solarchargeddriver said:
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Nissan having folks in the Forgotten 36 reserve in April 2010 and then making them wait 2 years (or more?) is a total joke. Never should have had us non-Tier 1 folks reserve that far out -- just teasing us, and setting the stage for frustration...
As frustrating as the whole thing has been, I believe the main reason they took pre-orders was not out of a desire to create a convenient process for the public, but mainly to test the market before beginning to crank out the product, acquire and build massive production facilities for the batteries in the US and so forth. After throwing 6 billion in the hole, it's almost understandable, but I don't think they realized how much flack they would take for it. While there have been lots of glitches and frustrations from the process, I can see how they needed to have a real sense of what the market was going to be but it seems like they should have come up with a better way of analyzing market demand. Then again, there are risks and dynamics to all of this for a big manufacturer going out on such a limb that us mere mortals just aren't privy to.
As for releasing the car in a few states first, I can see why that strategy was chosen. Even with the level of preparation that has gone into installing the home blink EVSE charging stations, getting the local dealer network fully up to speed and on board, priming the local governments to support the vehicle in various ways, there is still a sense of uncertainty and fear about the charging network becoming a reality. It's a bit of chicken and egg conundrum it seems, without demand for the charging network, it's hard to justify the substantial investment in the infrastructure and yet without the infrastructure, it's hard to give people enough confidence in the overall system to create sufficient demand, particularly that the 73-100 mile per charge range is not actually that limited. Even people purchasing within tier 1 states, where a lot of preparation has occurred, face considerable transition stress, imagine if they unleashed the cars in states that were totally unprepared! A lot of folks would end up relying on the L1 charger and getting very frustrated with the range limit and bitch and moan to the press about it, whereas as soon as the Tier 1 states get more filled out with L2 and eventually L3 charging stations, the perception of the range of the vehicle is going to go through a major transformation and hopefully that will set the pace for Tier 2 rolling out more smoothly.
It may seem like a small consolation for everyone who has had to wait without certainty, but it truly is more than a small miracle that this product is even getting off the ground considering the incredible inertia of the petrol fueled industry. After just putting 2,000 miles on our Leaf so far, I can say that this vehicle is worth the wait and that this technology stands to radically transform the automobile industry, one that has been extremely resistant to change in efficiency over the years. When people realize how much torque you can get from a vehicle that only uses the equivalent of 50 cents a gallon gasoline, I think EV's will catch on like wild fire. I have a great deal of new found respect for Nissan for being the first to boldly push this technology on a mass scale, but that is not to say I defend their missteps. They have made some mistakes, but mainly they have succeeded in making a product that a lot of people want right now, and that is good news to those of us who have been anxious to get off of Oil!
g
