Originally, the meeting was intended to be private in the sense that Nissan did not want any journalists or press coverage. That would have required high level approval and would have led to them saying very little at all. We had originally wanted to do a webcast, but that was also discouraged. During the last few days, Nissan added Mark Perry and Tim Gallagher to the attendance list, which swung the meeting to more of a "town hall" format. They also sent their North American Quality Director, who was quite open to all the feedback, especially on the SOC and Range gauges (the latter they call "Distance to Empty").
Of course, everything that we, as owners, presented is public since we gathered a good chunk of it from this forum. We'll figure out a way to post that material somewhere--suggestions welcomed. Nissan did not provide copies of their materials so we won't be able to post those.
We're still working on official counts--the Google folks tell me that they set up 180 chairs in the room and it seemed like they were all full. Everyone was required to get badges, so we'll be able to get the count soon. Charging and parking was spread out among 3 sites. There were 84 LEAFs on the main meeting site and somewhere between 20-32 off site, making a total of 104 LEAFs minimum (which totally impressed Nissan). We went through 15 boxes of Costco pizza and it ended up not being enough. (Note to self: Next time people say they don't want pizza, don't listen.) LEAF owners drove from as far away as 90 miles, and one stopped in on his way down from Seattle (not in his LEAF). We also had tbleakne and TonyWilliams from San Diego.
The notes and impressions posted by others, above, are fairly accurate. Mark Perry did say they would periodically meet with us and possibly other owners' groups. Kadota-san's presentations were impressive and well received. While we didn't expect any decisions to be made on the spot, I think the most successful things we accomplished were getting them to understand why portable charging is so important and that they should do more research on the DTE and SOC gauges. Nissan told us that they were impressed with the level of enthusiasm and professionalism--the Quality Director told me he had never seen a car club with such well informed and passionate members.
Given the realities of post-tsunami Japan, they have stepped up their efforts on the home interface unit for the LEAF, (vehicle to home, or V2H) and are deploying it there. We lobbied to get them to set some up in members homes over here as well.
One thing that was completely successful was that we started off the meeting telling Nissan that we wanted to help them sell more LEAFs and future EV's, which removed any tone of defensiveness. If/When Nissan does decide to have other meetings, my advice would be to keep this mind.
