There are a number of articles out there about the Nissan LEAF which focus on showing you how it is the best in its class. But, as an everyday combustion engine driver you don’t want to know if Nissan have produced the best electric car in the EV class, you want to know how the LEAF stacks up against the class equivalent of petrol and diesel cars.
So, that’s what we’ve done. Below you’ll find that we’ve compare Nissan’s 100% electric car to a Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra and VW Golf, all of which are family hatchbacks. This will give you a real life look at how the LEAF stacks up against your everyday cars.
Ford Focus
We will start with the Ford Focus. These figures are based on a 1.5 TDCi, below is what we found;
- Boot Capacity (litres) - 316
- Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat - 1,215
- Power (bhp) - 95
- Torque (Nm) - 250
- 0-62mph (seconds) - 12
- C02 Emissions (g/km) - 98
- Fuel Consumption (mpg) - 74.3
- Fuel Cost per Mile - 7.16p
- Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years - £400
- London Congestion Charge - £11.50 per day
Standard Model Specification
- Automatic Air Conditioning - Manual Air Con Only
- Bluetooth - No
- Front & Rear Electric Windows - Front Only
- Front Fog Lights - No
- Push Button Start - No
Vauxhall Astra
The next family car we looked at was a Vauxhall Astra. We based our figures on a 1.4 Ecotec, below is what we found;
- Boot Capacity (litres) - 370
- Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat - 1,210
- Power (bhp) - 100
- Torque (Nm) - 130
- 0-62mph (seconds) - 12.6
- C02 Emissions (g/km) - 124
- Fuel Consumption (mpg) - 52.3
- Fuel Cost per Mile - 10p
- Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years - £400
- London Congestion Charge - £11.50 per day
Standard Model Specification
- Automatic Air Conditioning - Manual Air Con Only
- Bluetooth - Yes
- Front & Rear Electric Windows - Yes
- Front Fog Lights - No
- Push Button Start - No
VW Golf
The next family car we looked at was a VW Golf 1.2TSi, below is what we found;
- Boot Capacity (litres) - 380
- Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat - 1,270
- Power (bhp) - 85
- Torque (Nm) - 160
- 0-62mph (seconds) - 11.9
- C02 Emissions (g/km) - 113
- Fuel Consumption (mpg) - 57.6
- Fuel Cost per Mile - 9.08p
- Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years - £380
- London Congestion Charge - £11.50 per day
Standard Model Specification
- Automatic Air Conditioning - Manual Air Con Only
- Bluetooth - Yes
- Front & Rear Electric Windows - Yes
- Front Fog Lights - No
- Push Button Start - No
Nissan LEAF
Last, but by no means least, we look the 2018 Nissan LEAF with its 40kWh battery. Below is what we found;
- Boot Capacity (litres) - 435
- Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat - 720
- Power (bhp) - 147
- Torque (Nm) - 236
- 0-62mph (seconds) - 7.9
- C02 Emissions (g/km) - 0
- Fuel Consumption (mpg) - 0
- Fuel Cost per Mile - 2p
- Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years - £0
- London Congestion Charge - £0 per day
Standard Model Specification
- Automatic Air Conditioning - Yes
- Bluetooth - Yes
- Front & Rear Electric Windows - Yes
- Front Fog Lights - Yes
- Push Button Start - Yes
And there are the facts in black and white, written right in front of you.
This really challenges the old fashioned idea that purchasing a LEAF, or any EV for that matter, will be like driving around in an electric milk float. We’ve seen above the LEAF outperforms the other family hatchbacks at a standard spec level.
The LEAF has the quickest 0-60mph time at 7.9 seconds. It’s got the most brake horsepower at 147bhp and this hatchbacks torque is through the roof at 236Nm. That’s one fast milk float! You could roughly do a quarter mile in 17 seconds.
When looking at the standard specs that comes with the LEAF, Nissan has packed a lot in! Especially when compared against other standard spec family hatchbacks. The elements that come as standard are features that you’d assume wouldn’t, they are all powered by electric and so could be seen as drains on the electric-only power supply. And as you know from secondary school science or dodgy phone batteries, the more power you extract from a battery the quicker it will run down. Not the case with the LEAF, Nissan engineers have worked their magic here.
Let's Talk Running Costs
That leaves us with the running cost of these hatchbacks.
Comparing this element across the models it would appear to be a no-brainer. The LEAF wins hands down, you don’t pay road tax for the first year and this could save you £400. You don’t need to pay a London congestion charge, making it easier to commute in and around London. And it only cost 2p per mile, 2p! I mean that’s cheap.
That means if you have a 20 mile daily commute (average commute) it will cost you 40p per day to get to where you're going and back. If we look at our other hatchbacks we can see they cost;
- Ford Focus = £1.42 per day
- Vauxhall Astra = £2 per day
- VW Golf = £1.80 per day
We looked at calculating the cost of fuel for these vehicles against the LEAF but because fuel prices differ so much across the country, plus they fluctuate in price by day, we thought it wouldn’t be an accurate figure we could provide.
What we can tell you is, to fully charge a LEAF it will cost you £3.
So charging an electric car at home costs £3 for a full charge, an average overnight electricity rate is 10p per kWh, which means charging you electric car to full power is the equivalent of running a dishwasher cycle in the evening. Most of us don’t think twice about flicking the dishwasher on once dinner is done. It’s never a case of ‘this is going to cost me’, you would get the same feeling every time you take your petrol or diesel car out. But, by converting to become an electric driver you won’t think twice about the running costs. You may even be able to cut your costs down further by utilising the free electric charging stations available across the UK.