2025 Nissan Leaf

2025 is the final, carry-over model year of the second-generation (ZE1) Leaf, and the volume SV PLUS uses the 160 kW EM-57 motor rated at 214 hp. That is strong for a compact hatchback's price point but lands in the bottom quarter of a band that stretches to 520 hp for hot hatches and sport compacts.

250 lb-ft from the 160 kW motor is the Leaf's best number in this category and comfortably clears what a comparably priced combustion compact hatchback makes. Being an EV, it is available essentially from rest, which flatters low-speed response more than the raw figure suggests.

Nissan publishes no 0–60 rating, but the mechanically identical 2023–2025 SV PLUS has been instrumented at 6.8 seconds by Car and Driver and 6.7 by Clean Fleet Report. Genuinely quick off the line for a mainstream hatchback, though the front-drive chassis and roughly 3,900 lb curb weight blunt it well short of the segment's quick cars.

Single-motor EV delivery with no gearchanges, no lag and no engine, which is inherently smoother than anything combustion-powered in the segment. It sits below the 80+ band because the ageing ZE1 platform lets noticeably more motor whine and road noise into the cabin than newer EVs, and 214 hp through the front axle will tug at the wheel and scrabble for traction under full throttle from rest before tapering at highway speed.

A single-speed gear reducer has nothing to hunt for, shift-shock or drone through — the cleanest gear behavior available. It earns near the top of the band because Nissan pairs it with e-Pedal one-pedal driving plus Eco and B modes, giving real driver control over deceleration; it stops just short of the ceiling because e-Pedal will not hold the car fully at rest on a grade without the friction brakes taking over.

Both 2025 trims are front-wheel drive and no all-wheel-drive Leaf has ever been sold in the US — Nissan reserves its e-4ORCE dual-motor system for the Ariya. That is the bottom of the item's FWD-only band, lifted marginally above zero only because the low-mounted battery gives decent traction for a front-driver.

One powertrain type only — battery-electric, front-wheel drive — with no gas, hybrid or PHEV alternative anywhere in the range. It rises above a true take-it-or-leave-it single offering because the two trims are genuinely different cars mechanically: a 40 kWh / 147 hp commuter and a 60 kWh / 214 hp long-range version with meaningfully different performance and range.

EPA rates the volume SV PLUS at 109 MPGe combined / 30.8 kWh per 100 miles. That is respectable but only mid-pack among EVs — the ZE1 Leaf's 2018-vintage aerodynamics and the extra mass of the 60 kWh pack leave it behind the efficiency leaders, and marginally behind its own 40-kWh sibling.

The city cycle is the Leaf's strongest, as on every EV, thanks to regenerative braking and e-Pedal recapturing stop-and-go energy. 121 MPGe is a solid mid-band EV result but short of the light, small-battery front-drivers that clear 130–140.

Highway efficiency drops well below city, and at 98 MPGe / 34.4 kWh per 100 miles the second-generation Leaf's boxy hatchback profile shows against slipperier modern EVs. It is the weakest of the three cycles and the one that most limits real-world road-trip range.

212 miles was competitive when this generation launched in 2019 and is near the bottom of the EV field by 2025, when mainstream rivals clear 300 miles on a charge. EPA breaks it down as 232 mi city / 188 mi highway, so the number available on a road trip is lower still — the single biggest weakness of the run-out Leaf.

The 2025 Leaf is the last new car in the US with a CHAdeMO fast-charge inlet, and its practical ceiling is the 50 kW class — roughly a third of what a current mainstream EV accepts, and at the very bottom of the EV band. Nissan's 100 kW claim belongs to the 2019–2022 Leaf Plus and is not supported for the MY23–25 car, whose own quoted charge time implies about 48 kW average.

An hour to reach 80% is roughly triple the best in the class and the worst figure of any EV still on sale new. The pack has no liquid cooling and no preconditioning, so back-to-back fast charges throttle further — the well-documented 'rapidgate' behavior — making the quoted hour a best case rather than a typical one on a road trip.

About 4,600 kWh a year to cover 15,000 miles is among the cheapest energy bills on sale in absolute terms — EPA puts the five-year saving against an average new vehicle at $7,750. Graded against other EVs it is only mid-band, since efficiency rather than fuel type is what separates them.

There is no fuel grade to worry about and home charging is cheap, but the 2025 Leaf has the worst public-charging story of any EV on sale: its CHAdeMO inlet locks it out of both the CCS and the Tesla Supercharger networks, and US CHAdeMO stations are being decommissioned rather than built. With no factory adapter path to either standard, an air-cooled pack that throttles on repeated fast charges, and a 6.6 kW onboard charger needing about 11.5 hours for a full 240V charge, it is only practical as a car charged overnight at home — which is why it sits well below the 2026 Leaf's 90 and below the CCS-equipped Fiat 500e's 74.

NHTSA rated the 2025 LEAF specifically and both battery variants earn a clean 5-star overall; the frontal and rollover sub-scores are 4 stars, so the headline figure is the best result available but not a sweep of the individual tests.

The ZE1 LEAF wins no IIHS award and, eight model years into the generation, has never been run in the small overlap front test at all — the single most important IIHS crashworthiness evaluation is simply missing. What exists is mostly Good on the older protocols (moderate overlap front, original side, head restraints) but only Acceptable in the updated side test, where the structure and safety cage is rated Marginal.

On the SV PLUS volume trim the suite is comprehensive and entirely standard: Safety Shield 360 covers AEB with pedestrian detection, rear automatic braking, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning and high beam assist, and ProPILOT Assist adds full-range adaptive cruise with lane centering. The reason this is not scored higher is the $28,140 S trim, which gets Safety Shield 360 but has no adaptive cruise available at any price — a gap Toyota and Honda closed across their whole hatchback ranges years ago.

AEB with pedestrian detection is standard on every trim, but there is no independent verification of how well it works: IIHS logs the LEAF's system as present and explicitly 'Not tested' for vehicle-to-vehicle, and there is no pedestrian front-crash-prevention rating at all, day or night. The hardware is the pre-2023 radar-and-camera Safety Shield 360 set, which predates the nighttime-pedestrian performance IIHS began demanding for awards, so nothing supports crediting it above a competent-daylight assumption.

Blind Spot Warning and Rear Cross Traffic Alert are standard on both trims, and Nissan credits the LEAF with Intelligent Blind Spot Intervention and Intelligent Lane Intervention — active steering nudges rather than alert-only, which is above the segment norm. Rear Automatic Braking backs up the cross-traffic coverage. There is no safe-exit alert, and the S trim's coverage is alert-plus-camera only without the 360-degree view.

Lane departure warning is standard fleet-wide and the SV PLUS adds ProPILOT Assist's lane centering, which reviewers describe as a genuine fatigue-reducer on well-marked highways. It is first-generation ProPILOT, though: it is hands-on with frequent torque nagging, it wants clear lane markings, and it is less composed through curves than Toyota's Lane Tracing Assist or Honda's current LKAS. The base S has warning only, with no centering at any price.

ProPILOT Assist on the SV PLUS pairs full-speed-range Intelligent Cruise Control with stop-and-go, holding the car at a standstill in traffic and resuming, and Consumer Reports found it a real convenience in congestion. It is a mature, smooth system by mainstream standards but a single-lane hands-on assist with no lane-change or navigation-linked behavior, and the volume-adjacent S trim gets only fixed-speed cruise control.

No hands-free driving is offered on the LEAF at any trim or price. ProPILOT Assist is explicitly a hands-on system requiring continuous steering-wheel contact; Nissan's hands-off ProPILOT Assist 2.0/2.1 is reserved for other markets and, in the US, for the Ariya — it never reached the ZE1 LEAF.

IIHS has never published a headlight rating for any ZE1 LEAF, so there is no independent measurement to credit — and an unrated headlight on an eight-year-old design cannot be assumed Good. The SV PLUS volume trim at least has LED headlights plus LED fog lights, and High Beam Assist is standard across the range as part of Safety Shield 360; the base S carries the older halogen projector unit.

Forward visibility is a strength — the LEAF's tall hatchback greenhouse and raised, battery-floor seating position give a commanding view out, which reviewers consistently note. Rearward is the weak side: a high beltline, thick C-pillars and shallow rear glass topped by the roof spoiler leave real blind zones. The SV PLUS compensates well with the standard Intelligent Around View Monitor 360-degree camera; the S makes do with a plain back-up camera.

IIHS rates the LEAF's LATCH hardware Marginal, and the tear-down of why is unflattering: only two of the three rear positions have complete anchor hardware, the lower anchors in both sit too deep in the seat bight with seat material hard to work around, and the tether anchors are on the middle seatback beside hardware that can be confused for them. In a compact hatchback's rear quarters that makes routine seat installation a fight rather than a chore.

The ZE1 LEAF is a conventional five-seat, five-door hatchback with a 60/40 folding rear bench; there is no reduced-seat or bench-delete configuration. Five is the top of the hatchback band, so the item maxes out.

41.2 inches is genuinely tall for a compact hatchback and clears the top of the segment band outright — a consequence of the LEAF's high, upright roofline and the raised hip point the floor-mounted battery forces. No moonroof is offered on any 2025 trim, so there is no reduced-headroom variant to caveat.

42.1 inches sits mid-band for the segment — adequate for tall drivers but not a standout, and the high battery floor means the seat sits up rather than back, so the measured figure flatters the thigh support somewhat.

37.3 inches is slightly above the segment midpoint on paper, but the sloping hatchback roofline means real-world clearance is tighter than the number implies — a six-foot-one passenger reports hair brushing the headliner.

33.5 inches is the LEAF's worst dimension by a wide margin and lands near the floor of the hatchback band: the 106.3-inch wheelbase is short and the battery pack raises the rear cushion so passengers sit knees-up. Reviewers are blunt that the back seat suits children or short adults only.

23.6 cubic feet behind the rear seats is a real strength and well into the upper half of the hatchback band — the LEAF's tall tail and deep load well swallow more than most compact hatchbacks. The catch is the fold: dropping the seatbacks adds only 6.4 cubic feet, because they stop well short of flat over a high load floor.

Everyday storage is complete but entirely conventional — center console bin, two console cupholders, four door bottle holders, glovebox, seatback pockets and a single 12-volt outlet — with none of the packaging tricks EV architecture usually enables. There is no frunk, no underfloor cargo bin, no household outlet or V2L, and the 60/40 seatbacks fold to a stepped rather than flat floor, so the only ways to carry bulky items are the dealer-accessory cargo organizer and blocks.

The front seats are the high point: Nissan's Zero Gravity design draws consistent praise for low-fatigue long-haul posture, and the SV PLUS volume trim adds an 8-way power driver's seat with 2-way lumbar plus heating. The rear bench drags the score back to mid-band — the battery floor forces a knees-up posture with short thigh support, and reviewers uniformly restrict it to children or shorter adults.

Reviewer opinion splits, which is where a mid-band score belongs: the low-mounted battery and 3,900-lb curb weight settle the car nicely at cruise and several testers call the ride better than expected for a small car, but the semi-independent torsion-beam rear axle gets caught out by broken pavement and is described as busy and unsophisticated over sharp inputs.

Having no engine puts the LEAF ahead of every combustion hatchback in the segment at idle and in town, but that silence exposes an eight-year-old body with no acoustic-glass or sound-package revision for 2025: road roar and wind noise are the consistent complaint at highway speed, which is exactly where a quietness score is earned.

The SV PLUS volume trim covers the cold-weather essentials properly — heated front seats, heated leather-wrapped wheel, heated mirrors, a heat-pump cabin heater and remote pre-conditioning through the NissanConnect EV app, which matters more on an EV than on anything else in the segment. What holds it to mid-band is everything absent at any price: single-zone climate control, no ventilated seats, no heated rear seats, no rear vents, no sunroof on any trim, and none of the heated equipment available on the $28,140 S at all.

The 2025 LEAF carried over unchanged pricing from 2024 on the entry S trim, and at under $30,000 delivered it was the cheapest new EV sold in the US that model year. Destination rose $45 to $1,140.

The 60-kWh SV PLUS is the volume configuration — the 149-mile S is a price leader most buyers step past for the 212-mile battery, ProPILOT Assist and Around View Monitor. $36,190 plus $1,140 destination is $37,330 delivered, and the lineup has only these two rungs.

An EV with no oil service, no transmission fluid and regenerative braking that stretches pad life posts among the lowest service bills in the compact-hatch class, and the ZE1 LEAF's drivetrain has been in production since 2018 with a mature parts supply. Out-of-pocket for the first three years is lower still because EV Carefree+ pays for scheduled maintenance.

The LEAF is the textbook case of EV depreciation: an air-cooled pack with no thermal management, a CHAdeMO port the network is abandoning, and a known all-new 2026 replacement all crush residuals. Loss of federal tax-credit eligibility for MY2025 removed the one prop under used-EV pricing, and the $7,500 Customer Cash on new cars drags used values down with it.

Nissan's standard limited warranty is the industry-baseline 3 years / 36,000 miles, unchanged for 2025 and at the floor of the segment band. Kia and Mitsubishi rivals double it, and even Fiat runs 4 years / 50,000 miles.

The battery coverage is the meaningful figure on an EV and matches the federal-minimum 8 years / 100,000 miles that every mainstream EV offers, with an explicit capacity floor of 9 of 12 bars (~70%) rather than defect-only cover. The electric powertrain itself is covered for the shorter 5 years / 60,000 miles.

EV Carefree+ is genuinely multi-year included maintenance plus real perks, and it is the strongest ownership package in this segment: three years / 36,000 miles of factory-paid scheduled service (longer than ToyotaCare's 2 years / 25,000 miles), three years / 36,000 miles of EV-specific emergency roadside assistance, and EV Battery Health Assurance on top of the pack warranty. Nissan has also historically bundled an EVgo public-charging credit with new LEAF purchases, though the specific MY2025 credit amount could not be confirmed.

$37,330 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (33% retained, or about $12,319) leaves about $25,011 in depreciation. Add the projected $3,400 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $28,411 in total.

Both major predictors land the 2025 LEAF squarely at average — neither a red flag nor a reason to choose it. It is the eighth and final year of a carry-over ZE1 design, so the prediction rests on real accumulated data rather than a guess about a new platform, which is worth something.

Nissan's two headline scores point in opposite directions and measure different things: it is the best mass-market brand in the market at delivering a trouble-free first 90 days, and a middling one at staying trouble-free for years. Long-term dependability is what a reliability grade should weight, so the strong IQS result lifts Nissan to mid-pack rather than into the top tier.

No NHTSA campaign names the 2025 LEAF at all, and ZE1-generation campaigns stop at the 2023 model year — a genuinely clean record for a late-build car on long-settled tooling. Scored short of the top band because the generation behind it carries a real systemic pattern rather than a scatter of one-offs: two separate traction-battery overheating recalls during Level 3 quick charging, plus an unintended-acceleration campaign covering 66,000 cars.

Two halves pulling hard against each other. The EM57 motor and single-speed reduction gear are about as proven as an EV drivetrain gets — 15 years and over 500,000 LEAFs worldwide with very few drive-unit failures. The battery is the problem: it is the last mainstream EV pack sold without active thermal management, relying on passive heat exchange through the pack skin, which produces the worst capacity loss of any production EV in hot climates and throttles repeat DC fast charging ("rapidgate"). The two NHTSA battery-overheat recalls on sibling model years are the same physics showing up as a safety defect, and Nissan's own fix was to give the 2026 redesign liquid cooling at last.

Reviewers consistently say the cabin avoids feeling cheap — the black plastic is extensive but the textures are uniform and the assembly is honest for the money, and the SV PLUS adds partial leather wrapping. It still scores below the segment midpoint because this is a 2018 interior being sold in 2025 against Mazda3, Civic and Corolla hatchbacks that have each been redesigned since and set the class benchmark for material richness.

A final-year car on tooling that has been running at Smyrna since 2018 is about the best case for assembly consistency, and reviewers sampling the SV PLUS reported quality control holding to a high standard with no rattle or misalignment complaints. Nissan's chart-topping 2025 initial-quality result corroborates it at the brand level.

Roughly a thousand Nissan stores means nobody in the US is far from one, and J.D. Power's dealership-experience score for the LEAF is the nameplate's strongest sub-rating. Held out of the top band by two LEAF-specific frictions rather than any network-wide failing: high-voltage work needs an EV-certified technician and those are unevenly spread, and LEAF volume fell far enough by 2025 that many stores see one only rarely.

Routine running costs are genuinely low — no oil service, and regenerative braking spares the friction brakes — and the LEAF's 15-year production run has left abundant common parts plus a real independent LEAF-specialist trade. The score is pulled to the middle by the one repair that dominates the ownership risk: an out-of-warranty pack replacement is a five-figure event on the 60 kWh car. CHAdeMO compounds it, being an orphaned standard in North America that the 2026 redesign abandons, making charge-port hardware a dead-end parts line.

Eight inches is the only display the 2025 LEAF offers, and it sits barely above the floor of a segment band that now runs to 15.5 inches. It is the unchanged 2018-era NissanConnect head unit, and the measure of how far behind it had fallen is that the 2026 redesign jumped straight to dual 14.3-inch screens.

The system is simple and works, and it earns real credit for keeping physical knobs and hard buttons for audio and climate rather than burying them in the screen — a genuine daily-usability advantage over newer rivals. But it is an unrevised eight-year-old NissanConnect unit with low-resolution graphics and dated menu logic, which is why reviews land on 'likeable but behind the times' rather than anything warmer.

Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard on both trims, including the $28,140 base S, which is the right side of the segment line. Neither is wireless on any trim, and no wireless option exists at any price — placing the LEAF at the bottom of the wired-standard band.

The SV PLUS volume trim does carry proper built-in navigation — NissanConnect EV with Door to Door Navigation, 3D buildings, satellite imagery and SiriusXM Traffic and Travel Link — which is more than several rivals include. It stays mid-band because voice control is command-list rather than natural language (the smart assistant on offer is Siri Eyes Free, i.e. the phone's), the maps are a 2018-generation product most owners bypass for CarPlay, and the base S gets no native navigation at all.

This is the weakest technology line on the car: the top-of-range SV PLUS makes do with a six-speaker AM/FM system and the base S with four, and for 2025 Nissan offers no branded or premium audio upgrade at any price — the Bose system that once appeared on the discontinued SL PLUS is gone with the trim. A buyer who wants better sound in a 2025 LEAF has no factory path to it.

A digital meter cluster is standard on both trims and the EV-specific readouts are genuinely well chosen — power meter, remaining-energy and capacity gauges, battery temperature, distance-to-empty and Eco indicator, with ProPILOT status added on the SV PLUS. It sits in the partial/upper-mid band rather than higher because it is a small, low-resolution 2018-generation TFT paired with a fixed digital speedometer readout, with little of the reconfigurability newer full-digital clusters offer.

The 2025 LEAF has no meaningful over-the-air update capability — no vehicle software updates, no firmware, not even OTA map refreshes; everything goes through a dealer service visit. The point is not academic on this car: Nissan's own fix for the LEAF's fast-charge throttling had to be delivered as a dealer-applied update, which is precisely the kind of problem OTA exists to solve.

NissanConnect EV covers the functions an EV owner actually needs daily — check state of charge, start a charging session, set charge timers and pre-heat or pre-cool the cabin remotely — and it is included at no charge rather than subscription-gated. It stays mid-band because there is no digital key or phone-as-key, the app is a dated product with a long-standing reputation for slow and unreliable connections, and the base S trim has no telematics hardware at all.

Four USB ports standard on both trims is a respectable count for a compact hatchback and covers both rows. Everything above that baseline is missing: no wireless phone charging on any trim at any price, a single 12-volt socket, and no household AC outlet or vehicle-to-load capability — a conspicuous gap on an EV with a 60 kWh pack, and one Nissan only addressed with the 2026 redesign.

Nissan Intelligent Key with push-button start is standard across the range including the base S, and it usefully doubles as a remote charge-port door release — the right baseline, delivered at the right price. There is no phone-as-key, no hands-free power hatch (the LEAF has no power liftgate at all), and remote climate pre-conditioning is limited to the SV PLUS through the app.

A 360-degree Intelligent Around View Monitor standard on the volume trim is a real value proposition in a sub-$37,000 compact hatchback, and it is backed by standard rear automatic braking and rear cross traffic alert. It falls short of the top band because the cameras are low-resolution 2018-generation units, no front or rear parking sonar is listed on either trim, there is no automated parking assist, and the base S drops to a plain rearview camera.

No head-up display is offered on the 2025 LEAF on any trim, as a standard feature, an option or an accessory. The feature has never appeared on the ZE1 generation in the US market.

The daily logistics work better than the LEAF's compact footprint suggests: LATCH with upper tethers, child rear-door locks and power-window lockout are standard, the tall hatch opening and 23.6 cubic feet behind the rear seats swallow a stroller easily, and Rear Door Alert is standard on both trims. The limit is the 33.5-inch rear legroom — a rear-facing seat behind a tall driver is a genuine squeeze, and there is no sliding or reclining rear bench to trade around it.

The equipment story is strong where it counts for families — a full Safety Shield 360 suite including AEB with pedestrian detection, rear automatic braking, blind-spot warning and intervention, and lane intervention is standard on the $28,140 base S, not reserved for an expensive trim, and NHTSA rates the car 5 stars overall. What pulls it below the top band is the IIHS record: no award, Marginal structure in the updated side test, and eight model years into the generation the LEAF has still never been run in the small overlap front test.

This is where the LEAF's age bites hardest on a family mission. A 212-mile rating drops well below that at highway speed, and refuelling depends on CHAdeMO — a connector North American networks have stopped installing — at 60 minutes to 80 percent, with the passively air-cooled pack throttling to 20–30 kW after repeated stops in a single day. Inside, four occupants face 33.5 inches of rear legroom, no rear climate vents and no rear amenities beyond a USB port.

Commuting is the mission the LEAF was built for and still does well. Instant torque from 250 lb-ft with a single-speed reducer means no shifts and no lag in traffic, e-Pedal makes stop-and-go one-pedal work, ProPILOT Assist handles the highway leg on the volume trim, and the Around View Monitor plus a compact footprint take the stress out of the last hundred yards. Home charging removes the fuel stop from the routine entirely.

At 109 MPGe combined on the volume SV PLUS, a home-charged LEAF costs a fraction of any combustion compact per mile, and the running-cost picture beyond energy is equally thin: no oil changes or engine servicing, minimal friction-brake wear because e-Pedal does most of the slowing, and cheap 215/50R17 all-seasons. It is not the most efficient EV on sale — newer designs clear 130 MPGe — but against the commuting cost of anything else in the segment it is exceptional.

A 176.4-inch, 70.5-inch-wide hatchback with a 36.1-foot curb-to-curb circle threads city streets easily, the base S is tighter still at 34.8 feet on its 16-inch wheels, and the standard 360-degree Around View Monitor on the volume trim turns tight parallel parking into a non-event. Only the thick C-pillars and small rear glass keep it out of the top band, and the surround view largely compensates.

The 2025 LEAF carries no US tow rating at all — Nissan publishes none and offers no factory hitch — and as a compact hatchback there is no bed, no open load area and no low-speed torque reserve intended for hauling. Payload works out to roughly 970 lb, which covers people and luggage but is not a work capacity, and the air-cooled battery penalises exactly the sustained-load, repeat-charge duty cycle work use implies.

The drivetrain itself is simple and long-proven — a single EM-57 motor and reducer with more than 500,000 LEAFs built — but nothing else about the car suits hard use. The cabin is Bio Suede PET and cloth with no washable or vinyl-floor option, there is no commercial or fleet-spec trim, and the passive air-cooled pack is the known weak point under a demanding duty cycle, degrading and thermally throttling in ways liquid-cooled rivals do not.

There is essentially no work-oriented provision on the 2025 LEAF. No onboard AC power or vehicle-to-load — a striking omission on a 60 kWh EV, and the obvious feature a jobsite user would want — a single 12-volt socket, no factory roof rails or crossbar provision, no hitch, and no upfit ecosystem. What exists is a handful of dealer accessories: a cargo organizer, cargo blocks and floor mats.

The car itself is a pleasant enough cruiser — Zero Gravity seats, ProPILOT Assist and a silent drivetrain make 65–70 mph relaxed — but the infrastructure makes long-distance travel the LEAF's worst mission by a distance. 212 miles falls to a real-world highway figure well below that at 98 MPGe, and every recharge depends on the orphaned CHAdeMO standard at 60 minutes to 80 percent, degrading to 20–30 kW when you try to string stops together.

The LEAF is comprehensively pavement-bound. Front-wheel drive only with no AWD offered on any trim, 5.9 inches of ground clearance, low-rolling-resistance Michelin Energy Saver tires, no tow or roof-rail provision for bikes or boxes, no onboard AC power for camping, and a rear seat that will not fold flat for sleeping or long gear. Away from charging infrastructure the 212-mile range is itself the constraint.

Raw capacity behind the rear seats is a real strength — 23.6 cubic feet under a wide, tall hatch opening handles luggage for four without folding anything. Flexibility is where it falls down: the 60/40 seatbacks add only 6.4 cubic feet and stop short of flat over a high load floor, and with no roof rails, no hitch, no underfloor bin and no frunk, anything genuinely bulky has nowhere to go.

The floor-mounted battery gives the LEAF a low centre of gravity and it corners securely and predictably, with a surprisingly quick steering ratio. It goes no further than that: a semi-independent torsion-beam rear axle, 3,900 pounds of curb weight, a 57/43 nose-heavy balance and low-rolling-resistance Energy Saver tires mean it is accurate rather than engaging, and reviewers consistently describe it as unremarkable when pushed.

The vehicle-speed-sensitive electric rack is accurate and geared quickly enough to make the car feel nimble around town, but it is uniformly described as light and artificial with essentially no feedback — a deliberate calibration for a commuter EV rather than a fault, and one that sits at the bottom of the precise-but-numb band.

One-pedal e-Pedal driving is genuinely well calibrated and does most of the slowing in normal use, which is the best part of the braking experience. The friction system behind it is the weak link: the electrically driven intelligent brake blends regen with modest 11.14-inch front discs hauling 3,900 pounds on eco tires, and the pedal is consistently criticised as rubbery and vague — when you actually need to modulate it, the feel is not there.

This is the LEAF's standout dynamic quality. A single 160 kW motor through a single-speed reducer means no shifts, no lag, no stop/start shudder and 250 lb-ft available from rest — inherently smoother than anything combustion-powered in the segment, and the e-Pedal and B-mode calibrations blend regeneration cleanly. It stops short of the top of the band only because 214 hp through the front axle will tug at the wheel under a hard launch and power tapers noticeably at highway speed.

With no engine, no gearbox and no stop/start event, the drivetrain itself is near-silent and transmits almost nothing through the controls — a clear win over every combustion rival in the segment. Only a faint motor whine under hard acceleration keeps it from the very top; the LEAF's noise complaints are about road and wind intrusion, not the powertrain.

36.1 feet on the volume SV PLUS is comfortably better than mid-pack for the segment band and makes the car easy to turn around in a city street. The wider 215/50R17 tires cost it 1.3 feet against the base S, which at 34.8 feet sits right at the best end of the band.

The fundamentals are sound: manual tilt and telescopic adjustment on both trims, an 8-way power driver's seat with 2-way lumbar on the SV PLUS, an elevated and commanding forward view, and — increasingly rare — physical knobs and buttons for most audio and climate functions rather than a screen menu. It is held to mid-band by the consequences of the battery floor, which raises the seat and shortens thigh support, and by thick C-pillars and a small rear window that hurt the over-shoulder view.

The instant 250 lb-ft and a 6.8-second 0–60 give the LEAF a genuinely satisfying squirt away from a light, and e-Pedal has a following among owners who enjoy driving it. Beyond that it is an appliance by design and admits as much: numb steering, a torsion-beam rear, eco tires, no sport mode, no AWD and no acoustic character to enjoy. Nobody takes the long way home in one.

The strong card is safety: Safety Shield 360 — automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning, rear automatic braking and high beam assist — is standard on both trims, as is an 8-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. But the $37,330 volume SV PLUS only then adds ProPILOT Assist, Around View Monitor, heated front seats, heated steering wheel and an 8-way power driver's seat, and the base S goes without heated seats entirely — thin for a car priced against 2025 EVs with wireless smartphone mirroring and larger displays.

At sticker this is poor value: $37,330 buys 212 miles of range, ~50 kW peak charging through a CHAdeMO port the network is retiring, and a 2018-vintage platform, while similar money bought a Chevrolet Equinox EV or Hyundai Kona Electric with far more range and CCS charging — and MY2025 lost federal tax-credit eligibility outright. What rescues the item is the transaction price: with $7,500 Customer Cash the base car landed near $20,280, which is real bang-for-buck as a second car or commuter. The 214 hp / 250 lb-ft drivetrain and five-seat hatch practicality also beat the sub-$30k combustion compacts on paper.

Two trims, and that is the whole lineup: S with the 40-kWh pack, SV PLUS with the 60-kWh pack. One body, front-wheel drive only, no AWD has ever been offered, and option content is limited to paint and a small accessory list. The two battery choices are the only meaningful configuration decision, and they are welded to the trim rather than orderable independently.

The nameplate that opened the modern EV market is now a rounding error in it. US LEAF volume ran around 5,100 units in calendar 2025 against roughly 7,600 in 2024 — a fall of about a third, from a nameplate that once cleared 30,000 a year — and the fourth quarter collapsed as buyers held out for the redesigned 2026 car. It is a run-out model in a segment moving away from it.

Nissan entered 2025 as a weakened brand — the Re:Nissan restructuring, plant closures, a credit rating cut to non-investment grade and the collapsed Honda merger talks all sit behind the badge, and the CVT reliability reputation from the volume lineup colors the whole showroom. The LEAF retains genuine pioneer goodwill with early EV adopters, and the 500,000-unit global production milestone is a real credential, but the nameplate's own battery-degradation history works against it.

Scored on buyer benefit, and the benefit was extraordinary: $7,500 in Customer Cash on every 2025 LEAF, stackable in some regions with $1,500 loyalty money, for up to 31% off MSRP — a run-out discount unmatched anywhere in the segment. State programs pushed it further, with Colorado lease offers advertised from as little as $19 a month. The only deduction is that this is plainly desperation pricing on a discontinued generation, and lease support was much weaker than cash-purchase support.

This is the last model year of the ZE1 generation that arrived for 2018 — eight model years on one platform, with a minor 2023 styling and trim refresh as the only intervention, and no hardware change at all for 2025. The replacement was not merely rumored but confirmed and revealed: an all-new third-generation LEAF on the Ariya's CMF-EV platform, with a crossover body and a NACS port, arrived for 2026. Buying the 2025 car meant buying a known-obsolete one.

Reviewers were consistently lukewarm and increasingly blunt about the two structural faults — 149/212 miles of range when rivals clear 300, and the near-dead CHAdeMO fast-charge port. Coverage in the run-out year read as valedictory rather than recommending. Owner sentiment is notably warmer than expert sentiment, and the car still placed on KBB's best-electric-cars list on price, but it won no significant MY2025 award and has not won a comparison test in years.