2013 July Plugin Sales Discussion : Leaf 1864 ; Volt 1788

[evnow]

...would be so much easier if they would just put the number out, lol

Yes.

Anyway, I decided it was too much trouble to go and redo all the charts - but I'll update my overall chart and next month will reflect the changes.

Considering the effect the delivered number has on the stock price, I'm not surprised they won't announce till the quarterly report.

 

[smkettner]

So this says battery electrodes are the limit of production and take up to six months to increase.

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/08/21/nissan-leaf-production-increase-slowed-by-electrodes-ev-china/

 

[dm33]

So this says battery electrodes are the limit of production and take up to six months to increase.

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/08/21/nissan-leaf-production-increase-slowed-by-electrodes-ev-china/

Interesting. I wonder if thats why its been so slow. Inventory is hanging out around 2000 or even less. Seems they won't sell many at that rate. Could sell more. They were selling above 2000 for several months.

 

[KJD]

So this says battery electrodes are the limit of production and take up to six months to increase.

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/08/21/nissan-leaf-production-increase-slowed-by-electrodes-ev-china/

(it can take 30-60 days for the electrode rolls to get from Japan to Tennessee). And that is how electrodes affect Leaf sales.

OK so why not load a bunch of these electrodes onto a 747 cargo plane and get them here in a day instead of 60 days ?

 

[TomT]

Yeah, something here does not pass the smell test...

OK so why not load a bunch of these electrodes onto a 747 cargo plane and get them here in a day instead of 60 days ?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

sounds like Nissan has minimal confidence of sales in the US. Thinking 2,000 would be enough and they might be right. Lower residuals on leases has taken leasing out of the "no brainer" category and now requires a rigid cost analysis/convenience eval to make the decision

still a good deal but no longer in the "must" category.

Another tact could be Nissan realizing they didnt have enough Ducks lined up and changing lease terms to slow sales a bit?

 

[smkettner]

I am befuddled that the electrodes are not made in TN :roll:
Are these items that top secret area 51 kinda stuff?

 

[evnow]

I am befuddled that the electrodes are not made in TN :roll:

Probably cheaper to do all in one place.

 

[KJD]

I am befuddled that the electrodes are not made in TN :roll:

Probably cheaper to do all in one place.

Depends on how many sales they miss out on for lack of cars on the lot. Are they saving money or loosing money ?

 

[RegGuheert]

Are these items that top secret area 51 kinda stuff?

I think they are. This is where most of the battery technology resides.

I think the point here is that Nissan has a battery factory in TN, not AESC. I always wondered what the distinction would be. This may be it.

I also think there may be a bit more to the story here.

 

[SanDust]

With sales down so sharply in Japan you'd think there would be some inventory that could be diverted. We're not talking huge numbers.

 

[Berlino]

Depends on how many sales they miss out on for lack of cars on the lot...

Hard to put a number on it, but besides people who looked elsewhere because they didn't want to wait, Nissan has already lost customers in Canada who put down deposits and signed MY13 LEAF contracts.

In some cases, customers have canceled because their deliveries, already overdue, were pushed back to indefinite dates. In other instances, dealers have said they can't honor signed contracts because they're not getting shipped the number of LEAFs they expected.

August LEAF sales in Canada should be about 220. This is Canada's initial sold-out allotment of ~250 MY13's minus the thirty or so sold in July. Only 12 new LEAF's were sold in Canada from June 1st to July 18th. There was a demand for much more, but the MY12 stock was exhausted and there was a big gap until the small shipment of MY13's arrived.

 

[RegGuheert]

With sales down so sharply in Japan you'd think there would be some inventory that could be diverted. We're not talking huge numbers.

Agreed. I wonder, however, if they are using the same chemistry in the U.S. as they use in Japan. There was some talk of it being tweaked for the higher temperatures here, but it was never clear to me whether that meant two different chemistries or still just one.

 

[scottf200]

They seem to be in no rush to sell any large quantity of LEAFs in the USA. Next summer in 2014 to break the 2000-3000 monthly sales is a target/goal? Maybe they are hard at work on the next generation of LEAF / battery.

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/08/21/nissan-leaf-production-increase-slowed-by-electrodes-ev-china/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Smyrna, TN. After all, the automaker has been building EVs there since early this year and can make enough batteries there for over 150,000 cars a year.

Hayes said that Nissan did recently decide to increase Leaf production – from around 2,000 a month to 2,500 – but that it just takes time before that decision turns into more vehicles out the door. "What we wanted to see was a sustained 2,000 [sales] a month and it's no secret that we're running kind of tight on dealer inventory," he said. "What people don't really understand is that yes, we have capacity but there is also a lead time because of electrode production. Between the time that we make a decision to increase production to the time it actually goes up is about six months. We recently made the decision to increase production in the Smyrna plant, but we won't see that until November or December."

The new, higher production number will itself be reevaluated in the coming months – Hayes said he is "very optimistic" it will also be moved up – but any further increase would then take another six months to implement. That means we're not going to see US Leaf sales break out of their 2,000-3,000 monthly sales levels until at least the summer of 2014.

 

[RegGuheert]

They seem to be in no rush to sell any large quantity of LEAFs in the USA.

It seems that way.

Next summer in 2014 to break the 2000-3000 monthly sales is a target/goal?

Clearly the only goal here is to sell more LEAFs than Chevy sells Volts! :lol:

Maybe they are hard at work on the next generation of LEAF / battery.

I sure hope that is true!

 

[TonyWilliams]

Maybe they are hard at work on the next generation of LEAF / battery.

I sure hope that is true!

They've been doing that since long before the LEAF was released!!!

 

[Reddy]

I've had some experience starting new manufacturing facilities and scaling up processes. It takes time and there are lots of pitfalls. So even though they claim a facility for producing 150,000/yr, it may be with three shifts, and multiple lines that aren't fully staffed or equipped. So if they had five lines, 3 shifts at around 150k, then with 1 shift and a single line, you've only got 10k/yr. Throw in another products being built on the same line(s), and you've got lots of reasons for lower production.

That said, I've also not found a single sales/marking person (from CEO, VP, down to the guy with his first job) who can accurately predict how much "product" is needed in a given week, month, year. Add to this a degrading product (not quickly mind you, but still), and you need to tread carefully on how much extra product you keep in the pipeline. Ultimately, it's manufacturing's job to put up the numbers that the upper management believe they can sell. From this side of the fence, it sure feels like they are in a management imposed slow down, for whatever reason. We can only speculate: 1) costly manufacturing (we saw this excuse when built in Japan), future product/battery improvements (if only), limited resources (don't want to harm their ICE business), limited parts (we've heard this from Tesla about batteries and maybe Nissan is seeing the same thing), poor short term planning (didn't give one part vendor enough time to scale-up), inflexibility of production-delivery chain (we saw this with the initial Leaf out of Japan, it seemed to take more than a month to deliver to customers).

 

[Anonymous]

people who looked elsewhere because they didn't want to wait, Nissan has already lost customers in Canada ... Canada's initial sold-out allotment of ~250 MY13's minus the thirty or so sold in July.

I bought a Smart Electric in May 2013.

I could not get a date when the 2013 Leaf would be available, when the US matching price reduction would kick in, nor would the dealers here in Toronto do anything to reassure or sell to me.

Meanwhile, Smart was eager to sell me an electric car for the same price as the car was listed in California at the time (imagine that!). Note that the new $139/month lease deal in California is not offered in Canada (yet).

Smart Canada suffers the same restricted allotment policy for the electric version. The 2013 allotment was sold out according to an insider at ~200 cars. I know that in May, I was in a queue >80 of the Smart Fortwo ED Electric cars with just two the local dealers here in Toronto, not speaking of the rest of Canada...

My car is being manufactured now and will be mine in early November.

 

[dm33]

I've had some experience starting new manufacturing facilities and scaling up processes. It takes time and there are lots of pitfalls.

Musk was talking this week about the difficulty in ramping up production. Specifically discussed batteries and how difficult a process it is. Needs to be very precise and is time sensitive.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.cnbc.com%2Fgallery%2F%3Fvideo%3D3000193143&ei=gyEYUrI65MvZBar9gKgP&usg=AFQjCNEa-8dkcKun-yVbuFIJzuFpgL5YUw&sig2=vt2TDct5RvNVsImC7w6-VQ&bvm=bv.51156542,d.b2I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[evnow]

I am befuddled that the electrodes are not made in TN :roll:

Probably cheaper to do all in one place.

Depends on how many sales they miss out on for lack of cars on the lot. Are they saving money or loosing money ?

Well, they won't know that when they make the decision.

They have to plan production based on estimates. If estimates turn out to be wrong - they face consequences - either produce too much and lose money or not produce enough and lose some money.