Drive On: Nissan boosts electric Leafs' warranty

Nissan is about to take away another key reason for not buying an electric by extending warranty limits on its Leaf plug-in car.

Even better, the extended warranty will be retroactive, meaning it will cover all the Leafs that Nissan has sold so far, Automotive News reports.

Nissan will repair or replace the car's lithium-ion battery if it loses more than 30% of its ability to hold a charge after five years or 60,000 miles, the News says.

The extended warranty will address one of the problems of electric cars: that their fickle batteries wear out fairly quickly, and that new battery sets can run into the thousands.

The Leaf is a plug-in that runs on battery power alone, so the state of charge is a critical issue for a vehicle priced in the mid-$30,000 range.