San Jose Mercury News: Leaf "delivery anxiety"

[LBCev]

San Jose Mercury News article: Customers who ordered all-electric Nissan Leafs growing impatient

My favorite bit: Trisha Jung, chief marketing manager for the Leaf, denied in an interview that deliveries have fallen behind schedule.
"There's no delay," she said. "Four to seven months after you submit your order, you should get your car. This is a new process for everyone, and we're thrilled with the excitement for the car. Our goal is to continue the dialogue with customers, and set expectations carefully.

That's funny Trisha, I was told 3-4 months in my order confirmation email which means that you're now a week behind your original outside estimate. Also, for the record, sending me another email 2.5 months later changing that schedule to 4-7 months doesn't count as "dialogue". Just sayin'! :twisted:

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17030204

 

[sjfotos]

San Jose Mercury News article: Customers who ordered all-electric Nissan Leafs growing impatient

My favorite bit: Trisha Jung, chief marketing manager for the Leaf, denied in an interview that deliveries have fallen behind schedule.
"There's no delay," she said. "Four to seven months after you submit your order, you should get your car. This is a new process for everyone, and we're thrilled with the excitement for the car. Our goal is to continue the dialogue with customers, and set expectations carefully.

That's funny Trisha, I was told 3-4 months in my order confirmation email which means that you're now a week behind your original outside estimate. Also, for the record, sending me another email 2.5 months later changing that schedule to 4-7 months doesn't count as "dialogue". Just sayin'! :twisted:

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17030204

Very interesting article! Thanks LBCev. The internets really change the power dynamics in customer relations. There are numerous citations about this forum and Nissan's Facebook page. hard to hide in today's world!

 

[ENIAC]

Thanks LBCev, good read. Really we need to break the problem down into at least two parts. One, lack of production scaling and two getting the first batch of LEAFs,which arrived in LA on Dec 20, off the dock and to the dealerships. These are two very different issues and they are sort of munged together in the article. I don't have any hard data on the second issue, but I'm guessing Nissan didn't properly staff the processing center to modify the first batch of LEAFs. What if they would have sent the techs on the ship with the LEAFs to work on the vehicles during the two week transit from Japan? What if they would have sent 50 or 100 techs, one or two for every LEAF to work on them? Expensive, you bet. But they could have paid for it by not running TV ads in Nov and Dec for a car customers can't buy.

 

[garygid]

Please give Nissan a break, the 3-4 and even the 4-7 month estimates are ... ESTIMATES.

Note they say "... should get ...", NOT "... will get ...".

This gripe, gripe, gripe, goes nowhere, does no good, and ... you were NEVER PROMISED a car, just given ESTIMATES according to the THEN CURRENT hopes and plans. And, THINGS CHANGE.

Get over it.

Contribute something USEFUL, or at least interesting.

 

[smkettner]

This is a new process for everyone, and we're thrilled with the excitement for the car. Our goal is to continue the dialogue with customers, and set expectations carefully.

New? Ten years ago I odered my truck and it came in two months.
What is new about the process exactly?

 

[LBCev]

Please give Nissan a break, the 3-4 and even the 4-7 month estimates are ... ESTIMATES.

Note they say "... should get ...", NOT "... will get ...".

This gripe, gripe, gripe, goes nowhere, does no good, and ... you were NEVER PROMISED a car, just given ESTIMATES according to the THEN CURRENT hopes and plans. And, THINGS CHANGE.

Get over it.

Contribute something USEFUL, or at least interesting.

Things do change, Gary. But I think that this is a real issue for a lot of us and is worth talking about - if only for the fact that Nissan is aware of the forum and need to know that people are upset. Nissan has done a piss poor job in having a real dialogue with consumers and effectively managing customer expectations. The lack of communication is astounding. As I've said before, if Nissan were up front about a longer delivery window in the first place then most of the "ever-pending" would be giving them a lot less heat.

The fact of the matter is that this purchase takes a lot of planning on the customer side and not everyone who is buying a LEAF is a boomer with their own home and garage. I for one have been working with my landlord, neighbor (I live in a duplex) and employer to make sure things are ready for the arrival of my LEAF. Now that many of these logistical steps have been taken and I have no car, everyone is asking whether or not I've changed my mind. Worse yet, they've asked, "What the hell was the rush if he doesn't have his car?" Nissan's inability to plan effectively led me to operate on what turned out to be incorrect timelines and reflects poorly on my credibility; something that I do not take lightly.

All that said, I have been and continue to be an advocate for the car and electrification of the vehicle fleet in general. Nissan should be applauded for the gamble that they are taking and this is why I am making my purchase. That support doesn't preclude me from issuing public criticism when I feel that they've made a misstep. Just sayin'. :twisted:

 

[evnow]

New? Ten years ago I odered my truck and it came in two months.
What is new about the process exactly?

The way you order it. That is the process. I bet you didn't have an online portal to select options & dealers - sending RAQ, getting estimates, accepting them or changing the dealer etc. Its like buying in a neighbourhood garage sale vs buying on e-bay.

Not to speak of EV Project, AV assessment etc etc

 

[EVDRIVER]

Please give Nissan a break, the 3-4 and even the 4-7 month estimates are ... ESTIMATES.

Note they say "... should get ...", NOT "... will get ...".

This gripe, gripe, gripe, goes nowhere, does no good, and ... you were NEVER PROMISED a car, just given ESTIMATES according to the THEN CURRENT hopes and plans. And, THINGS CHANGE.

Get over it.

Contribute something USEFUL, or at least interesting.

Gary, to be accurate, three Nissan CS people said that there is no doubt I would get my car any later than early Jan and then repeated that delivery was 3-4 months and NO later, repeatedly. Now, I get delays since I have headed up many corporate product roll outs and I'm disappointed but I can deal with it. What I don't like is BS, the dates were 3-4 months, and even as estimates, when you change something you say it has changed but don't change the writing and story and then say IT NEVER HAS CHANGED AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN 4-7 MONTHS, that's just a lie with the hope some idiot would not notice I suppose. If CS said, '"we have had unexpected delays" then I would have been fine but the INSIST it has always been 4-7 months and never changed. That's just poor CS and a stupid strategy a used car dealer would pull. They need to drop the BS and stop acting like politicians not changing numbers and saying "your deliver date has not changed" on the site. I guess change is a relative word to Nissan folks and if it falls into 12 months it's not a change

I know you like to defend the process but since you will be orphaning your Leaf perhaps it's easy to miss or ignore the facts, even if trivial to some. It's just plain bad marketing and CS relations to contradict statements in writing, it's a minor pint but VERY foolish on their part. Nothing makes customer more upset than BS I expected the delays but not the BS.

 

[smkettner]

New? Ten years ago I odered my truck and it came in two months.
What is new about the process exactly?

The way you order it. That is the process. I bet you didn't have an online portal to select options & dealers - sending RAQ, getting estimates, accepting them or changing the dealer etc. Its like buying in a neighbourhood garage sale vs buying on e-bay.

Not to speak of EV Project, AV assessment etc etc

I called in my order to the Ford dealer and yes I did a little leg work to get a deal before the order was placed.
AV assessment was a complete worthless unnecessary ripoff and I will not use them.

And my order ten years ago was using the Ford build and price website that was then far more complex with options. Even if the actual order was placed by phone.
And the Ford website ten years ago actually worked properly

Nissan is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Nothing new is being done here.

 

[evnow]

Nissan is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Nothing new is being done here.

Well, apparently you have a different idea of what process means, than I do. You are trivializing differences.

Anyway, we aren't talking about effectiveness of the process, but the newness. I'd say the process was highly effective in controlling price gauging.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

Factory ordering a car is nothing new, no matter what Nissan says otherwise. This is an IT process failure, not a manufacturing process. I've done it three times before, and in every one of those I was better informed than this Nissan fiasco of non-communication. All were more complicated than my no-factory-options Leaf. So no, not buying it. An EVSE doesn't mean you stop communicating with your order-holding customers.

Which is why I bristle to read:

Our goal is to continue the dialogue with customers, and set expectations carefully.

Dialogue? What dialog? You mean where the site says "Pending" four months after order? Or where it says "ask your Dealer" and the dealer says "We have no idea, ask Nissan"?

There is no dialogue. There is only silence, confusion, and frustration. Nissan treats this like getting a T-Shirt in the mail -- it comes when it comes, and you don't really need to plan around it. A car is a major purchase, and Nissan wants to hold secret all the production scheduling while pretending to be open about it. Can't have it both ways.

I'd have more respect if Nissan pulled a Santa Monica Paul and just said "Hey, we build them in the order we like, and we'll deliver them when we're ready. Any delays our our own business, and we're not telling you squat. Pending means you don't know when. And that's how we want it. Next question."

That's a "dialogue" I could respect as honest.

 

[evnow]

Factory ordering a car is nothing new, no matter what Nissan says otherwise.

Ofcourse, Nissan could do better. They are definitely not being transparent (there may be some good reasons for that - competitors can always latch on to things).

That doesn't mean it is ok to completely ignore the newness of this whole thing and act as if calling to place an order from factory is the same thing as this.

Anyway, I think this thread is getting Offtopic.

Back to topic, pls.

 

[smkettner]

Still just Pending

Expected date April 29 for me as that is 7 months to the day.

 

[ENIAC]

This statement from the article is actually not correct. "A shipment of about 90 cars that arrived at the Port of Los Angeles before Christmas has made its way to dealerships."

Actually most of those vehicles are still at the port going through some sort of modification/QC.

Here's something to ponder. What if additional shipments arrive at the port without the initial defect (presumably whatever the defect was it's been resolved and those being assembled now are okay). Will these later LEAFs quickly move through the port and arrive at dealerships ahead of those currently being processed? You think the tribe is noisy right now, can you imagine?

 

[Randy]

For what it's worth, it appears at first glance that there were three issues or fixes applied at the port to my car. They put tiny round orange stickers inside the drivers door with different numbers on each one (such as O61 if I remember correctly without looking). So from the three stickers, I'm guessing that three separate "things" or "fixes" were done to my car before delivery...

 

[evnow]

For what it's worth, it appears at first glance that there were three issues or fixes applied at the port to my car. They put tiny round orange stickers inside the drivers door with different numbers on each one (such as O61 if I remember correctly without looking). So from the three stickers, I'm guessing that three separate "things" or "fixes" were done to my car before delivery...

Or did you have 3 accessories installed ? Check the codes for accessories in the Trims sticky.

 

[GeorgeParrott]

I am not "anxious" about my delivery; I would be OK with waiting longer than the TWO MONTHS delay from the original Nissan assurances.

What I am seriously disgusted with is Nissan's lack of honesty in the whole process of "updating our delivery expectations." There is NO dialogue, and questions are simply being IGNORED. A Nissan corporate VP even assured publicly on 11 December at the first and massive publicity event with the delivery of the first customer LEAF, that "most early orders would have their cars by the holidays..." As "indyflick" has noted, perhaps he meant Labor Day?

Basically EVERY NISSAN CORPORATE assurance about delivery dates for those of us who ordered on 31 August and were many times "reassured" for the next two or three months that "delivery would take place 3-4 months after ordering" were false for 95% of those ordering on that date (since only 6 cars were in customer hands by the end of December 2010).

I am not really "anxious" about my LEAF delivery, but I am less and less likely to EVER do business with Nissan again, since their US Corporate ethos seems to assume that customers are something lower than dirt. Nissan should try to remember/recognize that most of us getting the LEAF at this stage are making a major financial contribution to a cleaner tomorrow. The purchase or lease of a LEAF at this stage and at this level of cost, is MUCH more expensive than what we could get a similar size "economy car" that still gets 40+ mpg. Yes, we are mostly dedicated to going green and we are willing to PAY MORE for that environmental concern, but I for one, still do not want or accept being treated like an idiot with no memory for prior assurances or who can be bought off with silly mailings (color chips, T-shirt).

Corporate transparency/honesty would go a long way and seemingly be less expensive than even a couple of the slick magazine adverts for a car that is already totally "pre-sold" for the first year plus of production.

 

[planet4ever]

I had a few quarrels with things stated in the article, but I would like to point out that this was clearly a piece based on original research, not just a copy of articles published elsewhere. Congratulations to Dana Hull and the Mercury News for that.

 

[SanDust]

I'm in the "give them a break" camp. The technology isn't new but the entire process of producing them is new to Nissan. Plus we have no idea about battery production delays and other similar issues. Things will get sorted and then this relatively short delay will be forgotten.

The mistake is probably in putting a happy face on the process. This is what marketing and PR people are paid to do but in these types of situations it seems a mistake. People who are highly interested know a happy face when they see one and they get annoyed. Those who aren't interested don't really care and aren't affected one way or the other. So putting on the happy face doesn't have much of an upside with those not interested and it does have a downside with those who are. If they just said "Shortly after the ordering process began we realized that there would be some delays and we communicated this to your customers" that would probably end the discussion.

 

[Bassman]

No dialogue or delivery date, but I did get three sets of stickers from Nissan! Like that makes up for not keeping buyers informed.