cwerdna said:
jonathanfields4ever said:
Sorry about that. I’m living close to Kyoto. Went to a dealership in Mie Prefecture for faster delivery. Every dealership I contacted near me said beginning of April and/or no EV subsidy. Both were unacceptable for me.
Updated the info in my profile as well.
Cool!
There are very few (almost none?) participants here on MNL who are in Japan. I take it that the process of buying a new car is different than in the US? Do dealers there carry much or any new inventory? If no, is it all pretty much build to order and you have to wait?
(I did see the Note e-Power (https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/DESIGN/NISSAN/DESIGNWORKS/PRODUCTIONCAR/NOTE_E-POWER/) when I was at Tokyo Motor Show a few months ago, along w/at Nissan's HQ in Yokohama.)
It seems like they keep a decent amount of cars in stock, yeah, but the Leaf is so new that it’s in high demand. The EV subsidy is getting ready to end too, so I think there’s a bit of a rush.
I snuck a peak at the guy’s sheet and it looked like they had about 12, a handful each of white, silver, dark grey, and one red. Only the white ones had heated seats in back, so I went with that. I don’t care at all about color, and my wife and daughter hate heaters (Japanese people can be funny about climate control), so that was a must have option.
They said I could go with anything and have it built by the 1st of April. I don’t know if that’s a good turn-around time or not, but if they can do it in the States they’ll be decent competition for Tesla. Especially since Japanese Leaf drivers are reporting a range of 150-200 miles. Though... speed limits here are insanely low, so that may not hold in the States, I donno.
It’s cool you got to come out to look at cars. Nissan is doing pretty neat stuff. I really love the idea of a series hybrid, and I was waiting for one to come out. It drove really well. Very peppy. The engine noise had absolutely nothing to do with how the car moved which was weird, but kinda cool. The e-Pedal wasn’t as strong as the Leaf, but otherwise it felt very similar. It’s smaller than the Leaf, but the inside felt more spacious to me (brochure confirmed it).
I was actually ready to pull the trigger, but my online research showed that it got wayyyy worse MPG than advertised. The brochure says 80MPG, but people on forums were reporting anywhere from 40-60 depending on the season. Still darn good, but well behind the Honda Fit and Toyota Aqua hybrids I looked at.
I’m not sure this is the place for this discussion, so I’ll end here. At any rate, I’m excited about my purchase.