Leaf and Outlander PHEV prices: has the floor held?

The Clean Car Discount is two years gone, Canterbury winters are doing their worst on EV range, and used Leaf and Outlander PHEV values have taken a beating. Here is where auction prices actually sit.

The used EV market in New Zealand had a rough 2023 and an only marginally less rough 2024. The Nissan Leaf, which spent several years as the default answer to 'affordable electric car', has seen its trade and auction values drop to levels that would have seemed implausible at the peak of Clean Car Discount enthusiasm. The question worth asking now is whether that fall has run its course, or whether there is more pain ahead for anyone holding one.

At the major wholesale auction lanes through mid-2025, tidy second-generation Leafs, the 40kWh cars from the 2018 to 2022 vintage, have been clearing in the $12,000 to $17,000 range depending on battery health and odometer. Cars with a state of health below 80 percent struggle to find a floor at all. The 62kWh e-Plus variant commands a premium, typically clearing $19,000 to $24,000 for clean examples, because the range anxiety calculus is at least partially addressed. These are not retail prices. Add a dealer margin and a WoF and you are looking at a few thousand more on a forecourt, but the wholesale picture is what tells you where sentiment actually sits.

For comparison, the same cars were fetching $22,000 to $28,000 at wholesale during 2022, when the discount was running and demand from fleet buyers and early-adopter households was still elevated. That is a meaningful correction.

The PHEV has weathered it better

The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV tells a different story. It has not escaped price softening, but the falls have been less dramatic, and for a reason that is fairly straightforward: it does not ask you to trust the grid entirely. A Canterbury buyer who wants something capable of a day trip to Hanmer or a ski weekend at Mount Hutt without range planning is going to look at the PHEV with genuine interest, and that demand has provided a degree of support.

Clean 2016 to 2019 Outlander PHEVs have been clearing at wholesale between $22,000 and $29,000, with condition and the all-wheel drive spec being the dominant variables. The 2019 and newer shape, which brought a larger battery and better real-world electric range, sits at the upper end of that band. These are Japanese market imports for the most part, and the compliance costs are already baked in.

The honest caveat is that the Outlander PHEV's electric-only range, around 40km in the real world on the older generation, means most owners use it as a conventional AWD SUV with occasional electric top-ups. The fuel economy for anyone not plugging in regularly is not especially impressive, hovering around 9 to 11 litres per 100km in mixed driving. The RUC situation is also worth understanding: PHEVs pay fuel excise on their petrol use and are technically exempt from RUCs on electric kilometres, but the practical billing is negligible for most users. It is the petrol pump that will define the running costs.

Whether the floor is in

Here is what I think is actually happening. The Leaf market has probably found something close to a floor for the better-condition 40kWh cars, simply because the price has now dropped to a point where the value proposition is genuinely hard to dismiss. A $14,000 Leaf with 85 percent battery health and a fresh WoF is cheap transport for a Christchurch driver whose daily round trip is under 80km and who has home charging. The maths work. The buyers who were scared off by range anxiety were largely already gone from the consideration pool; the ones still looking at these cars understand what they are buying.

The 62kWh cars feel similarly stable. There is a ceiling on how far they can fall before they start looking absurdly cheap relative to their actual capability, and that ceiling is not far above where they are now.

The risk, frankly, is in the low-SOH 40kWh cars that are still being offered at prices that assume the battery is healthier than it is. A Leaf with 72 percent state of health is a different vehicle from one at 88 percent, and the gap between what some vendors expect and what buyers are actually prepared to pay for those cars has not fully closed. That is where the floor remains uncertain.

The Outlander PHEV market feels more stable simply because the buyer pool is broader. Anyone who wants a capable AWD family wagon and is comfortable with the PHEV compromise can consider it regardless of where they live or whether they have a charger at home. That resilience has a price: you will pay more for the Outlander than a comparable pure-ICE Outlander, and you are carrying battery technology that will eventually cost money to address.

For my money, the smarter play in the current market is the 62kWh Leaf if your driving suits it, and the Outlander PHEV if it does not. Both have found pricing that reflects reality rather than optimism, which is more than could be said two years ago.