To ask here about electric cars

[maccapacwac]

I'm hoping to get an electric car and wondered if anyone has any recommendations? We have a 4 and a nearly 2 year old so need space for 2 adults and 2 car seats, although I guess DS will soon be in a booster.
We were thinking of Nissan leaf as it seems to be the only electric (not hybrid) with 5 doors, which is also not tiny and not prohibitively expensive (like the Tesla).
Anyone got one of these with 2 DC and what are the pros and cons ? We live in Central London so mainly cover shortish distances and would have the advantage of no congestion charge or road tax. We should be able to put a charging point in our garage.
Thanks :)

On the Leaf - I would lease rather than buy - Or buy the car and lease the battery (done through most Nissan dealers) - £70-£100 a month for battery lease alone, shows that the battery is the "weak link" the car being bigger and heavier does not help that.

Mainly covering short distances and recharging often will shorten battery life. Battery replacement costs are high £5kish.

In terms of capacity I found the leaf to be surprisingly large inside and with a good sized boot. So good for family of four. We use these as company pool cars.

We'll be buying a leaf later this year while we wait for a Tesla. We did a test drive in a Tesla (friend works for them) and it is an amazing machine.

Battery will need replacing in 5-7 years

We have a Leaf. Plenty of space for a family and good boot room.

Doing shorter distances shouldn't be a problem so long as you run the battery down fairly regularly (rather than topping it up each time).

The best thing for me is you can program it (so long as it's plugged in) to de-ice and de-most the car in the morning. It's warm when you get in, lush.

Go for the higher up specs and you'll get things like a heated steering wheel as well.

It drives quickly, handles well. I love it.

Hmm ok so I guess if we leased the battery that would mean not buying a second-hand car, at least all of them that I've seen on auto trader say that they own the battery outright. DH thinks we should buy the car itself not lease it as leasing looks like it's around £300 / month. Does anyone lease the car itself?

No guarantee on having to replace the battery every 5-7 years either, the street in Cornwall where every family got one have mostly done around 100k and none of them have seen battery degradation. The battery is guaranteed for 5 years but won't need replacing unless it's damaged and even then it's only the cell.

There is a setting where the battery is only ever charged to 80% which helps to lengthen the life of it, if you are concerned.

Leasing the battery has a negative effect on the resale value so you'd be better off leasing the car or buying outright (or on a finance scheme).

Wow heated steering wheel! Never had one of those before! How about car seats, I guess they fit ok? We have a maxi cosi priori fix for both DC but was thinking I might get an erf seat for nearly 2 DD if it would fit. ( our current car is a skoda Fabia so not that big )

Also on the topic of becoming Eco warriors, we are thinking of putting solar panels up on our south facing wall, but only 1 or 2 foot high as we live in a flat and we can't use the roof? Has anyone got a small home solar panel like that?

Not sure about a ERF seat. We have a Kiddy seat and it goes in fine. Would be plenty of space for an isofix base but you'd have to check whether the other type would fit. The interior is essentially a c segment car so same size as Golf, Focus etc.

DH suggests that you go for a mark 2 (black dashboard) as they have a better heater and better range apparently!