Faults:

To be fair it's been pretty reliable, no major issues. For ten years, we have been told the battery is still good with "11/12" health.

General Comments:

A pretty decent and still modern looking car, I will try to talk about the LEAF's positive points first.

Inside is comfy and modern. The car is actually nice to drive and very quiet as expected. Not slow either.

Not bad looking.

But charging points for electric are still few and far between in the UK, and expensive to charge. It also takes far too long. For 2 hours charge that still only gets you about 30 or so miles. And full range (which takes 12 hour charge by the way) is unimpressive at under 200 miles realistically when using electrics, worse in winter.

It has been reliable over the two years however.

Tyres are expensive. The car's running costs when you do the math are in all honesty, taking everything into account, not that different from a traditional internal combustion engine car. And electric cars have batteries which contain lithium, a fossil fuel... oh dear.

It also depreciates like hell, the car is near worthless at ten years old. The electric thing really isn't taking off here. Far better off with petrol or diesels cars, which I am going to sell this car and go back to! I went into the electric car market with an open mind, but sorry, I am just not impressed. This is no fancy Tesla - this is a more realistic type of car they want everyone to drive however, and it is simply not there yet! Even more modern ones I've heard still have much the same issues like my 2015 LEAF.

Faults:

Annoying buzzing sound from the headlining that keeps coming back despite the dealer having tried to fix it twice, and fiddling with it myself several times now.

Headlights required adjustment from the factory, as we could barely see more than a few feet ahead in the dark.

General Comments:

This is no fan-boi review, we use our Leaf as a car, and it needs to do what our previous car did brilliantly (Prius), that is: it must get us from A to B with no fuss and as cheaply as possible. In this the Leaf has succeeded, more or less.

The real world range is massively dependent on driving style, weather and the roads you use. My wife drives it with no regard for what is "best", driving it exactly the same as any other car. So, she has the heating on (including the excellent heated seats and steering wheel) whenever she feels like and has no fears of turning the air-con on either. She also likes to push it up to 80 mph or so on faster roads, which kills the range very quickly. She doesn't want to brake in a fashion to make the most of the regeneration either, which is fair enough, I guess.

Despite all of this, it copes with a 65 mile daily commute with no problems at all. Only in winter does it become a bit more nail biting as the combination of the cold weather and the uncompromising driving style result in less than 80 miles of real world range. This is giving the car no mercy however, and the range is as short as it could ever be.

Drive the car gently with plenty of forward anticipation and (if you're lucky) some nice Goldilocks weather (not too hot or cold!) and you can realistically see 110 miles or more from a single charge. Maybe more if you stick below 60 mph.

The performance is amazing... up to 40 mph, then it's rubbish, especially above 60 mph. There's a lot of room for improvement there.

So far in one year and 14k miles Leafspy reports no degradation in battery life at all. We charge to 100% every day (often twice a day) and frequently drain it to 20-30% too. We rarely use fast chargers - although when we do, they're brilliant for long motorway journeys, genuine 10-15% charge to 90-95% in the time to go to the loo and then buy and drink a coffee.

As a car (let's not forget that's what it still is!) it's a disappointment in many ways. The driving position is poor and lacks adjustment. The touchscreen is difficult to use on the move and the sat nav is poor.

The headlights are terrible - we have the LEDs; apparently the halogens are no better.

The rain sensing wipers never quite feel like they're working as they should.

The climate control often makes the car feel stuffy and airless, which might partly down to using ECO mode most of the time. Why not ECO mode for the throttle and non-ECO for the climate?

Everything looks and feels cheap inside and the stereo is naff, despite being the BOSE upgrade.

And while I'm at it, why do Japanese manufactures insist on electric windows that cannot be operated by the driver if the child switch is on? European cars never have this issue.

Despite all this, it's difficult not to like the car, because it's so cheap to run and easy to drive. For that, it wins us over, just. Maybe the new Leaf has nailed it, I'd like to see, because for us, the idea works, it just needs polishing off some more.

One last complaint: why does Nissan feel it can get away with increasing the servicing costs so that now it matches the cost for petrol and diesel cars? There's practically nothing for them to do other than check the car over and change the pollen filter, they're taking the mickey charging the same as for cars that need oil changes etc. One of the things that attracted us to buying the Leaf was the very cheap servicing, which they've reneged on out of greed.