Hyundai Kona vs Nissan Leaf: which is the better used buy?

The Hyundai Kona. Measured against cars of the same age, it comes out 3.2 percentage points ahead of the Nissan Leaf on first-time MOT passes, across 11,591 DVSA-recorded tests covering every generation on the road. A pass with rectification at the station counts as a pass here, and as a failure in DVSA's own initial-test measure.

90.3% of Hyundai Konas pass their MOT first time (6,358 tests in DVSA's records) and 82.9% of Nissan Leafs pass their MOT first time (5,233 tests). The national first-time rate is 77.3%, but cars of the Hyundai Kona's age average 89.1% and cars of the Nissan Leaf's age 84.8% — so the Hyundai Kona runs 1.3 points better than its age group and the Nissan Leaf runs 1.9 points worse than its own. A pass with rectification at the station counts as a pass here, and as a failure in DVSA's own initial-test measure.

Hyundai Kona: No year is named. DVSA’s MOT table rates 2018 and 2019 registrations above all cars registered those years and 2020 to 2022 level, and the Kona Electric’s battery recalls run across every first-generation build (January 2018 to July 2023) rather than one year. On an electric Kona the question is whether the recall work was done on that car, not which year it is from. Early cars have two small recalls of their own, which DVSA files under plain Kona with no fuel type: R/2019/001 (built 9 May to 19 December 2018) and R/2019/115 (built 20 April 2017 to 11 September 2018). Nissan Leaf: DVSA’s MOT table rates 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 registrations below all cars registered those years (by 6.1, 6.6, 9.7 and 3.9 points). Those are original 24 kWh and 30 kWh cars, whose battery guarantee on Nissan UK’s current terms is the 5 years or 60,000 miles that applies before model year 2022, long since over. Autocar and What Car? both point buyers of these cars to the battery condition and the heater, and the steering-column recall R/2014/171 covers cars built to 16 October 2014.

On fuel it depends on the engine, and for a plug-in or electric version on whether you can charge at home. Hyundai Kona: What Car? recorded 250 miles or more of real-world range from the 64 kWh Kona Electric (its October 2025 update); we have no sourced real-world figure for the petrol or hybrid versions, whose official figures depend on the engine. Nissan Leaf: Real-world range depends on the battery and its age, and is lower in the cold: What Car?'s winter test, at 10 to 11 degrees C with climate control set to 21 degrees C and 8 of its 15 miles at a constant 70mph, found 12 electric cars 21.0% to 37.9% short of their official range, and three cars tested in both seasons went on average 18% less far in the winter test than in the summer one. Read the range the car shows after a full charge. For cars registered from April 2017, vehicle tax differs: the Nissan Leaf is electric and pays the same £200/year standard rate since 1 April 2025 (electric cars were exempt before then), with the £440/year Expensive Car Supplement in years 2–6 only on one first registered from 1 April 2025 that listed at over £50,000 new, and the Hyundai Kona pays the £200/year standard rate from the second year, hybrids included, plus the £440/year Expensive Car Supplement in years 2–6 on a car that listed at over £40,000 new — the price when new, not what you pay for it used. The electric versions (Kona Electric) pay the same as the Nissan Leaf (2026/27 rates). Insurance differs mainly by driver and postcode rather than by model, so treat any model-level insurance figure with caution.