While it was an affordable vehicle, saying that it was practical is an overstatement. Charging networks were abysmal and actually still are for non-Tesla compatible vehicles. If you had experience using EVgo and similar small networks you probably wouldn't sound as confident.
Since I am technically "people", I can assure you that there indeed existed non-Tesla charging stations in 2014. I was living in a medium size city in an apartment. Since your original comment is specifically about cities, I would like to point out that cities are often associated with apartment buildings, lack of individual garages, etc. Even today saying that EV owners in cities mostly rely on charging at home or at work does not seem valid.
That wasn't my comment but I will say that lots of people have houses with garages in cities. Those that don't often will choose to not purchase an electric vehicle.
Eh it was pretty limited. The Leaf (then) couldn't go from my house, to the airport in my city (Melbourne) and back on one charge. That always made it a dealbreaker for me.
And that's going by Nissan's claimed range, not even real world. So that's on a 100% charge, when the car is brand new with no battery degradation, and under the ideal efficiency conditions that you never really get.
