I have £10,000 to spend. What car?

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We currently have a 1.4 2009 Nissan Note which has just failed it's MOT. We are looking at about £800 to fix all the issues and seeing as the car has 108,000 miles we are thinking about just getting another car instead.

We have about £10,000 to spend. We ideally wanted to go all electric so the Nissan Leaf is an option. Perhaps a hybrid could fit the bill. We have a 5 year old girl so 2 seaters are out of the question but we don't need massive boot space. We don't need massive power or anything.

Our list of top requirements are Reliable, Cheap to run, nice comfy interior.

Any recommendations?

Thanks.
 
£10K for an EV is not a lot, but a Leaf Tekna 30kWh as mentioned would be about the best option.

A guy in here bought one, he said he scoured to get one with a heat pump as eeking out range in winter is worth it on those..
 
Thanks for all your recommendations. I ended up going for a 2015 24KW Leaf Accenta with 27000 miles. Cost £8500.

It seems to be in great condition and leaf spy tells me it has 91% state of health on the battery. Only 4 rapid charges (well 5 now as I had to rapid charge it to get it home) the rest being level 1 and 2 charges.
 
Hi. Whats a level 1 and 2 charge ? Is this soecific to this car or all evs? And why does it matter ?

thanks

I believe a level 1 charge is using the 3 pin standard plug charger which is really slow and a level 2 is using a fast charger (different to a rapid charger). I am new to all this though so I will let others correct me if I am wrong.
 
I believe a level 1 charge is using the 3 pin standard plug charger which is really slow and a level 2 is using a fast charger (different to a rapid charger). I am new to all this though so I will let others correct me if I am wrong.
Fair enough. But why point it out as in you seem to have counted how many charges of which type its had. Does it matter?
 
Fair enough. But why point it out as in you seem to have counted how many charges of which type its had. Does it matter?

Yes, rapid charges degrade the battery more quickly so the fact it has only done 5 rapid charges in it's lifetime and the rest on slower, less stressful level 1 and 2 is a good thing.
 
Ooof 24kWh though.. hope you don’t do too many long journeys

The guessometer is giving me 80 miles on a 100% charge. So from my home doing only one rapid charge during the trip, I could go to Inverness in one direction or down to Newcastle in the other. I'm not worried.

Not that I am likely to be doing long journeys in this car anyway. 99% of the time we only drive within a 30 mile radius.
 
Yes, rapid charges degrade the battery more quickly so the fact it has only done 5 rapid charges in it's lifetime and the rest on slower, less stressful level 1 and 2 is a good thing.
Ok. Is this just a thing with this car or all evs ? Haven’t heard of this issue with teslas for example.
 
Ok. Is this just a thing with this car or all evs ? Haven’t heard of this issue with teslas for example.

I don't know for sure but lithium ion batteries degrade over time and if smart phone batteries are anything to go by the faster you charge them the hotter they get and the more they degrade. Nissan leaf's are in the unfortunate position where they have no active cooling on the batteries unlike nearly every other EV so tend to degrade faster.
 
The guessometer is giving me 80 miles on a 100% charge. So from my home doing only one rapid charge during the trip, I could go to Inverness in one direction or down to Newcastle in the other. I'm not worried.

Not that I am likely to be doing long journeys in this car anyway. 99% of the time we only drive within a 30 mile radius.
Yeah it's perfect if all you do is short journeys. Was just thinking of the cold weather you get up in Scotland!
 
Ok. Is this just a thing with this car or all evs ? Haven’t heard of this issue with teslas for example.

Tesla's used to have a thing where the maximum charge speed would be reduced after a certain number of DC fast charge events. Tesla's have the benefit of proper battery cooling which help manage fast charging, but high charge rates effect all lithium batteries ultimately.
 
Good luck with your EV op. A colleague in work has an aging Nissan Leaf and it's battery capacity is down to 60 miles. I get range anxiety when I get to 60 miles worth of diesel left!
 
Good luck with your EV op. A colleague in work has an aging Nissan Leaf and it's battery capacity is down to 60 miles. I get range anxiety when I get to 60 miles worth of diesel left!

I must admit range was the biggest concern when buying the car. I think it will take my wife longer to get over that than me.

But when you look at an average week of car use in our household a cheaper low range EV makes way more sense than a petrol or diesel. We drop off and pick up our girl at School which is a total of 15 miles a week. Do a weekly shop which is a 10 mile round trip and usually go somewhere within a 30 mile radius at the weekend. Me and my Wife both work from home so have no commute. So during an average Monday to Friday we would be lucky to do 50 miles of driving. We can charge the car up on a Sunday night and not need to charge it again until Friday night to get it ready for the weekend. So even if the battery degrades down to 60 miles range that would still be enough to get us through Monday to Friday. And 60 miles of electricity on Octopus Go will only cost us about £1.20 vs £5.20 for the same distance using our old petrol car.

Plus we get to have way more fun driving the EV than any similar priced ICE car. The instant torque is like taking off in an aeroplane and you get to do it at every traffic light if you want.
 
The guessometer is giving me 80 miles on a 100% charge. So from my home doing only one rapid charge during the trip, I could go to Inverness in one direction or down to Newcastle in the other. I'm not worried.

Not that I am likely to be doing long journeys in this car anyway. 99% of the time we only drive within a 30 mile radius.

Wow, I had no idea they were so limited. I thought the tech had moved on a long way with people adopting these cars more nowadays!! A car for me if the freedom to just go anywhere, and refill whenever I need it, very quickly. £8.5k on what has the range of less than a small motorcycle (then ages to top up!) just seems crazily expensive. I mean, you could have bought a (insert any sensible small car), and run it for 4 years for that all in, including servicing and fuel!!

Are you a one car household? You must surely have another car for longer trips?

I just read this post back before I submitted it, and I am not trying to get at you, just genuinely have no idea how a car like this ever works out for anyone :D
 
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