Q: Just a few hundred 2015 Leafs sold in October due to 2016 announcement?

[LookingFor2016Leaf]

Hello everyone,

while waiting for the 2016 Leafs to arrive, I constantly looked for Nissan Leafs at cars.com.
There is one thing I noticed: the number of new Leafs available nationwide barely changed in October.
On October 2, there were 2379 new Leafs displayed for sale (maybe 20 of them 2012/2013/2014, the whole rest 2015 Leafs).
A week later, on October 9, there were 2285 new Leafs displayed.
And today, on October 28, there are 2171 new Leafs displayed (including 2 2016 Leafs and 17 2012/2013/2014).
I was under the impression that new Leaf deliveries to dealerships stopped in September because the factory line was being retooled for 2016 production.
If that was to be correct, and the dealerships listing their vehicles on cars.com did not get any new inventory in, just sold what they already had, then just 94 new Leafs were sold in the week from October 2 to October 9.
Even worse, in the last nearly 3 weeks since October 9, just about 114 new Leafs were sold.
Could that even be accurate?
Or did dealerships still get new Leaf inventory onto their lots in October after all?
Because if they did not, then that would mean just a few hundred Leafs were sold in October.
Sure, not all dealerships use cars.com. In comparison, 2384 new Leafs are currently shown on AutoTrader.com.
In September, 1247 Leafs were sold still. May the sales numbers possibly have collapsed so much in October, as the 2016 Leaf was announced on September 10?
I would be surprised if it had such a huge impact. Then again, EV buyers may be very informed buyers...

I guess on November 3, there will be the answer to this question, as then Nissan will publish their October sales numbers...

 

[Reddy]

I think you've made an astute observation. I think this is an early indication that Oct Leaf sales will be very low compared to historical values. I think the Leaf will have trouble selling more than 500, maybe 650 tops. Here's the insideevs data for 2015:
http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

Yes, early EV buyers were very savvy, certainly more knowledgeable than most of the early sales people (maybe still). I would posit that folks are still fairly informed and are waiting for the 30 KWh battery. With that said, we may still see low sales as many more people wait for the 2017 model announcement and the rumored 40-60 KWh battery.

 

[DanCar]

I smell a fire sale brewing.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Car companies and dealers tend to be a lot like cartoon villains: they look at whatever part of the Big Picture interests them most at the moment, and then act accordingly, even if it means they shoot themselves in the feet (or face, a la Elmer Fudd) down the road. This often results in wild swings between overpriced inventory and almost hostile salespeople, and fire sale prices and desperate salespeople. This actually can happen over the course of just one month, repeating every month because of monthly sales quotas and competitions, but at the moment we seem to be seeing a cycle of about six months in duration.

 

[LookingFor2016Leaf]

And the answer is in: Much more than just a few hundred 2015 Leafs were sold in October - 1238 actually, pretty much in line with September (1247). So it seems like either no new cars came out of the factory in October and the cars.com inventory really does not say anything, as possibly high-volume dealers in California or other markets may not list their cars there, or in October a lot of new 2015 Nissan Leafs still out of the factory to dealerships, and that's why cars.com nationwide inventory did not go down, while still maintaining sales like in September. Interesting...