Conclusion therefore, you might as well just buy one? Well, maybe. You would have to buy a Leaf at a roughly E6000 euro discount. Remarkably, a certain dealer is advertising with a E5000 discount, so that seems possible, and also seems to confirm the at least E6000 discount that dealers receive. Only thing is then that the risk of more deprecation is not for the lease company but for myself.
Finally, why is the discount so high, even for consumers. Well, it is widely believed that a 40kWh or even 45kWh Leaf (the current one is 30kWh) will arrive in January, boosting range to roughly 330/37km NEDC or 266/300 km of practical range, at the same price point. It is also rumored to have a less 'controversial' design. This will force discounts on current 30 kWh Leafs and therefore they are preferably sold before that announcement is made.
However, looking at the very short run time of the mijndomein deal, I thought that they will need an even larger discount to make that price work, so I would also not be surprised that the Leaf 2 will debut at the LA motorshow on November 15th. Consider that most car models run for 7 years and are then replaced and the current Leaf was introduced in 2010. Also consider that the Renault Zoe got a 41 kWh battery recently and now almost dwarfs the 250km range of the flagship product Leaf from the same company with a 400km range. If that introduction of the Leaf 2 happens with a 60kWh battery (as is assumed for the Leaf 2) at the current price point with deliveries starting in January, than Nissan would really crush the business case for all the 30kWh'ish current generation electric cars (BMW i3, Leaf, Zoe, Kia Soul, Hyundai Ioniq, e-Golf, etc.)! If we will only have the 45kWh upgrade, than it might still be worth the wait and discarding the current discounts, 50% range is very substantial and will put the Leaf at the front of the range battle again until the Chevy Bolt arrives. Exciting times ahead.
