August 20, 2025 - Nissan Keeps 2026 Leaf Affordable

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 20, 2025 and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

When Nissan first launched the Leaf in late 2010, it was the first relatively affordable, modern electric vehicle.  It under $33,000 it was less than a quarter of the cost of a Tesla Roadster and the available federal and state tax credits at the time could bring the price to about $20,000. Unfortunately, making an affordable EV at that time required using a small battery and the Leaf only had 73 miles of rated range. Another way that Nissan kept the cost down was to use an air-cooled battery which led to many Leafs in hot weather climates seeing significant battery degradation. Virtually all other EVs rely on liquid cooling of their lithium ion batteries which has enabled them to retain capacity over many years. 

Even as the Leaf has improved over time with the most versions getting either 150 or 220 miles of range depending on the battery used, Nissan has kept the starting price under $30,000. For the 2026 model year, Nissan is launching an all-new generation of the Leaf that appears to be much improved. The design is heavily inspired by the larger Ariya and it has adopted more crossover-like design. It's about 3 inches shorter and 1-inch wider than before.

The new Leaf now uses a liquid cooled battery with the launch trims of S+, SV+ and Platinum+ getting 75-kWh of energy storage that provides up to 303 miles of range, more than 4x the original Leaf. Later on, Nissan will add a lower cost S trim with a 52-kWh battery that will likely deliver about 220 miles per charge. All of the new Leafs get a J3400/NACS port on the right front fender for DC fast charging. 

Nissan has announced pricing for the 2026 Leaf S+ of $31,485 including the $1,495 destination charge while top Platinum+ will go for $40,485 delivered. At that starting price the new Leaf is for now the most affordable EV with 300 miles of range at about $3,500 less than the Chevrolet Equinox EV. That set an important price bar for Chevrolet to hit with its new Bolt also launching late this year. Affordability of EVs is becoming less of an issue even with the end of federal purchase incentives. 

Thanks for listening.