Nissan’s $2,000 Leaf Is Cheap Even With All The Electric You Can ‘Borrow’: Cold Starts

For reasons I don’t quite understand, David saw fit to leave the Autopian LA Auto Show crew (me, Jason, SWG, Thomas, and Mercedes) a 21-mile range Nissan Leaf as our only vehicle. This worked for the most part, although at one point I had to borrow Jeff’s man-behind-the-scenes Expedition to go pick up a t-shirt.

I might be a big fan of the $2,000 Nissan Leaf. After bravely taking it to the office—something that scared even David—I’m pretty close to the idea. If I had a charging station near my building I would definitely go out and buy one myself.

Not the biggest fans should be Thomas and Mercedes. Despite being big fans of beaters, none of them could handle the mental distraction of a car that looked fine on the inside but could only go 21 miles.

Jason was more on my side and I think he summed it up well after Thomas tried to insist that it was worse than Yugo:

For the first 21 miles, the Leaf is the best car. After that, Yugo is.

Here’s me, btw, looking at all the junk in David’s car. My favorite part? All but three of the back shirts were mediocre! Just three boxes of medium and a few large shirts.

The best thing about the car is that, with its battery the size of a lawnmower, you can quickly charge it at a 110V outlet. Seriously!

The world is full of 110V outlets and the Leaf, due to having little residual capacity, appears to be able to “fully charge” to its full 21-mile range on a 110V outlet in just a few hours. This means that David can charge for free at work and then pay, in my estimation, about $3 to supplement his income at home.

But why even raise him at home? There’s a 110V outlet just sitting there at the LA Convention Center, waiting to be used. That’s free energy! Free! In California! And there are 110V outlets everywhere if you start looking. In Airbnb we stayed outside. Outside of Taco Bell. Everywhere.

If you’re not in a hurry, the Leaf is the perfect car.