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Tesla Model 3 vs 2018 Nissan Leaf – A side by side comparison
Tesla’s mission is simple and includes getting other automakers to join in the party. The Chevy Bolt, quirky as it may look, technically beat Tesla to market with a 200+ mile range EV that can be had for the $35,000 ballpark. Nissan, who I humbly believe to be the only other automaker currently taking full EVs seriously, has just announced their all new 2018 Leaf. The party is undoubtedly slow, but other automakers such as Volvo have at least talked about “electrification” (clever marketing shorthand for hybrids) but we can no longer deny that electric vehicles are here and their growth will not be able to be stopped.
Just as every concept EV talked about before 2016 was touted as a “Tesla killer,” it is now impossible not to compare every new electric offering with the much anticipated Tesla Model 3. So let’s do just that. The table below highlights some key specs for each.
| NISSAN LEAF | TESLA MODEL 3 | |
| Base price, before tax credits | $29,990 | $35,000 |
| Price with options | SL – $36,200 | Premium + EAP – $45,000 |
| Range (miles) | 150 (higher coming 2019) | 220 (310 for $9,000 upgrade) |
| Battery | 40 kWh/ (higher coming 2019) | Undisclosed |
| Charge time – Level 2 | Up to 22 miles per hour | Up to 30 miles per hour (std batt) |
| Charge time – Level 3 | Up to 88 miles per ½ hour | Up to 130 miles per ½ hour (std) |
| Charging network | No dedicated network | Tesla Supercharger, pay per use |
| Overall Length/Width | 176.4” / 70.5” | 184.8” / 82.2” |
| Cargo space | 23.6 cf | 15 cf |
| Body style | 4-door hatchback | 4-door sedan |
| Infotainment | Apple CarPlay, Android Auto | Tesla’s own |
| Main display | 7” | 15” |
| 0-60 mph time | 8 seconds (Motor Trend est.) | 5.6 seconds |
| Driver’s Assist Suite | ProPILOT ($2,200) | Autopilot ($5,000) |
| Automatic Emergency Braking | Standard | Standard |
If you want to get into a relatively long range EV (150 miles or greater) for the lowest possible price, the base 2018 Nissan Leaf wins out. I will also assume that you will be able to get your hands on a Leaf much sooner than a Model 3. Finally, if you absolutely insist on a hatchback, the Leaf has it.
Outside of those three things, and possibly the still large size of a Model 3, I can’t personally find any reason to choose a Leaf over a Model 3. To be clear I’m proud of Nissan for upping their game a bit. The 2018 version is in my very humble opinion, far superior in the looks department to the frog-like 2017 it is replacing. Nissan’s V-Motion grille is sharp, and hopefully takes your attention off the obvious charge port cover above it. The lines of the car itself are much more closely aligned with Nissan’s other offerings, which I find to have adequate design. Similarly, the rear tail lights are modern and edgy. If you can excuse all the buttons, the interior looks sharp. The Apple and Android faithful alike will appreciate the available car play integration. The bottom line for me is that every EV is a step in the right direction, even if this car won’t compel families to ditch the gasoline completely. In the absence of a reliable and dedicated fast charging network for long distance travel, the Leaf is still primarily a commuter car. 150 miles of range will simply allow a few after work activities without much thought.
I am excited to see the range and price that Nissan makes available in 2019 because for now, the base cost per mile of $199.93 falls far short of Tesla’s $159.09. I’d also like to see them re-think their battery management system, which I am to understand leaves something to be desired. One owner described his experience with a 2014 Leaf as losing 20% capacity thus far.
When looking at what we know about the Model 3 however, I can’t really compare the Leaf in any serious manner. I’m trying to be reasonable, to give Nissan a fair shake, but there are several things that make me a Tesla fanatic that are sorely missing from the Leaf – and any other current EV for that matter – that may or may not ever come close.
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Supercharging. EVs will remain a commuter or secondary car until you can load up the kids and head to Disney with the reasonable assurance that there are plenty of chargers along the way that will a) be working, and b) charge quickly. Tesla has made a huge commitment in this front because they know that’s what it takes.
Over the air updates. I have not yet heard of Nissan taking this approach, but I suspect if they do, it would be limited to maps and small changes. I don’t foresee the Leaf being able to give your car the sudden ability to automatically open your garage four years after you’ve purchased it. Some current automakers do have software updates for their vehicles, but my understanding is that you have to bring it in to the dealership to have it done. This totally defeats the purpose.
Dealerships. You’d be hard pressed to find a harsher critic of dealerships than I. Whether discussing the 2011 Jeep Wrangler that took me 3 hours to get for the exact price I walked in and demanded, or that time I spoke on behalf of a recently widowed neighbor with an actual cash budget who could not, no matter how you pitch it, afford that extended dealer’s warranty package, I can go on and on and about how much I dislike the experience. It always takes hours. You always get passed around from salesperson to manager to finance person. You may even get your credit run 10 times simultaneously (I’m talking to you, Hyundai dealership!) No thank you. I will order my car online, know the exact price and meet you there with a pre-printed check for the exact amount owed.
Looks. I get it, I really do, people love hatchbacks. My Model S is a hatch and has accommodated many a Home Depot trip. My once beloved Scion tC was a hatch, and once hauled 27 boxes of Pergo brand laminate floor planks. Even the Jeep with the horrible dealership experience picked up a washing machine. A washing machine! But I simply cannot wrap my head around the idea that you could conceivably compare the gorgeous, timeless and sleek looks of the Model 3 with the quirky, if a bit modern and sharp, Nissan Leaf.
Performance. There’s a reason I never considered a hybrid or EV before. Now that I’m a bit older and have the budget to pick a car I actually like, I’m not going to voluntarily drive something that takes 8 seconds to get to 60. I want tight steering, good handling, and the ability to make my passengers squeal with delight when I punch it.
Interior. This is a personal preference and I’m with you if you think the minimalistic interior of the Model 3 is crazy. It is. But I can just about promise you that you will not miss all those buttons. I sat in a Porsche Macan at the auto show and while I expected to feel great inside a new offering from a brand with as much clout as Porsche, I was too busy wondering what in the world all those buttons did. It’s almost a joke how many.
Confession: I started this post excited about the new Leaf. I tweeted about it first thing this morning; the more the merrier in EV world if you ask me. But when getting right down to the specifications, it’s hard not to see that everyone else still has a long way to go. They’re taking baby steps while Tesla is competing in the long jump.
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What do you think? Do the two cars compare? Tell us in the comments!
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that flying cars will be coming to the market, something that his own company has hinted at previously.
Musk said on X, in response to a post that read, “We were promised flying cars and all we got is infinite superintelligence for everyone,” “You will get flying cars.”
You will get flying cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The post rang back to when Musk teased flying and hovering capabilities for the Tesla Roadster, the company’s supercar that has been delayed more times than anyone cares to count. It was set for an unveiling earlier this year, but it was then pushed back to August. There is still no sign of it coming.
However, that does not mean it won’t. But one of the biggest features of the Roadster that was teased was a SpaceX package that featured cold gas thrusters on the rear end that would help with white-knuckle acceleration. Another set would face the ground and would help the Roadster gain small bits of altitude, potentially helpful to jump over obstacles.
Elon Musk hints at Tesla Roadster’s “hovering” abilities in SpaceX package
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But it is not a straightforward thing for Musk. As a serial entrepreneur, he tends to spend his time on major disruptors; currently, his largest projects are artificial intelligence and compute power, as well as SpaceX’s launches that will eventually make life multiplanetary.
In the past, he has been critical of flying cars and has been in favor of tunnels, one of the big reasons he started the Boring Company. In 2017 at a TED talk, he said:
“There is a challenge with flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy. The wind force generated will be very high. Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, if there are a whole bunch of flying cars all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation…You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap? Or is it going to come off and guillotine me as they’re flying past?’”
However, he’s never been against them. He has also said he’s in favor of both tunnels and flying cars.
Contrary to press reports, I’m not against flying cars. Just said it was important to consider both pros and cons.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2015
Most recently, Musk said that anyone who wants a flying car should be able to get one. This was stated last October on the Joe Rogan Experience:
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“My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars… I think if Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one.”
Whether the Roadster will be Tesla’s flying car or potentially another one remains in the mind of Musk. Of course, the Roadster will have to make its way to production lines before we find out.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.
The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees pic.twitter.com/5c8rxoCQfu
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 11, 2026
Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
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None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.
The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.
Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
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Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says flying cars are coming
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
