Nissan LEAF: Price UP by £2k

The Nissan Leaf - £2k price increase already

Nissan has revealed that the price of the electric Nissan LEAF is rising to £30,000 – before it’s even hit the road in the UK.

Weren’t the prices of electric cars supposed to plummet as soon as they went from being a tiny niche to something resembling real production?

Nissan has – quietly – revealed that the price of its electric Nissan LEAF is rising by almost 7% in the UK – that’s £2,000. Which means the Nissan LEAF costs £30,000 in the UK before the Government (that’s you and me) chips in £5k.

So that’s £30k for a Focus or Golf size car that you can only drive for around 40 miles (at the most) before you need to turn round and go home. The LEAF costs as much as a Golf R or Focus RS500. Beggars belief.

Nissan appear to be blaming the poor exchange rate. They say the Pound has weakened against the Yen by 13.4% since the LEAF was originally priced. We can just about see that if Nissan priced the LEAF when the Yen was strongest against the Pound in the last year. Maybe they did.

Interestingly, we found similar value ranges for the Yen against the Dollar and the Yen against the Euro during the same timeframe. But there seems to be no price increase announced for Europe and the US. And isn’t the Nissan LEAF supposed to be being produced in the UK soon?

With a £10k difference between the LEAF and an entry-level Golf or Focus, you’d need to do an awful lot of driving in your LEAF – that can only do 80 miles a day – to even come close to getting your huge up-front cost back.

And when the electric car subsidy runs out (it’s only there for 8,000 cars – less than 0.5% of annual new car sales in the UK) that gap will be £15k. Yes, electricity is a cheap way to fuel a car, but only until Governments start to tax it like petrol. Or charge a levy. Which is already being proposed.

Please, if you’re going the EV route, do it with eyes open.