My Nissan Leaf Forum

A co-worker of mine will be buying a 2013 when they are available. The local dealers are down to (1) 2012.

I think people who believe sales are slow due to battery issues are deluded. Joe public is totally unaware of this. I've never once had anyone mention it to me when people talk to me about my leaf. Unlike when driving the Volt I've had a few people ask about the fires. So until something hits the major news media about it, I don't think the public knows. And the dealerships certainly aren't going to tell people.

Was talking with my sales guy last week. They're still struggling on how to sell it because selling it like a traditional ICE just doesn't work.

We could run a whole FLEET of 2013 LEAFs from Seattle, Portland, San Fran Bay, LA and San Diego to Tennessee, each with a Nissan truck/van and a 55kVa generator and Sumitomo charger. Easy.

Then, drive them all to New York, Maine, and down to Florida for a final blow out party!!!!

I'm game.

you are correct in that sales are not slow due to any specific issues but batteries in itself are part of the reason. everyone has experience with batteries and those experiences run from "very bad" at the good end to things much worse. Trust me when I say this; the uninformed public has created degradation much worse than Phoenix will ever see all in their minds.

it could be loosely categorized as mistrust of new technology but its not. to most people, a battery is a battery. goes dead unexpectedly, needs replacing often, etc.

+1 on that.

The recent gas crisis in California that spiked gas prices to $5-$6+ didn't provide an appreciable jump in sales in California. Most sheeple are just content to pay $6/gallon and drive a 15MPG pickup 30 miles round trip to work. Even though they never haul anything other than themselves to work and back, their truck costs 10X the amount per mile and has a worse crash rating than the Leaf. They will pay more in fuel than the payment on a new Leaf. I don't quite know how to overcome this built in stupidity about EVs in the US. Education and awareness can only go so far.

If price of gas is used as main point to sell Leaf/EV, than I wonder why sale of EV is not that great in Europe when gas price is $8/gallon?

There are likely many reasons but I think these are two factors (of many): the economy in some of Europe has been terrible. Look up UK GDP contraction, for instance. Look for news regarding Spain, Italy, Greece esp. their economy, debt crisis and unemployment rate (over 25% in Greece and ~25% in Spain) along w/the need for austerity there.

If http://www.energy.eu/ is correct, electricity isn't very cheap in many places there either. Use Google to convert (e.g. Google for 0.2 euros in usd).

BTW, if you haven't paid attention to the dire situation in Europe that I mentioned, here's a piece that aired about the problems in Europe in April 2012: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7404666n.

Re: the 15 mpg pickup... in my area, there's still an insane # of monstrosity class (full-sized, 5200+ lb.) SUVs (e.g. Tahoe, Escalade, Expedition) running around almost always being driven solo and/or minimal passengers. It's ridiculous, esp. even more so if they're of the even heavier and bigger extended length variety (e.g. Suburban, Yukon XL, etc.) These beasts are in the 15 mpg combined or worse range as well. There aren't that many monstrosity pickups here.

The other day when I was out eating, I saw 2 Ford Exxon Valdezes (http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0399/et0399s4.html) in the span of 5 minutes. These beasts weigh 6500+ lbs and were exempt from EPA fuel economy testing (and counting against Ford's CAFE numbers) because their GVWRs were >8500 lbs and no longer considered a "light" truck. One was driven solo and the other had 1 or 2 passengers.

Sometimes I've seen two Hummer H2s running around in the local supermarket's parking lot at the same time. These were also exempt but I hear 9-11 mpg is even wishful thinking.

The only thing that gives me a little hope is that I'm FINALLY starting to see the Tesla Model S pop up. I FINALLY saw my first one in the wild (not at their stores) in the past week or so. It was a black one parked at Walgreens.

Oddly, in the last few days, the sightings have gone way up. I saw a red and silver one today. The other day I saw a white one. Red and white one were sorta in my area. The silver one was in Cupertino. There also are a few Leafs running around in my area, but sometimes, the # of Hummers I see out in a day outnumbers Leafs.

Maybe some of those people spending stupid money going on battering ram of death-class SUVs will go for something smarter.

you have a point, yet we really won't know if what caused the numbers to drop initially is the same as what has kept sales down since. I think it's fair to surmise that the battery issue has helped keep the market depressed since the issue blew up, but it's all speculation. I do believe that Tesla has a better understanding of how to satisfy their customers and keep them crowing mostly.