The Leaf is one of the worst EVs on the market. The range is limited, up to 149 miles. The worst thing is NO thermal management system for the HVTB. I would NEVER buy one for that reason alone. Leasing one under these circumstances is, however, an absolutely incredible deal. The lease includes 10,000 miles/year. $0.25/mile if you go over 20K miles at turn in, $0.10/mile if you pay up front. $2017 fee to be paid for lease acquisition, dealer fee and sales tax (works out to $88.04/month). For an out the door average of around $98/month you can drive a brand new, very nicely equipped EV for 2 years. The Leaf comes with a 3 year base warranty, so no repair expenses. This deal also comes with free maintenance for two years, the lease period, so no maintenance costs. The offer is available to Colorado residents only as it takes advantage of various federal and state tax incentives. Watch this video, these people are absolutely legitimate:
This is a great deal if you work from home and don’t drive much. Rule of thumb with a lease is to avoid putting down any money at all if you can, though, due to how the leasing process works.
I’ve seen these type of “extreme deals” bouncing around for the Leaf for a number of years, not sure it’s always CO but definitely never applies here in FL. I guess those states must have some generous ev credits (stacked on to federal $7500 credit) combined with this Nissan being a very cheap car. Like you say, this thing has a very limited use case.
The fees here are basically unavoidable on any lease, let alone one with the car being practically given away due to govt subsidy. Like… you aren’t getting out of the dealer fee and sales tax on the vehicle (tax which presumably is calculated *before* the ev credits are factored in). The funny thing with this lease is almost your entire payment ends up as just those fees. Normally it’s a bad idea to do a 2 year lease just because of bringing the transaction costs forward.
I have a (internet) friend on a car enthusiast forum I frequent who has one of these for his daily driver....and he's quite happy with it. His fun cars (and motorcycles) go out on the weekends to drive the twisties. The Leaf handles local traffic/commuting, and is dirt cheap to operate. For someone with multiple cars, it's hard to find cheaper transportation for local duty.