Everyday Family Hatchbacks Vs 100% Electric LEAF

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The Nissan Leaf is !00% Electric

There are a number of articles out there about the Nissan LEAF which focus on showing you how it is the best in it’s class. But, as an everyday combustion engine drive you don’t want to  know if Nissan have produced the best electric car in the EV class but how the LEAF stacks up against the class equivalent of petrol and diesel cars.

So, that’s what we’ve done. Below you’ll find that we’ve compare Nissan’s 100% electric car to a Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra and VW Golf, all of which are family hatchbacks. This will give you a real life look at how the LEAF stacks up against your everyday cars.

Ford Focus

We will start with the Ford Focus.  These figures are based on a 1.5 TDCi, below is what we found;

  • Boot Capacity (litres) – 316
  • Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat – 1,215
  • Power (bhp) – 95
  • Torque (Nm) – 250
  • 0-62mph (seconds) – 12
  • C02 Emissions (g/km) – 98
  • Fuel Consumption (mpg) – 74.3
  • Fuel Cost per Mile – 7.16p
  • Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years – £400
  • London Congestion Charge – £11.50 per day

Standard Model Specification

  • Automatic Air Conditioning – Manual Air Con Only
  • Bluetooth – No
  • Front & Rear Electric Windows – Front Only
  • Front Fog Lights – No
  • Push Button Start – No

Vauxhall Astra

The next family car we looked at was a Vauxhall Astra. We based our figures on a 1.4 Ecotec, below is what we found;

  • Boot Capacity (litres) – 370
  • Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat – 1,210
  • Power (bhp) – 100
  • Torque (Nm) – 130
  • 0-62mph (seconds) – 12.6
  • C02 Emissions (g/km) – 124
  • Fuel Consumption (mpg) – 52.3
  • Fuel Cost per Mile – 10p
  • Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years – £400
  • London Congestion Charge – £11.50 per day

Standard Model Specification

  • Automatic Air Conditioning – Manual Air Con Only
  • Bluetooth – Yes
  • Front & Rear Electric Windows – Yes
  • Front Fog Lights – No
  • Push Button Start – No

VW Golf

The next family car we looked at was a VW Golf 1.2TSi, below is what we found;

  • Boot Capacity (litres) – 380
  • Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat – 1,270
  • Power (bhp) – 85
  • Torque (Nm) – 160
  • 0-62mph (seconds) – 11.9
  • C02 Emissions (g/km) – 113
  • Fuel Consumption (mpg) – 57.6
  • Fuel Cost per Mile – 9.08p
  • Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years – £380
  • London Congestion Charge – £11.50 per day

Standard Model Specification

  • Automatic Air Conditioning – Manual Air Con Only
  • Bluetooth – Yes
  • Front & Rear Electric Windows – Yes
  • Front Fog Lights – No
  • Push Button Start – No

Nissan LEAF

Last, but by no means least, we look  the  Nissan LEAF 24kw, below is what we found;

  • Boot Capacity (litres) – 370
  • Boot Space with Seats Laid Flat – 720
  • Power (bhp) – 109
  • Torque (Nm) – 254 (instant)
  • 0-62mph (seconds) – 11.5
  • C02 Emissions (g/km) – 0
  • Fuel Consumption (mpg) – 0
  • Fuel Cost per Mile – 2p
  • Road Tax Cost Over 3 Years – £0
  • London Congestion Charge – £0 per day

Standard Model Specification

  • Automatic Air Conditioning – Yes
  • Bluetooth – Yes
  • Front & Rear Electric Windows – Yes
  • Front Fog Lights – Yes
  • Push Button Start – Yes

And there’s the facts in black and white, written right in front of you.

This really squashes the concept that purchasing a LEAF will be like driving around in an electric milk float. We’ve seen above  the LEAF outperforms the other family hatchbacks at a standard spec level.

The LEAF has the quickest 0-60mph time at 11.5seconds. It’s got the most break horse power at 109bhp and this hatchbacks torque is through the roof at 254Nm. That’s one fast milk float! You could roughly do a quarter mile in 17seconds.

When looking at the standard specs that come with the LEAF,  it seem’s like Nissan has packed a lot in when comparing against other standard spec family hatchbacks. The elements that come as standard are features that you would think shouldn’t as they are all powered by electric. And as you know from secondary school science or dodgy iPhone batteries, the more power you extract from a battery the quicker it will run down. Not the case with the LEAF, Nissan engineers have worked their magic here.

Lets Talk Running Cost’s

That leaves us with the running cost of these hatchbacks.

Comparing this across our models it would appear to be a no brainer. The LEAF wins hands down, you don’t pay road tax for the first year and this could save you £400. You don’t need to pay a London congestion charge, making it easier to commute in and around London. And it only cost 2p per mile, 2p! I mean that’s cheap.

That means if you have a 20 mile daily commute (average commute) it will cost you 40p per day to get to where you’re going and back (probably work). If we look at our other hatchbacks we can see they cost;

  • Ford Focus = £1.42 per day
  • Vauxhall Astra = £2 per day
  • VW Golf = £1.80 per day

We looked at calculating the cost of fuel for these vehicles against the LEAF but because fuel prices differ so much across the country, plus they fluctuate in price by day, we thought it wouldn’t be an accurate figure we could provide.

What we can tell you is, to fully charge a LEAf it will cost you £3.

So charging an electric car at home costs £3 for a full charge, an average overnight electricity rate is 10p per kWh, which means charging you electric car to full power is the equivalent of running a dishwasher cycle in the evening.  Most of us don’t think twice about flicking the dishwasher on once dinner is done. It’s never a case of ‘this is going to cost me’, you would get the same feeling everytime you take your petrol or diesel car out. But, by converting to become an electric driver you won’t think twice about the running costs.