Nissan LEAF battery pack replacement DROPS to £5,000

The price of replacing a worn out battery pack in a Nissan LEAF EV has dropped in price from £20k three years ago to a much more reasonable £5,000.

Nissan has been rolling out deals in various markets for replacing the battery packs on the LEAF EV recently as the first LEAFs now get to an age when the warranties are starting to run out. And it’s a much more affordable price than it would have been three years ago.

Three years ago Nissan were quoting £20,000 to replace the battery pack in a LEAF, but with more demand – and improved technologies – come economies of scale, and Nissan will now do you a ‘swap’ deal for your old battery pack for £4100 + VAT (£4,920).

That’s a bit more than it will cost in the US ( $5,499) but is a much more sensible price than when the LEAF first arrived, and not a price that will wreck the secondhand market for the LEAF.

Nissan insist that you must trade-in your old battery pack (there’s a £1k credit for that in the quoted price) which does suggest the deal may be at less than cost, and prevents non-LEAF owners from buying a new pack.

What it also means is that owners of very early LEAFs will end up with an improved range thanks to the improvements in the battery pack in the intervening years, although owners of those early LEAFs will need a special adaptor (which only costs a couple of hundred) for the new pack to fit.

It’s a sensible move by Nissan – whether or not there’s profit in it for them – to underline confidence in the LEAF as it moves in to the mainstream of used car offerings.