Which in March 2018 will go 200 miles on a single charge

Unfortunately a garbage car in every sense. Tiny range around half that of a Model 3 - at 172km I can't drive to the airport and back without charing - no supercharging equivalent, ugly, no autopilot or equivalent, tiny, and cheaper than a Tesla Model 3 but not by much.

Oh and it's been withdrawn from sale entirely in Australia.

"No supercharging equivalent". Wow, so I have been charging my car, for free, in 20 minutes, using the powers of my imagination.

Ugly is relative, so I'll concede the point.

Tiny? I've transported a chest freezer on mine. If anything, it has more cargo space than a Nissan Rogue, which is supposed to be an SUV.

Your right that autopilot doesn't exist. You know what else doesn't exist? The Model 3.

It has an important advantage over the Telsa Model 3, if you need to go anywhere anytime soon.

What's that? Like I said, it's been withdrawn from sale entirely in my country and they imply it's never coming back. At least the Model 3 is confirmed to be available next year if you preordered.

The Leaf exists, and it existed for years. Since its existed for years, we pretty much know exactly what we're gonna get.

In contrast, as of today, the Model 3 doesn't even exist.

Personally speaking, I don't buy the first model of any car anyway. If I were seriously considering the Model 3, I wouldn't plan on buying it till 2019 at the earliest. That would give Tesla enough time to work out the issues that the first batch of cars will inevitably have.

No car company has ever launched a new model line without issues. The issues may be major, or minor (like doors or windows not closing properly... rattles and that sort of thing). Inevitably, the first year or two are basically a public beta-test. For what basically amounts to a dozens-of-thousands of dollars investment, I want to make sure the car manufacturing company gets it right.

You can buy a used Leaf in Australia no problem. Better get-there functionality than an unreleased car.

https://www.carsales.com.au/car/nissan/leaf/

So it isn't a fit for you, but I know folks who really like theirs and crow about not having to visit a superfund site (gas station) ever.

Using words like "garbage" when it simply doesn't appeal to you - that's not exactly adding to the S/N ratio here.

Have you driven one? It's a great city car that also performs well on freeways.

No it isn't. One of the most important traits a car can have for highway driving in the US is quick acceleration for safe onramping and lane changes. I drove a friend's Leaf for about a week back in January, and I can comfortably say it performed worse in this regard than my previous car, a 2004 Honda Civic, which only had 117 hp.

My experience has been very positive with the Leaf. Acceleration is more than adequate by my standards, and I generally have 65-70% remaining after my 28 mile commute. I wouldn't want it to be my only car, but it does its job well, and for a very low price.

The Leaf has modest acceleration, but 0-60 in 10 seconds is far from dangerous. Your Civic will do that sprint in just over 9 seconds with a manual; it's typical to add a second or two to the times of automatic cars of that era.

Not sure which model you drove, but with eco mode off, the Leaf's acceleration is nothing short of impressive.

I bought a used Leaf with 19k miles for $8500; so I can buy 8 of those for a current Tesla. The larger charge port is 50 kW.