On a technical level, it's a great feat of engineering to put a very good (better than average, as it uses immersion cooling of the cells) liquid active cooling (and heating, btw) system into a car that was never designed for it, and without taking up any meaningful extra room in the car. (Just a few extra bits stuffed under the bonnet in what were previously large open spaces, and the battery enclosure itself is no bigger) And aside from the limitations of the battery, the Leaf is actually a solid, reliable car that is quite good to drive.
However on an economic level, I have to agree with you. Who is this for ?
Back when the Leaf first came out and there were concerns about battery longevity the party line from Nissan and EV fanboys was "by the time the Leaf gets old enough to need a new battery, replacement batteries will be cheap and plentiful!"
As we all know, that never happened. Nissan reneged on their promise to make new replacement batteries available at affordable prices, so when a Leaf reaches the age where the battery is seriously degraded (say 70% SoH) and out of warranty the value proposition of putting an expensive new battery into a car that is worth less by that time than the battery that is going into it just doesn't make sense.
It might make a little sense if an old Leaf with a new battery was equally as capable as a current new EV, but that's obviously not the case. The Leaf is old tech now, particularly in the area of the battery, and more modern competitors stomp all over it. We're still too far down the adoption S-curve for this to make sense, and the battery is still too big a chunk of the total price of an EV.
In another 10 years when battery tech has "plateaued" and a new EV has a similar range and usefulness to a 10 year old EV with a new battery things might be a little bit different. But until then EV's are going to be fairly disposable unfortunately.
