So should I buy a 2011 Leaf with six bars, but 60K miles? Or should I buy a 2013 Leaf with 40K miles, but just five bars? The 2013 is a thousand USD more expensive than the 2011.
Both are out of warranty (battery pack) so hopefully range is not an issue. 2013 will charge faster (L2) @ 6 kW (2011 3kW). The 2011 may be on the cusp of 5 bars, w/out Leafspy or similar hard to tell. Good starter EV for local use, if the price is right. Have you shopped other brands to compare?
I'd stay away from both of them unless they're cheap as dirt. The early Leaf batteries were anecdotally pretty bad for the most part and what's to say they won't continue to degrade further. And don't expect replacement packs at a reasonable price from Nissan. And this is coming from someone who has had a very good experience with his 40kwh 2018 Leaf S. At 90,000kms or 54,000 miles it still shows all the battery bars although the GOM shows about 8% less on a full charge from when it was new. It's unfortunate that the Leaf has never been properly supported by the manufacturer and now I think the platform has lived it's life. To continue on it would need an actively temperature controlled battery to enable faster charging and now that CCS is on the way out a NACS charging port. Ain't gonna happen.
