2019 Nissan Leaf

The 40-kWh LEAF S, SV and SL all use the 110-kW EM57 motor at 147 hp; 2019 is the year Nissan added the 62-kWh PLUS grades with a 160-kW motor at 214 hp. Either way the volume car sits near the floor of the 130–520 hp hatchback band.

Torque is the LEAF's better number than horsepower — 236 lb-ft from a standstill is ahead of the gas compacts it is cross-shopped against, which is why it feels brisker off the line than 147 hp implies.

Nissan publishes no 0–60 figure for the LEAF. 7.4 s is the consensus instrumented time for the 110-kW/40-kWh ZE1 powertrain, which is unchanged from its 2018 launch through 2019; evspecifications lists 7.50 s for the 2019 SV specifically. Mid-pack for a compact hatchback, and the PLUS is the grade to have if acceleration matters.

Single-motor EV delivery is immediate, silent and entirely lag-free, and e-Pedal is standard on every 2019 grade so one-pedal driving is available to the cheapest buyer. Kept out of the top band because the 147-hp car runs short of thrust above roughly 50 mph — Nissan sells the new-for-2019 PLUS explicitly on a 13% quicker 50–75 mph pass — and because the front-drive layout shows mild torque steer under hard throttle.

A single-speed reducer with a shift-by-wire palm shifter — nothing to mistime, no hunting, no CVT drone, and Hill Start Assist is standard so it never rolls back. Drive modes plus e-Pedal and B-mode give useful control over regen. Short of a perfect score only because regen is not paddle-adjustable as on newer EVs.

Front-wheel drive is the only configuration offered across all six 2019 grades — no AWD at any price, and no e-4ORCE option would exist on a Nissan EV until the Ariya. Bottom of the band alongside the other FWD-only compact hatchbacks.

2019 is the year the lineup actually widened: the 62-kWh LEAF PLUS arrived alongside the carry-over 40-kWh car, giving six grades across two distinct battery-and-motor combinations — 40 kWh/110 kW/147 hp for 150 miles at $29,990, or 62 kWh/160 kW/214 hp for up to 226 miles from $36,550. Broader than most single-model EV lineups of the era, but still two states of one electric powertrain: no gas, hybrid or AWD alternative exists.

The volume 40-kWh LEAF is EPA-rated 112 MPGe combined at 30 kWh/100 mi — the most efficient car in its own lineup and competitive among EVs of its era. Graded against other EVs, not against the gas fleet.

City is the LEAF's best case — regenerative braking, B-mode and the standard e-Pedal recover most of the energy of stop-and-go driving, which is exactly the commute this car was engineered around.

Highway MPGe falls about 20% from the city figure — the usual EV pattern, and the LEAF's tall hatchback body gives back more at speed than a slipperier EV would, despite the aerodynamic underbody cover and rear diffuser fitted as standard.

150 miles is the defining limitation of the volume LEAF and sits below the floor of the EV range band — a genuinely commuter-only figure. 2019 is the first year a buyer could escape it without leaving the nameplate, stepping up roughly $6,500 to the 62-kWh S PLUS for 226 miles, and even that does not clear the band floor.

The volume SV carries the quick-charge port as standard equipment, but it is the 50-kW CHAdeMO unit — below the 70-kW floor of the band, and on a connector US networks were already moving away from in favour of CCS. Worth flagging that on the cheaper LEAF S the port is not fitted unless the buyer ticks the S40 Charge Package, so a used 2019 S may have no DC charging capability at all.

Nissan's own quoted figure is 40 minutes to 80%. The small 40-kWh pack partly hides the slow port, but this generation's passively air-cooled battery throttles hard on repeated fast charges — the well-documented 'Rapidgate' behaviour — so the quoted number is optimistic on an actual road trip.

Energy cost is where the LEAF wins outright — roughly a third of what a comparable gas compact hatchback burns over the same 15,000 miles, and the single cheapest thing about running one.

Electricity at $700/yr is cheap and the standard 6.6-kW onboard charger refills the small 40-kWh pack in about 8 hours on a 240V outlet — an easy overnight. Two things keep it out of the top band: the standard portable cable on S, SV and SL is 120V only (the 120V/240V EVSE is an SL/PLUS item), so most owners must buy a home wallbox, and public DC charging is CHAdeMO, a connector US networks were already retiring in favour of CCS.

NHTSA never crash-tested the 2019 LEAF, nor the 2018 that opened the generation — both return Not Rated across every sub-score. The 2020 LEAF's 5-star result cannot be carried back: IIHS documents that driver and front-passenger knee airbags, redesigned curtain and passenger frontal airbags and added front/side structural reinforcement all arrived with the 2020 model year, and even with that hardware the 2020 managed only 4 stars frontal. A 2019 without those airbags is estimated one notch lower overall, tempered upward by a structure that already earned Good IIHS moderate-overlap and side results and a 5-star Euro NCAP.

Everything IIHS published on the 2019 LEAF is Good — moderate overlap front, side, and head restraints & seats — but that is only three tests. Neither small overlap front test was ever run, nor roof strength, nor headlights, so more of the crashworthiness picture is missing than present, and the LEAF holds no Top Safety Pick. It also predates the 2020 airbag and structure upgrades, which is the reason it lands a notch under the 2020 car rather than above it despite carrying no published Acceptable.

This is the year before Safety Shield 360, and the volume SV shows it: standard content is plain Automatic Emergency Braking plus Intelligent Cruise Control, and nothing else. Blind Spot Warning, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Intelligent Lane Intervention, High Beam Assist, LED headlights and even the pedestrian-detection upgrade to AEB are all bundled into the optional Technology Package. With four of the five suite elements locked behind a package, this belongs at the top of the prompt's 0-49 band rather than in the middle band.

Two problems compound here. The system standard on the volume SV is the base AEB without pedestrian detection — the pedestrian-capable version is a Technology Package item — and no independent body has ever measured either version on this car. IIHS logs front crash prevention as not tested and NHTSA credits forward collision warning only, with no crash-imminent-braking verification, so there is no performance evidence to credit at any trim.

Blind Spot Warning and Rear Cross Traffic Alert are absent from the volume SV as delivered — they come only with the Technology Package, and are standard equipment no lower than the SL. Both are alert-only; no 2019 LEAF offers steering or braking intervention in the blind spot, and rear automatic braking does not exist on this model year. It clears the bottom of the band only because the package is at least orderable on the volume trim.

The volume SV leaves the factory with no lane assistance of any kind — not even lane departure warning, which NHTSA records as optional for 2019. Intelligent Lane Intervention and ProPILOT Assist's steering-based centering both require the Technology Package, and when fitted the centering is genuinely competent on marked highway lanes. Scored for what the representative car actually has, which is nothing, with credit for the option being available on that trim.

The clear bright spot in an otherwise thin year: radar Intelligent Cruise Control is standard equipment on the volume SV, so the representative buyer gets real adaptive following rather than the fixed-speed cruise the later two-trim LEAF lineups handed base buyers. It sits mid-band because the standard ICC is the plain calibration — full-speed-range operation with stop-and-hold and the steering-assisted highway behaviour are ProPILOT Assist content, a Technology Package extra on SV and standard only on the SL PLUS.

No hands-free highway driving is offered on the 2019 LEAF at any trim or price. ProPILOT Assist is a hands-on-wheel system by design, and Nissan's hands-off ProPILOT Assist 2.0 was never fitted to the US LEAF in any model year.

The volume SV runs halogen headlamps with automatic on/off and nothing else — LED projectors and High Beam Assist are both Technology Package items in 2019, where a year later High Beam Assist became standard fleet-wide under Safety Shield 360. IIHS has never published a headlight rating for any US ZE1 LEAF, so there is no verified performance to offset the as-delivered hardware, and halogen OEM units essentially never earn a Good rating.

The ZE1 body is unchanged from the 2020 car, so the assessment holds: an upright hatchback greenhouse with a low cowl, big side glass and a usefully square rear window gives a better forward and side view than the raked-fastback EVs that followed. Thick C-pillars pinch the over-shoulder view, owners single out the A-pillars, and the Intelligent Around View Monitor that would compensate is SL content or a Technology Package extra, leaving the volume SV with a plain reversing camera.

IIHS rates the LEAF's child-seat anchor hardware Marginal on an explicitly tested SV, and the rating is written to span 2016-25 — this is measured, not inferred, and nothing about the 2019 car escapes it. Only the two outboard positions carry complete LATCH hardware, the lower anchors sit deep in the seat bight behind confusing extra hardware, and the middle position gets a tether anchor only.

The ZE1 LEAF is a conventional five-seat, five-door hatchback and the 62-kWh PLUS grades new for 2019 changed nothing about the cabin — same five belts, top of the 4–5 hatchback band.

41.2 inches sits above the top of the 36–40 in hatchback band, a direct product of the LEAF's tall upright greenhouse and the high hip point the floor-mounted battery forces.

42.1 inches is mid-band for the segment, but the number flatters the car: the raised battery floor means those inches are taken with knees carried higher than in a gas compact, and the tilt-only wheel makes them hard to use (see 9.3.2).

37.3 inches is mid-band and respectable on paper, though the tapering roofline works against it on the way in — passengers much over six feet duck to clear the header.

33.5 inches is the LEAF's worst interior number and the clearest cost of packaging this battery layout under a 106.3-inch wheelbase; reviewers also note the centre rear seat sits over a floor hump that steals foot room.

23.6 cubic feet behind the second row is a strong figure for the segment and the practical half of the LEAF's case — Nissan rates the well at two large suitcases or three airline carry-ons, with room left for the charge cable.

Storage is conventional and unambitious: two tandem cupholders, four door bottle holders, an open tray at the base of the console for a phone or wallet, a glovebox and extending sun visors. There is no frunk, no underfloor bin, a single 12-volt outlet and no onboard AC power, and the cargo cover is an SL item rather than SV equipment.

Front seats are described as comfortable enough for commuting but with cushions that are not especially supportive, and the rear backrest and bottom cushion are flat. Adjustability is the bigger 2019 problem: the volume SV leaves the factory with a 6-way manual driver's seat (the 8-way power seat is buried in the $2,200 SV Technology Package) and the column tilts but does not telescope, so taller drivers trade legroom against wheel reach.

A ~3,500-lb curb weight with the battery mass low in the floor gives the LEAF a settled, planted gait that reviewers call pleasantly cushioned on both concrete freeways and broken city pavement. It is not plush — the torsion-beam rear axle and 215/50R17 tyres on the SV let sharp edges through — but body control is good for a soft-riding compact.

With no engine the LEAF is conspicuously quiet in town and under acceleration, and an instrumented road test of the 2019 40-kWh car recorded 62 dB at 65 mph. The absence of engine masking raises awareness of what is left — tyre roar on coarse surfaces and a fair amount of wind whoosh off the door mirrors at highway speed keep it short of class-leading.

Mid-band rather than sparse. Automatic Temperature Control with an HVAC timer for pre-heating or pre-cooling on shore power is standard fleet-wide and is a genuine EV advantage, but every piece of cold-weather kit is an extra on the volume SV: heated front seats, heated wheel, heated mirrors, rear heater ducts and the efficient heat-pump 'hybrid heater' all live in the $900 SV All Weather Package, and are standard only on the SL.

Nissan's own 2019 pricing release holds the LEAF S at $29,990 plus $895 destination — unchanged from 2018 across all three 40-kWh grades, and $1,640 below what the same car would cost a year later. At $30,885 delivered before the full $7,500 federal credit, it was the cheapest route into a 150-mile EV in the 2019 US market.

The SV on the 40-kWh pack is the representative 2019 configuration: it is the mid grade of the three battery-40 cars that were on sale for the whole model year, adds the 7-inch NissanConnect touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 17-inch alloys and a leather-wrapped wheel over the S, and sits $4,060 below the $36,550 entry to the 62-kWh PLUS cars that only reached dealers in March 2019. KBB likewise treats the SV as the reference trim for the model year.

An EV drivetrain removes oil changes, plugs, belts and most friction-brake wear via regeneration, and Edmunds' True Cost to Own breakdown for the 2019 LEAF S puts five-year maintenance at $2,589 and repairs at $773 — $3,362 all in, against roughly $4,000–$5,200 for a gas compact hatchback. Nissan included no scheduled maintenance on the 2019 car (EV Carefree+ did not launch until November 2022), so every service visit, tire set, cabin filter and brake-fluid flush falls on the owner; the one EV-specific exposure is the passively air-cooled ZE1 pack, whose degradation is a resale problem rather than a repair bill while the 8-year capacity warranty runs.

The nameplate is one of the worst value-retainers on the US market and the 2019 is no exception: iSeeCars measures 63.4% five-year depreciation for the LEAF against 30.5% for the hatchback class and 41.7% for all cars, and CarEdge models 66%. A ~33% retention estimate for the 2019 SV blends those nameplate measures with KBB's current per-trim values for this exact model year, interpolated back to the 2024 five-year mark. Two 2019-specific factors push it to the low end: the car still carried the full $7,500 federal credit, so transaction prices sat far below the MSRP this percentage is measured against, and the 40-kWh pack's passive air cooling made battery-health anxiety the dominant story in the used LEAF market. It lands below the 35% floor of the hatchback band.

Nissan's 2019 new-vehicle limited warranty is 36 months / 36,000 miles — the segment floor, and the same coverage a 2019 Hyundai Ioniq Electric or Kia Niro EV buyer beat by two years and 24,000 miles.

On an EV the coverage that matters is the pack, and Nissan's is the federal-minimum 8 years / 100,000 miles with an explicit capacity guarantee if the gauge drops below nine of twelve bars; the motor, inverter and reduction gear sit under a separate 5 yr / 60,000 mi powertrain and EV-system warranty. The capacity clause is the one 2019 owners genuinely lean on, because the ZE1 pack has no active thermal management — the same limitation behind the repeat-fast-charge throttling owners nicknamed 'Rapidgate' on the 40-kWh cars.

No complimentary scheduled maintenance — Nissan's EV Carefree+ was still three years away — but the 2019 model year is the last one to catch the genuinely valuable perk in the LEAF's history: 'No Charge to Charge' gave buyers two years of unlimited complimentary public DC-fast and Level 2 charging on the EZ-Charge network, and it ran until 7 July 2019, covering most of this model year's selling window (the car went on sale in September 2018). Cars sold after that date instead picked up the $250 EVgo credit under Nissan Energy Perks from 1 November 2019. Add the 3 yr / 36,000 mi roadside assistance bundled with the basic warranty and the no-charge NissanConnect EV telematics subscription on SV and SL, and a 2019 buyer got meaningfully more than the 2020 buyer did — two years of free fuel is worth real money on a commuter EV — but still no included servicing, which is what the top band requires.

$33,385 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (33% retained, or about $11,017) leaves about $22,368 in depreciation. Add the projected $3,362 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $25,730 in total.

Consumer Reports has 2019 on the below-average side of the second-generation Leaf: the redesigned 2018 car already slipped versus the first generation on EV-battery complaints, and adding the 62 kWh Plus pack for 2019 did not arrest it — battery problems persisted and the overall score slipped again. It sits a notch above 2020, which CR identifies as the generation's low point, and RepairPal's low unscheduled-repair frequency keeps it out of the bottom band.

Brand-level item, held consistent with the other Nissan scorecards. Nissan reads lower-middle rather than bottom-third: Consumer Reports ranks it 12th of 22 brands — the lowest-placed Japanese marque — while J.D. Power's initial-quality work puts it at or near the top of mass-market brands. Those measure different things (long-run dependability vs. things-gone-wrong at 90 days), and the weaker one governs here.

Five NHTSA campaigns reach the 2019 LEAF, and the pattern is not incidental. The traction-battery overheat/fire risk during Level 3 charging names 2019–2020 cars specifically, and 2019 is the larger half of that population; owners were told to stop using quick charging until the software remedy was applied, which suspends the car's core road-trip function. Add an unintended-acceleration defect and two separate rearview-camera FMVSS 111 failures and this sits in the low band.

The halves of this drivetrain have opposite records. The EM57 motor, inverter and single-speed reduction gear were already years into production by 2019 with few systemic failures. The pack is the liability: every second-generation LEAF battery is passively air-cooled with no active thermal management, which drives heat-led capacity loss and the documented fast-charge throttling, and 2019 is the launch year of the 62 kWh Plus pack — the very pack named in the overheat recall. Real-world retention is better than the LEAF's reputation implies, which lifts this above the bottom band but not to average.

Hard black plastic dominates the S and SV trims most buyers take, and reviewers put perceived quality below the price point, though the second-generation cabin is a clear grade up from the 2011–2017 car and the SL's leather is genuinely good. The 2019 dashboard is also a step behind 2020's, which made the 8-inch colour touchscreen standard on S and SV — 2019 S cars still run the small monochrome-era display.

Second model year of the generation on established Smyrna tooling, and reviewers consistently call the assembly good — no pattern of rattles, squeaks or misaligned panels in the coverage. A solid rather than notable mark: the complaints this car attracts are about what the cabin is made of and how the battery behaves, not how it was screwed together.

Coverage is the strong half — roughly a thousand US Nissan franchises put service within reach almost anywhere, and by 2019 the LEAF had been in those stores for eight model years, longer than any rival EV's dealer experience. The discount is that high-voltage work requires an EV-certified technician and not every store has one, which bites harder on this car than most because the battery is where its problems live.

Routine running costs are genuinely low — no oil, plugs, belts or transmission service, and regenerative braking stretches friction-brake life — and after eight model years and the largest US EV production run of its era the LEAF has the deepest parts and salvage supply of any affordable EV. The one repair that matters undoes much of it: an out-of-warranty pack is a four-figure job, and on a 2019 car the 8-year/100,000-mile battery coverage is expiring now rather than theoretically.

The volume SV's 7.0-inch screen sits at the very floor of the 7–15.5 in band. 2019 is the year Nissan introduced the larger 8.0-inch display, but only on the PLUS cars — the 40-kWh LEAF that most buyers took kept the smaller unit for one more year.

NissanConnect here is plain but honest — a simple tile menu above real audio knobs and separate physical Automatic Temperature Control, so nothing routine requires the screen. Against that, the 7-inch unit on the volume SV is a generation behind the 8-inch system the PLUS grades got this same year: lower resolution, older graphics and no swipe/pinch gestures.

Wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard from the volume SV up — the right side of the line for a $32,000 car — but they are wired only, with no wireless projection at any trim or price, and the base S is left out entirely.

The volume SV has native navigation with voice guidance, Nissan Voice Recognition for nav and audio, and SiriusXM Traffic and Travel Link standard — more than most compacts of the year offer. But it is command-word voice rather than natural language, and the 2019 nav has none of the EV-aware charging-stop routing Nissan added with the 8-inch system, which is the one thing an EV's maps most need.

The volume SV steps up to a six-speaker AM/FM system with HD Radio, SiriusXM and Bluetooth streaming — adequate rather than good, and better than the base S's four speakers with CD. The seven-speaker Energy Efficient Series Bose premium system is an SL-only item, so the representative buyer cannot reach it.

Every 2019 LEAF has a configurable colour TFT display in the left half of the gauge binnacle, standard from the base trim, and it is genuinely useful in an EV — state of charge, capacity bars, power meter, instant and average consumption, distance to empty, Eco indicator. It is a partial cluster, not a full-width one: the speedometer beside it is a fixed analogue dial.

The 40-kWh 2019 LEAF has no meaningful over-the-air update path: no vehicle-software OTA at any trim, and map updates on the navigation-equipped SV are a USB or dealer errand. Nissan explicitly reserved push updates for the new 8-inch PLUS system this year, which makes the volume car's omission a deliberate line in the range rather than an era limitation.

The volume 2019 LEAF's strongest technology showing. NissanConnect EV telematics covers remote charge monitoring and scheduling, remote HVAC pre-conditioning, charging-station search and vehicle locate, and 2019 added Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control plus wearable apps — all on a no-charge subscription. It is a first-party EV app of its era, though: reliability and refresh latency drew regular owner complaints, and there is no digital key.

Thin even by 2019 standards: a single USB-A connection port plus an auxiliary input jack and one 12-volt outlet, all in front. No USB-C anywhere, no rear-seat ports at any trim, no wireless phone charging pad on any grade, and — despite the car being an EV — no household AC outlet or vehicle-to-load power for the US market.

Nissan Intelligent Key with push-button start is standard from the base trim and also releases the charge port door, the port itself is lit and lockable, and from the SV up the NissanConnect EV app adds remote lock/unlock and remote climate. What is missing is the top band: no phone-as-key, no hands-free power tailgate, and no conventional remote start (the app's HVAC timer stands in for it).

A RearView Monitor is standard on every grade and that is essentially the whole provision on the volume car. The Intelligent Around View Monitor — one of the better 360-degree systems in the mainstream market — is standard on the SL and is not offered on the SV at any price in 2019, not even in the $2,200 SV Technology Package, and no front or rear parking sonar is listed for the SV either.

No head-up display is offered on the 2019 LEAF at any trim, in any package, at any price — including the new PLUS grades.

The basics are right — five seats, four conventional doors that open wide on an upright body, a 60/40 folding bench, a deep 23.6 cu ft hatch well that takes a stroller without folding anything, and Rear Door Alert newly standard for 2019. Two things hold it down: 33.5 inches of rear legroom is near the bottom of the segment, so a rear-facing seat forces the front passenger forward, and IIHS rates the LEAF's LATCH hardware Marginal on a tested SV.

2019 is the weak year of the generation on exactly the trim a family would buy. Safety Shield 360 does not exist yet, so the volume SV leaves the factory with plain Automatic Emergency Braking and no blind-spot warning, no rear cross-traffic alert, no lane departure warning and no pedestrian detection — all of which sit behind the $2,200 SV Technology Package. NHTSA never crash-tested the 2019 LEAF at all, and IIHS published only three tests on it. Standard Rear Door Alert and full curtain airbags are the credits.

Loaded with four and luggage, the volume SV's 150-mile EPA range is a little over two hours of highway before a 40-minute stop on a CHAdeMO connector — the fact that decides this item. The cabin does little to offset it: 33.5 inches of rear legroom, flat rear cushions, no rear USB ports, no rear climate controls, and rear heater ducts only if the car was ordered with the All Weather Package.

This is what the LEAF was built for and it is genuinely excellent at it: silent, lag-free single-speed delivery with 236 lb-ft from a standstill, standard e-Pedal one-pedal driving that covers nearly all stop-and-go deceleration, Hill Start Assist, and Intelligent Cruise Control standard on the SV. The deductions are ergonomic rather than dynamic — the tilt-only steering column and 2019's pre-retune e-Pedal calibration, which is grabbier in reverse and at the very end of the stop than the 2020 software.

Roughly $700 a year in electricity at EPA assumptions is about a third of what a comparable gas compact hatchback burns over the same 15,000 miles, and the EV drivetrain deletes oil changes, plugs, belts and most brake wear — e-Pedal means the friction brakes are barely used. The 6.6 kW onboard charger refills the small 40-kWh pack overnight on a 240V outlet.

176.4 inches long and 70.5 wide on a 106.3-inch wheelbase makes the LEAF easy to place in a city, and the upright glasshouse gives better over-shoulder sightlines than the raked-fastback EVs that followed. Two things cost it: the volume SV's 17-inch wheels widen the curb-to-curb circle to 36.1 ft against 34.8 ft for the S on 16s, and the SV cannot be ordered with the Around View Monitor or parking sonar at any price in 2019 — the rear camera is the whole aid set.

Nissan publishes no towing rating for the US LEAF and offers no factory hitch, so towing is off the table entirely. What remains is a front-drive compact hatchback with 23.6 cu ft of carpeted cargo well, 30.0 cu ft with the bench down, and a 4,453 lb GVWR against a 3,483 lb curb weight — a few hundred pounds of payload once occupants are aboard.

The drivetrain itself is simple — one motor, one reducer, no clutch or torque converter — but the LEAF's defining durability weakness is squarely a work-duty one: the ZE1 battery is passively air-cooled, so repeated fast charging or sustained hard use heats the pack, throttles charge rate (the well-documented 'rapidgate') and accelerates capacity loss. Interior materials are ordinary cloth and soft-touch plastic with no wear-friendly or washable option, and there is no fleet/work-duty reputation to draw on.

Almost nothing here. One 12-volt outlet on the instrument panel, no household AC socket and — despite the car being an EV — no vehicle-to-load power approved for the US market in 2019. No hitch, no roof rails at any trim, no upfit ecosystem, and a carpeted cargo floor with a tyre repair kit under it rather than tie-downs and a washable surface.

The worst use case for this car, and not marginally. 150 EPA miles in the volume SV is well under the floor for road-tripping, its 50 kW CHAdeMO port needs about 40 minutes for 80% on a connector that was already retreating from US highway networks, and the passively cooled pack slows on the second and third fast charge of a day. The quiet cabin and standard ICC help, but ProPILOT Assist — the thing that would most reduce highway fatigue — is a $2,200 option on the SV.

Front-wheel drive only at any price with no AWD on any 2019 grade, 5.9 inches of ground clearance on all-season Michelin low-rolling-resistance tyres, no published tow or roof-load rating, no roof rails, and no onboard power for camping. The 16.7-degree approach angle and low front fascia rule out anything rougher than a maintained gravel road.

The hatchback shape earns part of this back: a deep 23.6 cu ft well behind a wide tailgate takes bulky items easily, Nissan quotes two large suitcases, and the 60/40 bench splits for long loads. But maximum volume is only 30.0 cu ft with the seats down — the folded backrests do not sit flat against the raised load floor — and with no roof rails, no hitch and no underfloor bin, anything that will not fit inside has nowhere to go.

The floor-mounted battery drops the centre of gravity and concentrates mass amidships, so the LEAF corners flatter and more securely than its soft hatchback looks suggest — reviewers repeatedly call it stable and planted through quick turns. It is composure rather than agility: 0.76 g on the skidpad on low-rolling-resistance Michelin Energy Savers, a torsion-beam rear axle and a 3,483 lb curb weight put a firm ceiling on how keen it feels.

The vehicle-speed-sensitive electric rack is well judged for what the car is — light and natural at parking speeds, accurate enough off-centre at road speed. What it does not deliver is feedback: reviewers note the effort does not build naturally with cornering load, and several call it too light for their taste. The LEAF goes where it is pointed and tells you little about it.

The regen-to-friction handoff through the Electrically-driven Intelligent Brake is one of the smoother ones in the class, and with e-Pedal engaged routine stops rarely involve the pedal at all. Two things cap it: 2019 runs the pre-retune e-Pedal calibration that Nissan smoothed for the PLUS this same year, so the final few mph and reversing are grabbier, and the measured 70–0 mph distance of about 190 ft on low-rolling-resistance tyres is long for a compact.

A single 110 kW motor through a single-speed reducer with 236 lb-ft available from zero rpm — nothing to shift, nothing to stop and start, no torque converter to shunt. Tip-in is immediate and linear and the three drive modes (Normal, Eco, B) change the calibration without ever introducing a step. Only the un-retuned 2019 e-Pedal ramp keeps it off the very top of the band.

There is no engine, no idle shake, no drone under load and no gearchange — just a faint motor whine under hard acceleration and the low-speed pedestrian alert tone audible mostly outside the car. An instrumented 62 dB at 65 mph for the whole cabin confirms how little the drivetrain contributes.

36.1 feet is mid-band and easy enough in a parking structure, but it is the volume trim paying 1.3 feet for its 17-inch machine-finished alloys — the cheaper S on 16s turns in 34.8 ft, near the tight end of the hatchback band.

The ZE1 LEAF's single biggest ergonomic failing is at its worst in 2019: the column tilts but does not telescope, so a driver who slides the seat back for legroom cannot bring the wheel to meet them — Nissan did not add a telescoping column until 2020. The volume SV compounds it with a 6-way manual driver's seat, the power seat being a $2,200 package item. Against that, ingress is easy on an upright body, the controls are conventional with real knobs, and the tall glasshouse gives good sightlines.

The instant off-the-line shove is briefly entertaining and e-Pedal makes town driving more involving than a normal automatic, but there is nothing past that — 147 hp that tails off above 50 mph for a roughly 7.4-second 0–60, eco-biased tyres, numb steering and a car engineered around range rather than reward. Nobody takes the long way home in one.

2019 is the year before Nissan loaded the LEAF up, and the base car shows it: the S makes do with a 5.0-inch display and a CD player, no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto at all, 16-inch steel wheels with covers, halogen headlights, and no blind-spot warning or rear cross-traffic alert. Automatic Emergency Braking, e-Pedal, push-button start and the newly standard Rear Door Alert are the substance of the standard set; Safety Shield 360 did not become standard until 2020, ProPILOT Assist is an SV Technology Package extra, and — the real sting on an EV — the CHAdeMO quick-charge port is an option on both S and SV rather than standard equipment. Stepping to the volume SV buys the 7-inch NissanConnect screen with CarPlay and Android Auto and the blind-spot kit, which is competitive for the money, but a base car you cannot DC fast-charge without ticking a box keeps this below the middle of the band.

On sticker the 2019 LEAF is unremarkable — $33,385 for an SV with 150 miles of range and a passively air-cooled pack, against a 2019 Bolt EV at $37,495 with 238 miles, proper thermal management and CCS. What makes the arithmetic work is the federal credit: Nissan was nowhere near the 200,000-unit cap, so the LEAF carried the full $7,500 all year while GM's stepped down to $3,750 on 1 April 2019 and $1,875 on 1 October, and Tesla's did the same. Net of credits the LEAF was routinely the cheapest new EV in the country, which is exactly what KBB's cost-of-ownership modelling rewarded. Fair value rather than a bargain: the buyer needs the tax liability to use the credit, and what the money buys is 150 miles, CHAdeMO, and a 40-kWh pack that throttles on repeated fast charges.

By the end of the model year the LEAF spanned six grades across two battery sizes — S, SV and SL on the 40-kWh pack from $30,885, and S PLUS, SV PLUS and SL PLUS on the 62-kWh from $37,445 — a genuinely wide ladder for a 2019 EV, and the S PLUS in particular exists so a budget buyer can get 226 miles without the equipment load. The caveat that keeps it out of the top band is timing and format: the PLUS cars did not reach dealers until March 2019, so for roughly half the selling season the lineup was three 40-kWh grades only, and there is one body, front-wheel drive only, and no performance variant.

US LEAF sales fell 16% in 2019 to 12,365 units from 14,715 in 2018 — barely a thousand cars a month, and a decline recorded in the same year Nissan added the longer-range PLUS that was supposed to reverse it. The context makes it worse than the raw number: the US EV market was growing hard and the Model 3 was outselling the LEAF by an order of magnitude, so this is a shrinking niche seller inside an expanding segment rather than a soft patch.

2019 caught Nissan at its lowest ebb in decades — the Carlos Ghosn arrest in late 2018 opened a governance crisis and a collapse in profitability, and the US business leaned hard on incentive and fleet volume with some of the industry's weakest residuals. There is no brand halo here to lend the LEAF. The nameplate's own equity was still real (best-selling EV in the world, over 390,000 sold globally and 130,000 in the US by early 2019), but the specific association EV shoppers had formed by 2019 was passive-air-cooled battery degradation and 'Rapidgate' fast-charge throttling, which is the opposite of desirability in a market where resale is the buyer's biggest exposure.

Scored on buyer benefit, and 2019 was an outstanding year to transact a LEAF. The full $7,500 federal credit was intact while GM's and Tesla's were phasing out, state and utility money stacked freely on top — the American Public Power Association program alone put $3,500 on a 40-kWh car and $2,500 on a PLUS, and stacked Colorado incentives took a base LEAF to about $11,665 — and anyone who signed by 7 July 2019 also collected two years of free public charging. Nissan was discounting a slow seller into a rising EV market, so lease cash was heavy and the cars negotiated well. Held short of the top only because the deals were visibly distress-driven on a model losing share.

2019 is the second year of the ZE1 generation introduced for 2018, and it is a change year rather than a carry-over: the LEAF PLUS arrived in March with a 62-kWh pack, a 214-hp / 250 lb-ft motor, 226 miles of EPA range, 100-kW quick charging and a new 8-inch over-the-air-updatable display, alongside standard Rear Door Alert across the range. That is a substantive mid-generation addition and there was no redesign on the horizon — the third generation did not land until 2026. What holds it to the middle band is that the hardware philosophy was already dated when it was new: no active battery thermal management on either pack, a CHAdeMO port the rest of the industry had abandoned for CCS, and 150 miles on the volume 40-kWh car against 238 in a Bolt EV.

Decorated on cost, respected on substance, and never the pick of a comparison test. KBB gave the LEAF its 5-Year Cost to Own award in the EV segment for a second consecutive year at the 2019 Chicago Auto Show, and reviewers consistently praised the car as comfortable, roomy and well-equipped for the money. The PLUS was received as the version that finally made the case — 'the big battery Leaf is a better electric car' — but even favourable write-ups flagged that owners struggled to see 200 of its 226 rated miles. The persistent black mark is the 40-kWh car's repeat-fast-charge throttling, which reviewers treated as a structural disadvantage against the Model 3 rather than a quirk, and which needed a software remedy during the model year.