Looking for Anchorage or any Alaska owners

[evbear]

Howdy!

I'm seriously considering a Leaf as a second / commuter car and it makes a lot of sense here in Anchorage. However, I stopped into our Nissan dealer today and discovered that they refuse to have anything to do with Leafs - none for sale or lease, and the service department will not touch them with a ten-foot pole. Both the sales and service departments claim they're disallowed by Nissan somewhere above their pay grade, and that Nissan does not want to sell Leafs in Alaska for lack of public charging infrastructure. I couldn't care less if there are public charging points- it has more than enough range, even when it's cold, to drive around town.

I'm trying to find someone who's got a Leaf to talk to them about it! There are a couple here in town, and Juneau has at least a half-dozen. How do you handle the yearly battery-check requirement? Is the car still under warranty? Have you had to do any warranty claims on it yet? What did/would you do? I don't mind being an early adopter to an extent, but it's pretty daunting to have to put the car on a barge for four days to Seattle if something needs fixing - it'd be quite expensive, and the car would be gone for at least a few weeks.

Thanks!

 

[GerryAZ]

Welcome to this forum. For short range driving in cold weather, an electric vehicle should be ideal (no cold start and warm up issues). Unfortunately, Nissan wants only certified Leaf technicians at authorized dealers to work on Leafs so warranty repairs could get expensive. Take a look at this thread to see how someone from Whitehorse had to deal with a heater problem on a new Leaf:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=20251#p431613

Gerry

 

[evbear]

Thanks for posting that link. I don't have any particular concerns about the cold- we've got a heated garage, and I don't have any range anxiety even with the heaters on. The real issue is repairs, and the person from Whitehorse's experience is pretty revealing on that point. It's just not reasonable to have to physically transport the car to the Lower 48 for a repair, even if it's under warranty. From Anchorage it's possible to put a car on a barge to Seattle, but you'd be talking $1-2K one way, and being without the car for probably a minimum of two weeks, and maybe longer depending on the barge schedule at different times of year.

My current plan is to call Nissan North America and see if they have an official stance on why the dealership here won't do repairs. I don't really care if I can't buy one here, but having no options to fix it short of a two-thousand mile sea voyage isn't viable.

According to this:
http://juneauempire.com/local/2015-09-17/event-showcase-electric-vehicles
there are 25-50 electric cars in Juneau, and there isn't even a Nissan dealer there. I'm sure at least a half-dozen are Leafs.

 

[Leafdom]

We may be relocating to Anchorage, and have a Leaf with 1 year left on the lease. We're not quite sure what to do and wonder if anyone has any updates on Leaf's in Alaska...?