Electric cars at auction? Prices?

[TooLateForAName]

Posting in general rather than EV to get better coverage.

I'm still interested in a LEAF, but the decent lease deals are gone and I'm thinking about used. They've been around long enough to be coming through the auctions so I was wondering if any of you regular auction goers have seen any go through and what sort of prices they are fetching?

I'm hoping that as a relatively unusual item that traders might be avoiding them them until the risks are better known and that therefore there may be a bargain to be had?

Leeds is reasonably close to me and there are a few coming up so....


thanks for any replies.

[leefee]

I have zero interest in electric cars, however, I was at the auctions buying stock on wedensday and there was an 11, 11 leaf in blue with 32k and 4 Nissan stamps to 31k. it made £6600. which is £875 behind cap clean. that is the only one I have seen at auction so far.

[saaby93]

ebay only 2 recently ran to auction
2011 Glasgow Silver 43k £7,500
2011 Leicester Black 30k £9,200

[TooLateForAName]

leefee said:

I have zero interest in electric cars, however, I was at the auctions buying stock on wedensday and there was an 11, 11 leaf in blue with 32k and 4 Nissan stamps to 31k. it made £6600. which is £875 behind cap clean. that is the only one I have seen at auction so far.

Thanks Lee - thats the sort of info I wanted. Would I need to add around £500 to that for fees?

[TooLateForAName]

saaby93 said:

ebay only 2 recently ran to auction
2011 Glasgow Silver 43k £7,500
2011 Leicester Black 30k £9,200

ebay seems expensive for them - main dealers are looking cheaper :O

I'm hoping that it might be possible to get one within spitting distance of £6K.

Edited by TooLateForAName on Saturday 2nd May 13:09

[leefee]

non trade would I imagine.

[pboyall]

Don't buy any 11 or 12 plate Leaf (or pre-March 2013 one) unless you will only ever do short trips.

They had a boatload that were built in Japan and stood around for ages (earthquake, no ships, etc.) which has damaged the batteries. No way to tell if you are buying a "bad" one ... well not without plugging in an OBD reader, which you won't be able to do at auction.

[CampDavid]

Nissan in Northampton were doing a lease for £150 down and £150 a month. I'd give them a call. The early ones have a crap range and I wouldn't want to shove my own dosh into owning one

[lost in espace]

Just lease or pcp, you really don't want to be paying privately for repairs. £750 for a washer bottle for instance. Hand it back at the end.

[cptsideways]

Seen a Twizzy go through with 7k miles for about £2.5k that was cheap! Did see one Leaf but can't remember price but it was less than book.

Its about the only car that I've seen go for less than book at auctions lately

[TooLateForAName]

The cheap lease deals are over.

Looks like almost 5K now for 2yr pcp. On that basis a suitably cheap 1st gen is looking more sensible as a buy for a short daily commute. Sure, I wouldn't put a large sum into one, but £6k is what I'd risk.

[amstrange1]

pboyall said:

They had a boatload that were built in Japan and stood around for ages (earthquake, no ships, etc.) which has damaged the batteries. No way to tell if you are buying a "bad" one ... well not without plugging in an OBD reader, which you won't be able to do at auction.

Have you got any more info on that?

[TooLateForAName]

amstrange1 said:

pboyall said:

They had a boatload that were built in Japan and stood around for ages (earthquake, no ships, etc.) which has damaged the batteries. No way to tell if you are buying a "bad" one ... well not without plugging in an OBD reader, which you won't be able to do at auction.

Have you got any more info on that?

I'm not convinced.

It is true that the first ones had lower range, but I've never heard that thre were any with knacered batteries

[pboyall]

Well:

I had one of the Gen1 models - bought used.
I also had LeafSpy and an OBD reader.
If you email Nissan Customer services your VIN number they will tell you the build date.

When I got the car I thought the range was a bit short.
Plugged in Leafspy and it reported a battery capacity of 60.1 Ah. A normal Leaf battery is 67.5 (verified by checking my new one)
Asked Nissan when it was built - "June 2011" they said.
First registered : May 2012

It had sat around *somewhere* for nearly a year.
Then, based on the registration, been used as a demo car (dealers leave them on charge, drive a mile, put them back on charge - also not good for the battery)

As a result, it had lost over 10% of its battery capacity. Which translated into about 7-10 miles of range. Doesn't sound like much, but when you only have 70-80 to play with!

Having spoken with a couple of other guys who had Leafs and also did the same check, they had similar gaps from built to registration and batteries which were also low on capacity.

But, I can report that the capacity didn't drop any further over 10000 miles - so it was "one off" damage if you like.

[gangzoom]

The 2013, gen 1.5 Leafs are already getting cheap as well. The more advanced heater is really a bonus in could weather, I've never tried a gen 1.0 Leaf, but in my 2015 Alcenta (Visa base spec still has older heater), the heater starts producing warm air after about 30-45 seconds, by far the most efficent heating system I've experience in any car. At most it takes 5% off the range, where as I hear on the gen 1.0 Leaf the heater took off nearly 15-20% the range.

Most people suspect there will be new Leaf announced in the next 12 months, which will offer alot more range (Nissan hinting at 200 miles - real world range). I'm sure once annouced this will hit used values even harder, cannot be a bad thing though, the £5K Leaf cannot be far away

Edited by gangzoom on Monday 4th May 08:16

Edited by gangzoom on Monday 4th May 12:49