There's someone on Youtube who has produced a few videos of life with a Leaf and I'm sure he's done about 15,000 miles in a year.

I drive one occassionally and I would happily do a 30 mile each way commute in one. Range from full charged is about 90 miles, in reality you'll probably get 70-80.

If the battery is a fixed cost item, and i have no idea how much, then budget for that cost and you have another say 80k miles of 'free' motoring, even if its £3000 for a battery pack, by the time an equivalent sized Diesel has had a new DPF clutch DMF it won't be far out, should one of the modern dual clutch gearboxes spit its dummy out on top that £3k is going to look a bargain.

A couple of points to bear in mind, this free or relatively untaxed electricity isn't going to be forever, as electric cars gain popularity the govt tax take on fuel duty will drop, as always that will be put right be under no illusion once enough people have taken the bait.

Secondly the Leaf is more comparable in size to Focus/Astra/Ceed etc, so you arn't comparing apples with apples with the alternatives mentioned.

A new battery at £5000 would be bad new for many (and more than 3 years worth of petrol), and I dont think they sell many for this reason. Electric are not really main stream as there are to many issues. A plugin hybrid would make more sense if you do a reasonable amount of town driving.