“don’t listen to…”, you are exaggerating the cost of maintaining gasoline engines, as is often done on this website. It is not required to change oil every 4,000 miles, more like 8,000 or so. This cost pales in comparison to the eventual cost of a large battery. We could argue about the relative costs of different vehicle types, but exaggerating certain factors reduces your credibility.

Personally I think it’s hard to beat a compact car with a 1.4 liter turbocharged engine and a manual transmission, like a Cruze Eco. If Toyota put a powertrain like that in a Prius, with the low air drag and weight, it would be difficult to justify buying the hybrid version. That’s why you’ll never see it.

Just go buy a Prius or any other conventional hybrid vehicle. It would seem to be the better choice.

All that said, our next car will certainly be electric but we are waiting for something that gets around 200 miles but is not as expensive as Tesla’s sedan (over $60k). I am hoping we won’t need to wait for this car more than 2-3 years.

The American public is addicted to oil. The oil companies know that and they want everybody to keep buying gas cars to keep selling gas. It is simple as that. I think the short attention span of the US buyer is the problem that is limiting the sale of any new technology because US public is too accustomed to having NOT to worry about range in a combustion engine car. You just sop and get gas anywhere when you need it, you don’t even think about it and you get frightened at the mere thought of that going away. The oil companies have spent a very long time to get things this way and they want to keep it that way. They control everything including the cost of gas and oil you need to keep doing what you have become accustomed to.

If anyone does a true analysis of what it costs them in gas, gas engine maintenance, extended warranties, vehicle depreciation etc… You would see that it is in your own financial interest to extend the vigilance you hopefully have to get an oil change every 4Kmiles into vigilance to keep an eye on your range and nearby charging facilities. It is no surprise that charging facilities may not always be at the same place you buy gas, think about why that would be true.

The question is, EV or NO EV, that is it. Either embrace the ALL electric option or not! If you select a Hybrid you are basically staying with the combustion engine model. If you are not comfortable with all EV no gas solution, then wait as long as you need to feel good about buying an all EV. With the advances in large format battery technologies you shouldn’t have to wait very long.

I personally would not bash Nissan for releasing the Leaf. It may not be perfect but it was a bold step forward that I don’t expect to see from any US manufacturer in the near future. US Auto CEOs are watching the success of the Leaf very carefully and will certainly jump into the game if it becomes popular. That is called playing it safe. Nissan is the one taking the risk for the consumer, that would be you and me.

I personally checked into the Leaf battery pack to see what it would cost to replace just 1 of the 42 battery packs inside. I was surprised to hear that the Nissan dealer was able to find the battery pack part number but couldn’t find the price of it !! After further investigation (i.e. call to Japan) it turns out, Nissan does not list the price of the module because they know the battery technology is advancing so quickly they are already working on a new battery pack that is much better that the existing ones and will certainly cost lees, they just don’t know what it will cost yet. They could just charge me the customer what the old ones cost and then make more on the new battery pack available at a reduced cost right? They decided not to do that and intend to place a value on the battery pack that reflects its actual cost. I was amazed to hear that answer in broken English and a bad phone connection from Japan. As far as I am concerned that same decision would not have been made by any US CEO. That is when I bought Nissan stock and a 2012 Leaf SL.

I am a Senior Systems Engineer with a PHD and have over 25 years of experience designing advanced systems for the DOD. I was a dual major in college, one of the only graduates with a psychology degree and an engineering degree. You could say I have a very unique perspective on the entire matter.

From my perspective, the design of the Leaf is a culmination of decisions like the battery one I mentioned above. The Leaf design is consistent and well thought out and contains a large array of design features that are not immediately apparent when just looking at the sticker price and sales figures. It is frustrating to read that people are actually considering the vehicle’s popularity as a factor in their decision without even driving the car!

The battery longevity and range are not an issue for me because the Leaf battery warranty is 96mth/100Kmiles, range varies based on many factors. Nissan tells you that in all literature that the battery performance will degrade with time, I expected it to, a gas engine’s performance degrades with time too, why would I expect anything more or less from a electric car? In 8 years time I expect to able to buy Leaf replacement battery packs at PEP boys and install them myself!

I buy cars because I have to, I need to go to point A to point B as cheaply as possible. I don’t care what that cars even looks like! I will take a bus if I need to, I don’t care what the bus looks like do you?

Everyone defending anything but all electric vehicles needs to look at it from a completely different perspective in which convenience is not the ultimate goal. Conservation of energy and the environment, reducing the foreign dependance on oil and lowest cost of ownership in my view far out weigh convenience. If you are not able to deal with the current EV only offerings on the market (Nissan Leaf or the Mitsubishi i-MiEV) I predict you won’t have to wait too long before other options are available. In the mean time, just continue to do what you are doing now, pay dearly for the convenience afforded to you by any gas engine vehicle.

This is America right? You can do what ever you want and have any opinion you want. The fact is that all of us in America are addicted to oil and as a result have actually become fearful and almost panic when we think of giving it up! This is extremely similar behavior that is common in any methadone clinic or rehab facility. One will refuse to even consider anything else that would help us to end the dependance on drugs, alcohol or oil because we just can’t even see past our next fix.

We all need an intervention and a 12 step program when it comes to oil consumption. As far as I am concerned, someone needs to step in and drag us all to rehab. Nissan opened my eyes without doing anything but design and release the Leaf.

WOW, if I find any of this is true, I will be visiting my dealership 1st thing Monday morning and will be filing a law suite for the refund and the cost of attorney to get the Volt rebate I was supposed to get.

Holy crap, I can’t believe my sales guy let this happen to me! Someone else in this thread said something about GM buying back Volts, I will certainly be looking into that if I don’t get my $7,500 back! How sleazy can you get! From what I know about the Japanese culture, integrity and work ethic, I am pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if I bought a car from them, but you never know. I will check back into this thread when I found out more. I already left 3 messages for my sales guy since I have his cell number. I don’t care if it is Sunday, I am awaiting eagerly for his call back.