The Nissan Leaf may gain plaudits for being one of the more affordable electric vehicles and certainly sells well across Europe, but it is also top of the list for reliability according to data published this week.

One of the UK’s leading warranty providers, Warrantywise, is well placed to understand the issues and levels of reliability of the cars they cover, but even they might have been shocked after just two Leafs required repairs, from all the cars they cover.

A new mirror assembly and an electrical fault were the only two problems reported by Nissan Leaf owners in the last year, putting it at the top of the EV reliability charts.

Some of the other leading EV marques didn’t fare so well in the survey, with Tesla’s Model S proving popular on the forecourts, but taking many trips back to the garage after a shocking 41 per cent of policies for Tesla requiring a repair.

Warrantywise CEO, Lawrence Whittaker, said: “Scepticism surrounding the reliability and powertrain longevity of EV technology – particularly the ability of the batteries to consistently hold full battery charging capacity – has been a concern in the early uptake of plug-in electric vehicles.

“It is really encouraging to see that the major EV components such as the powertrain, outperform petrol and diesel counterparts after the manufacturer’s warranty expires. Overall numbers of repairs and the severity and complexity of them are encouragingly low for anyone eyeing up a second-hand EV bargain.

“Our reliability data index provides the most accurate snapshot of real-world data anywhere in the market and helps to prove that plug-in EVs can be a great used buy.”

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