I'm sorry, but I am getting hung up on this statement by a "Senior Vice President of Research & Development, Nissan Americas":
Carla Bailo, Nissan Americas Senior Vice President of Research & Development wrote:Battery capacity loss of the levels reported may be considered normal depending on the method and frequency of charging, the operating environment, the amount of electricity consumed during daily usage and a vehicle's mileage and age.
I'm sorry, Nissan, but if you believe that a 30% drop in the LEAF's battery capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles is NORMAL under ANY circumstances, then you should NOT be selling LEAFs in climates where that could be remotely true. Why do I say that? Because an EV whose battery gets ruined that fast is an environmental disaster. It is also a financial disaster to anyone who buys the car.
That rate of loss is well OVER 4 TIMES the rate of battery capacity degradation that Nissan told prospective owners to expect from the LEAF. Sure, you warned that higher temperatures could make things worse, but I don't think ANYONE imagined you meant that it could be OVER 4 TIMES worse than what you stated. I know I didn't. Maybe twice as bad, in the worst case, is what I thought. In addition, the warnings about capacity loss implied that the owner could affect the rate of capacity loss by their habits, but it seems that in some climates the actions of the owner have only a secondary effect.
Simply put, you will find very few people who want to purchase an EV which loses 30% of its capacity after 15 months and 25,000 miles. It simply makes no sense to buy such a car. Most of the people who bought LEAFs in Phoenix likely only did so because they believed misleading statements by Nissan that implied capacity loss in AZ was thoroughly tested and that it would be OK.
You should stop selling these cars in Phoenix immediately. Or, at the very least, you should tell prospective buyers what some customers are experiencing as their ACTUAL capacity loss in the area where they are making the purchase. Then they will have an opportunity to make an informed decision about how they spend their hard-earned money.