Comprable cars: Sure. The Leaf doesn't really offer anything special, most cars these days have a pretty well loaded package. We'll take the Subaru Impreza Sport, this is the highest "base" package you can get. It offers AWD, driver assist, vectored braking. It's $22,995. If you add in everything optional, you'll probably put $3-4k on the price. That's still less than the leaf. It has 55ft3 of cargo space, more than the Leaf. (That's with seat area, which is the max rating.) If you want the base Impreza, it's $19k. You can add all of those same features, sans Vector Braking, and come in at maybe 23k. You can even get it in a standard - at least for this year. Since you can't drive a standard, they're discontinuing them. Oh well. You can get a Toyota Corolla top-of-the-line for $25,900, Couldn't really find cargo space measurements that were comprable to the previous two. A Nissan Sentra SR costs $21,800. Again, cargo volume here isn't presented in comprable numbers, but a sedan probably isn't going to have the same space as a mini-mini-van like the Leaf. For $26,500 you can get the Subaru Crosstek Sport, with something like 71ft3 of cargo space. (With seats, because that's how they rate them.) Batteries: Batteries have a life where they reach a certain percentage of charge capacity. This is where you replace them because they start degrading rapidly. It's the same as your phone, when you reach a certain number of charges the batteries are degraded and discharge quickly, overheat easily, self-discharge quickly, or simply will not hold a charge. Which brings us to another point, what's the self-discharge curve of your vehicle's batteries, and what happens when they're completely dead and you can't move? I just go get 2 gallons of gasoline and put it in, do you go to the Electricity Station and get some electrons? The math: Assuming you're driving 65MPH for the entire 445 miles, that's a total of 6.8 hours of drive time, leaving 1.2 hours for charging. This is 72 minutes for charging. The Leaf takes 45 minutes to charge to 80% using a fast charge. Assuming you've depleted the battery from full, you'll get 120 more miles in 45 minutes. So: First 80% charge: 45 minutes for 120 more miles, for a total of 269 miles. Second 80% charge: 45 minutes for 120 more miles, for a total of 389 miles. Third 80% charge: 45 minutes for 120 more miles, for a total of 509 miles. Adding those up, we get 360 miles at a charge time of 135 minutes. Since we only need 445 miles and we got 149 from the original charge, we need 296 miles. That's 82.2% of the total from three partial charges, so that's 82.2% of 135 minutes, or ~111 minutes. Our drive time is 408 minutes, with 111 minutes for charging, for a total of 519 minutes. About 8.65 hours, which is not 8. We're assuming your batteries are brand new and aren't holding only 65% of their charge capacity, and you can stop the charge at the percentage needed - otherwise you're approaching 9 hours. In that same time, I've driven 7 hours and reached my destination, including a fuel stop on the way. Sorry for the formatting, it pukeded.