I bought an Orphan and I paid extra for the privilege. I thought about what stigma it might carry and then concluded that it was Nissan's call. Aside from the dealers being able to make more money selling them, and agree that that is quasi ethical, it could be that the main reason they went this route is that essentially rearranging the waiting list over and over could become an even worse public relations issue than the shuffling that has already occurred.
They don't know until the day that a car comes in and the buyer officially declines, that the car is even available... They have to wait till then to offer it up to anyone. Right now all they have to do is call down the list of folks who are happy to take whatever comes in, no waiting with cars taking up space on the lot. Even if they only offered the car up to other folks with exactly the same order, people would still gripe. Imagine how you'd feel if you ordered Red SLE but without the floor mats, but the order that was declined was with the floor mats and you got passed? Someone would have to make those kind of hair splitting judgement calls. Maybe that's not the best example but, you know what I mean. Someone would have to sort all that out and even more people could end up feeling somehow slighted.
It's also important to give people warning before their order arrives, to give them time to sell their car and get the money/financing figured out. I can see that yes they make more money selling off the Orphans but I can also see how much of a fiasco it could be to go through the process of identifying appropriate orders to swap and then having all the red tape of resorting the list over and over, having people really wanting to take the car but not having time to have sold their existing one, not quite have the money together, lots of hemming and hawing etc. Compare that to calling the next guy on the Orphan list, moments after a decline occurs and saying if you get down here right now there is a car for you. That was me, we gambled and by a flook sold our Jetta 4 days prior. Risking being down to one car for an untold amount of time. I understand the temptation for the dealer, but then again i was a benefactor. That's not to say I don't understand the frustration for those who have been waiting, I would probably be frustrated if I went through all the waiting that most others had to go through and having a bunch wash out to sea on top of that!
For my family it came down to dollars and cents. The car I was driving, a 2010 jetta TDI Sportwagon, had miraculously barely depreciated (in part because of the rebate I got on that car was well, which ran out weeks after I bought it). If I was going to make the switch, now was the time. I just started thinking about getting on a waiting list when the earth quake happened and found that even without the earth quake that getting one of these cars could be more than a year off if going through normal routes, no telling what the Jetta would be worth then, especially since the EV market would surely eat into the bio-fuel market... surely it was a wash at best. Also, the blink chargers were going to run out if I waited, which would then cost me an additional 2K+, about what the up charge was for the Orphan. Everyone seems to be sure that the $7500 federal rebate and the aprox $3500 sales tax exemption are going to last a while, but our uncertain economy had me wanting to be on the safe side of all that too. On top of all that, I figured the fuel savings alone would cover the up charge.
In the end, I took advantage of an offer I couldn't refuse. Please don't hate me
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