The Car

14 Dec, 2017. We took the car today!

The vehicle: a 2014 Blue Ocean Leaf SL. The car was near the end of a 4 year lease, and the previous owner switched to a PHEV due to changing commuting needs requiring greater range. The car was leased from Nissan Repentigny, where we did the initial visit a week prior and decided to go for it. The car was in pristine shape in and out, and the rear seats were never sat in - the previous owner was from a two-car household with two adults (this will shortly change for us!). The only thing that changed between Dec 7 and 14 was a lot more snow on the road, and the exterior was a bit more dirty compared to the first visit. The previous owner, like most people who are driving an EV at this point in time, was very enthusiastic to show us all the ins and outs of the vehicle.

It has about 47000km on the ODO, and the battery capacity was 12 bars. Using LeafSpy, we found the State of Health to be 94%, Hx a similar value. These are quite good for a 4 year vehicle.

The reason that a lease transfer this late was attractive to us was twofold: First, this gave us an opportunity to try out the car with little commitment to keep it. Second, since it was close to the end of the lease, the remaining lease payments + residual made the total price relatively competitive with used offerings, especially consider the first point.

Is an EV right for us?

These topics are probably discussed to death elsewhere on the internet, and here is our own personal perspectives on the main reasons against choosing an electric car: range and price.

Range

The most obvious one is range. This is not an issue for our normal commute of 15km roundtrip on weekdays, or double if have to make the back and forth trip twice for various reasons. Our grocery runs include Costco on Bridge Street (about 5km one way), and Kim Phat in Brossard (about 15km).

What will be a real test is further out of town trips (such as the Granby Zoo), or parks and campgrounds that are beyond 1-2 hrs drive from the city. Quebec has an impressive public charging network including fast chargers on major highways, and we will definitely be making use of those in the summer. A road trip to Toronto would probably be unrealistic, even if physically possible.

With the significantly shorter range compared to a full tank of gas, as well as the long time it takes to actually "fill up", there is definitely a consequent hit on convenience. We haven't fully figured out how it will end up affecting us, but at the moment remain optimistic that we'll be able to make adjustments to our driving (and parking) habits to make it work. Time will tell!

Price

An EV is still priced much higher than a similarly equipped internal combustion engine vehicle. The LEAFs that we have been looking at generally went between $15-20,000CAD after tax. This is not a small price to pay considering our 1999 Corolla is, by most means, still fully functional and running like clockwork at 180,000kms. As an LE model, even all the electronics and AC are still working fine. So for us, the decision to switch is not based purely from a financial perspective.

However, with a second child on the way, we've realized that driving them to daycare/school will be inevitable for the foreseeable future given where we live currently, and at some point our trusty steed that has been in our family for nearly 20 years will eventually be in need of replacing. Having never purchased a "nice" car ever in our lives (see point about existing vehicle), we decided to splurge a bit on something that has a variety of potentially positive impact in the future.

In the long run, assuming we do commute regularly with the car (especially in the colder months), we may even win out in the end financially, but know that this was not the primary reason for our choice.

As we see more used EVs on the market (especially in Quebec), we do think that the point where it becomes financially attractive to drive electric for most people is within a few years especially in Canada where most our electricity is generated cleanly and cheaply (and gas prices are considerably higher than our neighbours down south).

First Post!

We are a young family living in Montreal, Canada, with nearly 2 children as of this post (second is due soon), and have been the owner of a 2014 Nissan Leaf since December 2017. This is a blog that describes the ups and downs of having an electric vehicle as relatively late "early" adopters, and to document some experiences that others may find useful/interesting.