Executive Face Of Nissan LEAF, Mark Perry “Retires” Today

[JeremyW]

...by this spring, there is no way Nissan could have been oblivious to what was happening down here in SoCal, AZ and TX. From that point forward, if the PR, management and engineering folks weren't in complete lockstep to plan their damage control and minimize their liability, they would have been failing miserably as a business, even for a large, sluggish corporation.

Ugh and even I was buying into the "module" replacement thinking that you could replace the weakest cells and still have a decent pack. Doesn't apply when high ambient temp kills them all more or less equally!

There's a saying in the off-grid world, batteries do not die, they are murdered! :roll:

 

[mwalsh]

I'm assured that there is no need to air-quote "retired" and that, in fact, it was Mr. Perry's own decision to leave Nissan at this time. Further, I'm told it has absolutely nothing to do with any LEAF related issues. From what I hear he's moving his family to be closer to his daughter, who currently lives in a part of the United States where the climate has been very, very kind to LEAFs (thus far). Now the cynical amongst you may say that he's only moving up there so he's little chance of encountering LEAF owners with heat-related pack degradation, but I won't dignify those notions.

I've only really met Mark a couple of times. I found him a humorous, likeable fellow, if not as forthcoming as I would have sometime liked him to be. I wish he and his family every happiness in the Great Northwest.

In other news, I hear that Nissan's Katherine Zachary has been promoted from Senior Manager, Corporate Communications for Nissan North America to Senior Manager, Corporate Affairs/Zero Emission Communications for Nissan Europe, and will be based in Switzerland. Nice work if you can get it!

 

[Herm]

Mark Perry may have believed everything he said, including the infamous Death Valley BS, until about March or April of this year. This is me giving Nissan the benefit of the doubt.

Mark "The Mouth" Perry, good riddance.

 

[mxp]

A bigger question is whether or not this also signals Nissan's eventual exit - or at least change in direction - from the EV market...

I hope not, they are not like GM with the EV1. They have millions already invested in the Infiniti LE coming next year and just showed another EV off road concept in the auto show yesterday. Please Nissan, don't leave us, lets address the issue so we can all learn and continue to support this futuristic tech that will pay off in the long run. Lets not look back but, rather move forward.

Ian B

The Infinity LE will be dead upon arrival.

If they don't improve the range radically (i.e. think Tesla S) the product is dead. The Leaf at 70 miles EPA is what it is, a moderate priced commuter vehicle. Anyone thinking of purchasing the Infinity LE will be looking at the vehicle differently above and beyond what the Leaf's capabilities are today.

 

[EVDRIVER]

A bigger question is whether or not this also signals Nissan's eventual exit - or at least change in direction - from the EV market...

I hope not, they are not like GM with the EV1. They have millions already invested in the Infiniti LE coming next year and just showed another EV off road concept in the auto show yesterday. Please Nissan, don't leave us, lets address the issue so we can all learn and continue to support this futuristic tech that will pay off in the long run. Lets not look back but, rather move forward.

Ian B

The Infinity LE will be dead upon arrival.

If they don't improve the range radically (i.e. think Tesla S) the product is dead. The Leaf at 70 miles EPA is what it is, a moderate priced commuter vehicle. Anyone thinking of purchasing the Infinity LE will be looking at the vehicle differently above and beyond what the Leaf's capabilities are today.

I would not buy an infinity if it had 200 mile range. Glorified Nissans.

 

[TonyWilliams]

The Infinity LE will be dead upon arrival.

If they don't improve the range radically (i.e. think Tesla S) the product is dead. The Leaf at 70 miles EPA

Since this car is based on the LEAF chassis, I strongly suspect a warmed over 24kWh LEAF battery. If it doesn't have something close to the 41kWh of the base Tesla S, they might as well stop now.

Their mindset when they started designing the Infinti LE; we all drive 40 miles per day, so we should be thankful for 73 EPA / 100 miles / 200km. Funny, 40 miles times 30 days is 1200 per month, or almost 15,000 per year. Gosh, that seems like more than 7500 miles per year.

Back on point, they thought we would lease 90% of them, so their 39 month lease with 12,000 miles per year equals 39,000 miles. Their life expectancy for a Phoenix battery is based on 7500 miles per year, so 39,000 miles is 5.2 Nissan-LEAF-Years(TM), which they now expect to be reindexed from 80% to 76% remaining capacity, plus or minus some unknown value.

In other words, the LEAF battery is the Infiniti battery.

 

[jkirkebo]

Sorry, but 38,000 vehicles worldwide in two years is most definitely low volume specialty manufacturer territory.

Do we have any evidence that they could have sold more? I though Leaf production capacity in Japan was restricted to about 20,000 units per year?