HEV as just two much larger and very efficient non-EV vehicle examples. The 25 Toyota Prius, 25 Prius Prime PHEV, 24 Corolla HEV, 24 Corolla Cross HEV, and all-new 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid can be picked up for a lot less. Even the highly regarded and fully electric Hyundai Ioniq 6 SE can be picked up for less while costing just $34,950 + $1,150 D&H after the OEMs $7,500 cash on the hood offer today. Considering capability, the 2025 Nissan LEAF Plus with its 110-kW motor can charge to 60 in a respectable 7-seconds, provides 212-miles of rated range, and DCFCes on a maximum 62 kW CHAdeMO in an hour to 80% SOC. Remember too that the number of working CHAdeMO DCFC’ers are not increasing but decreasing making them harder and harder to find. The specs and capabilities are simply not competitive vs today’s EV offerings let alone the HEV and PHEV competitors listed above and especially vs the following. Competitors? The aforementioned 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 6 is one of the highest regarded EVs on the road today. The SE long range offers a much larger and more comfortable interior, larger displays - 12.3-inch digital instrument and 12.3-inch touchscreen display with navigation, higher performance (0 to 60 in just 6-sec), much longer 361-miles of rated range, and the real kicker, a CCS and soon Tesla NACS capable charging port that has provided us with a 5 to 80% SOC increase in just 18-minutes thanks to the 800V architecture. This is the fastest charging experience outside of the 2025 Porsche Taycan available anywhere and buries the LEAF’s CHAdeMO and 60-minute to charge to 80% capability. On the downside, it only has an 11.2 cu. ft. trunk. 2025 Nissan LEAF Pricing S (149-mile AER) - 40 kWh battery for $28,140 + $1,140 D&H SV PLUS (212-mile AER) - 60 kWh battery for $36,190 + $1,140 D&H The 2024 LEAF still qualifies for a $3,750 Federal EV tax credit for that are manufactured through the last of the year if purchased and delivered to the customer before January 1, 2025. The 2025s do not qualify. 2025 Nissan LEAF Safety Every Nissan LEAF now includes Nissan Safety Shield 360 standard that includes Automatic Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Blind Spot and Lane Departure Warning, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Rear Automatic Braking, and High Beam Assist. The LEAF SV PLUS trim adds ProPILOT Assist with Radar CC and Intelligent Around View Monitor. 2025 Nissan LEAF Interior Inside, a carryover. 2025 Nissan LEAF Early Conclusions With sales bound to tail off at an even faster rate going forward, maybe it is time to either massively update the LEAF with competitive pricing, range, displays, and charging capability or move on and place the engineering and marketing $s on the all-electric Nissan Ariya? The only thing the Ariya falls behind the Hyundai Ioniq 5/Kia EV6 competitors for example is its higher price and much slower 130 kW charging rate – 42-minutes to charge from 5 to 80% vs the Ioniq 5/EV6 in 18-minutes.
