The early Leafs always had a fairly standard (for the time) Li-ion battery, but the corner they cut until a few years ago was to make it air-cooled rather than the liquid-cooled systems of most competitors. That made the earlier Leafs cheaper, but the batteries had far greater issues with longevity.

It's going to be interesting to see the LiFePO4 generation of EVs, which are going to be far less exciting to drive, but could potentially be rather cheap.