Does reservation in non-rollout market mean anything?

[solarchargeddriver]

How long someone has to wait to get their LEAF isn't the most earth-shatteringly important issue in the world today, and I appreciate the comforting responses in this thread and the clarifications regarding the tax credit, but, sitting in a non-roll-out state, things look different to me than they do for folks in California, etc.

Won't ramble on about it anymore here, but I do ramble on more about it my web site, if anyone's interested --

http://solarchargeddriving.com/editors-blog/on-evs-a-phevs/686-reserved-a-nissan-leaf-in-2010-but-dont-live-in-a-roll-out-state-go-to-the-back-of-the-line.html

 

[Boomer23]

First of all, I get your irritation and angst. We've all approached this process by developing our own understanding of "the rules", and we've been accepting of variations in events, as long as we feel that they are fair, according to those same rules. When Nissan breaks what we understand to be the rules, we get upset. Some of the time, it's our own understanding of the rules that is at fault. Sometimes, Nissan actually gets it wrong.

IMHO, one of Nissan's reasons for opening the reservations to the entire US on April 20 last year was to gauge serious interest in the LEAF for their mid to long range planning. They had many tens of thousands of "hand raisers" who expressed interest, but actually putting down a deposit, refundable though it was, indicates much more serious interest in getting the car. That kind of advance information is gold to a manufacturer. It also allowed them to state that they had 20,000 reservations, which was great for bragging rights and to provide leverage in their negotiations with cities and districts to support EV adoption with local programs.

As others have said, they did cite region as a major determinant in order priority, and they gave timelines for the regional orders. But they never said that there wouldn't be further orders in the first regions before the first orders in the later regions. It sucks, but ultimately, Nissan gets to decide how they roll out their product.

Now when Nissan violates their "delivery will be in reservation order within a region" statement, well, don't get us started...

 

[planet4ever]

If I may be allowed one more brief digression to the tax issue, I believe a lot of the confusion arises because this is a "non-refundable credit". What isn't at all clear to the layman is that "non-refundable" has nothing to do with whether you get a refund in April. It is a technical term that means the credit cannot make the total tax paid for the year go negative. As a contrast, the Child Tax Credit is refundable. A struggling mother may not make enough to pay a dime in withholding during the year, but can still file and get a check from Uncle Sam the next spring.

Ray

 

[garygid]

If one does not understand the reasons and benefits of standing in a particular queue that is not yet moving (like waiting to buy tickets to the movie theater before the window opens), then perhaps they should not be wasting their time standing there?

I guess these questions are a bit like turning to the others in the line and asking, "Why are we standing here not moving?", and not really being able to understand that the ticket window is still closed.