Nissan Leaf Battery Life

Do you want to find out more about Nissan Leaf Battery Life?  Do you want to know how to charge your electric car? We offer high quality Used Electric and Hybrid Cars for sale in the UK.

Charging your Leaf

One of the most frequently asked questions about electric cars is unsurprising, "how do I charge my car?". The answer is relatively straightforward- you charge it with the same electricity, and similarly as you would charge your mobile phone.

There are several ways to charge your Leaf- each vehicle is supplied with a domestic EVSE cable as standard. Nissan Leafs use a standard Type 1 at a public charging station, using either a 3.7kW or a 7kW charger. 

Level 1 Charging

Using the standard EVSE cable, you can plug your car into any domestic 3-pin plug socket. As mentioned this is the lowest level of charging and it adds roughly 9 miles range/hour of charging. Some people may find this hard to believe, but yes, you can use the same electricity which powers your TV, your fridge and all other domestic appliances to charge your car. To fully charge a 24kWh battery using a level 1 charger can take up to 12 hours and longer for models with larger batteries. As expected, this is best done overnight.

Level 2 Charging

This is one of the most popular options for Nissan Leaf owners. The OLEV (Office for Low Emission Vehicles) Grant- sometimes referred to as plug-in car grant, subsidises at least the partial cost of having a dedicated home charging station installed (if eligible). They are mounted on external walls such as on the side of the house next to the driveway and allows for quicker charging with built-in safety features on its circuit. This is recommended if you have an older home which hasn't been re-wired lately, as it eliminates the risk of affecting the rest of your household electrics. Public charging stations which you see outside shops and supermarkets are often level 2 chargers. It can fully charge a 24kWh battery in 7 hours with a 3.3 onboard charger, (longer for larger batteries), with a 6.6kW onboard charger it adds 25-mile range/per hour of charge, reducing the time to around 3 hours.

Level 3 Charging

Unless it's one of the earliest 2013 Visia models, almost all Nissan Leafs are equipped with a Chadamo Rapid Charging port to allow for, as the name suggests, rapid charging. These are found commonly on service stations and throughout the public network. They can charge a 24kWh Leaf to 80% in roughly 30 minutes, ideal for service station pitstops.

A taxi company in Cornwall UK has a fleet of Nissan Leaf with 1 leaf called 'Wizzy' having covered 178,000 miles without issue, this has been rapid charged 3-4 times a day without any damage to the battery.