Mark Perry on LEAF delivery status
We had an opportunity to attend the first Southern California LEAF delivery party in San Diego held at Nissan Design America and weren’t disappointed. While trying to find a proper link for you for information about the design center, we found that Nissan is about as secretive about the design center as they are about a new Nissan design. But this will give you a little background on it.
The first San Diego LEAF had been delivered to Tom Franklin earlier in the afternoon at Mossy Nissan Kearny Mesa in San Diego. We had a chance to speak with Mr. Franklin briefly before he was asked to make some comments to the assembled masses, which included media representatives and early LEAF order holders in San Diego. We learned in our conversation with him, and during his remarks, that he is an electric vehicle (EV) advocate. A Toyota Prius owner, Mr. Franklin told us that he was going with the first commercially viable electric vehicle that met his needs. LEAF just happened to be the first that fit the bill. We also learned that Nissan vetted several candidates for LEAF deliveries subsequent to the first LEAF delivery in the Bay Area. While we gained no remarkable additional insights into the process, all candidates were early reservation holders. The more interesting part of the evening came next.
After Mr. Franklin’s remarks, Nissan offered a nicely catered affair to those in attendance. One of those in attendance happened to be none other than Mark Perry, Nissan Director of Product Planning. We had met Mr. Perry many years ago and after reintroducing ourselves, asked about the remarks made by Mr. Tavares in San Francisco on Saturday. Specifically, how is Nissan going to handle the continuing rollout to the remainder of the country.
Currently public knowledge is that Nissan holds 20,000 reservations – from all over the country. Mr. Perry acknowledged that over half are converting to orders, with most converting from reservations to orders within the first seven days after being offered the opportunity to order, or
“Request a Quote” (RAQ in Nissan parlance). Conversion rates vary based on geography, but San Diego, for instance, has an extremely high conversion ratio. Based on current conversion rates, and current orders, all current reservationists – that live in the seven initial launch states – will have their LEAF by the end of the summer of 2011, even if you haven’t placed your order yet.
This next bit will make some unhappy, but is based on the realities of business. Current reservationists not in the seven rollout states – Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee or Washington, with Hawaii and Texas closely following – will not be open to orders until infrastructure is in place in their states. What this means is that if you reserved on day one (April 20, 2010), but do not reside in one of these seven states, you will not be able to order for awhile. While this may seem unfair to those that live in any states other than these seven, Nissan has made this clear as far back as July of this year, and likely prior to that as well. Certainly there are EV (and LEAF) advocates in many states other than these. Nissan wants to ensure that a viable infrastructure is in place prior to making the LEAF available. Following the initial seven launch states will be North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina and Alabama. No matter how passionate you may be about the LEAF, if your state is not in those named above, there is not a strong enough commitment yet (in Nissan’s eyes) to warrant sales in those states. Keep in mind that Nissan is about profitability. Nissan is going to put the LEAF where the infrastructure is. And currently that infrastructure is being primarily supported by the EV Project and ChargePoint America. The states that you see highlighted on their maps mirror Nissan’s launch states for the most part.
Look for the current reservation/order system to remain in place at least until Smyrna comes online in late 2012. Even then, Nissan is going to closely evaluate demand as well as supply and review whether a change in the ordering structure would be needed or not. LEAF owners in many cases will need a charging dock installed, so buying an electric car will not be like buying an internal combustion engine (ICE) car possibly for years to come. Will there be other alternatives available by then? Absolutely. Will they likely be working through the same issues that Nissan is working through now? Quite possibly. One advantage they will have is that, largely because of Nissan’s efforts with the LEAF, and working with municipalities throughout the US, they will have existing infrastructure already in place. In 2013, Nissan will be capable of supplying 200,000 vehicles on a global scale. Volt is making 15,000 vehicles this year and 45,000 targeted for 2012. Our take is that availability from all other makes will be significantly less than what Nissan will be able to bring to the table. There is a price to be paid for being first. There is also a price to be paid for waiting.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Another interesting tidbit from the LEAF party last night: The Nissan representative who spoke just before Mr. Franklin (I don’t recall his name) said something along the lines of:
“Behind those black doors over there is where we are currently working on 14 new designs… 40% of which are electric”.
I’m not sure how they could be working on 5.6 electric cars, but this seems like news to me. Nissan has only announced 2 EV’s as far as I have seen.
Chris – thanks for the comments. I thought he said 30%, which would be about 4 cars. Regardless, the fact that they are in the design stage bodes well for the technology. And remember, that includes the Infiniti side as well.
Thanks for that useful information LEAFguy! I wonder if there’s a change to the delivery schedule in Canada? It was previously announced that Canadian reservations would start in spring of 2011 with first deliveries at the end of the year. http://nissan.ca/vehicles/ms/leaf/en/anticipation-builds-for-nissans-new-leaf.html
I suspect that will be limited to certain regions or provinces and I would be very surprised if Canada can get their LEAFs before the second wave of U.S. states… What do you think?
Gwido, thanks for the comments. I haven’t looked into the Canadian situation lately. Look for an update soon.
EV charging infrastructure is an interesting topic. Its often said that customers won’t purchase EVs without a suitable charging infrastructure and then once they purchase the vehicle they nearly always charge at home.
So if charging infrastructure is the gating factor for the LEAF go to market strategy, how does Nissan explain that two large ChargePoint America deployment cities, Detroit & New York City, are presently not included in the LEAF roll out? I believe the issue is either Nissan is not yet able to scale LEAF production for some reason and/or Nissan is taking an ultra conservative approach with the LEAF deployment, because the market is so new to them. I suspect there is some significant thrash going on inside the Nissan executive suites at the moment. One side saying, “it’s a land grab, you never get a second chance to be first to market”. The other side saying, “if we lean to far forward and mess up this launch we’ll be killed in the marketplace”. In any case, I’m not sure we’ve been told the whole story.
indy – If you look at the partners of ChargePoint America, you will not find Nissan. While the J-1772 connector is now an industry standard for level 2 charging, and LEAF will be able to use these facilities, we feel that they likely wanted to support the ECOtality initiative, which is why you find no Nissan launch in Detroit or New York initially. I will address the scale of the LEAF production and deployment in a future article, as it is an interesting question. Thanks for the inspiration.
But your original thesis was “Nissan is going to put the LEAF where the infrastructure is”. ChargePoint America is in fact deploying infrastructure in a number of locations including Detroit or New York City. Also, as you point out, it is EV charging infrastructure which the LEAF can utilize. So because Nissan have elected to not include those two markets in either their initial nor secondary roll out, it appears self evident to me that EV charging infrastructure is not the only launch market criteria. I wonder if its the cold climate which is the issue. I know there was talk of a cold weather package for the LEAF which would include heated seats and heated steering wheel. That package is not available as yet.
Apparently, it’s already available in Japan. At least, it appears on Nissan’s web site:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://ev.nissan.co.jp/LEAF/OPTION/
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://ev.nissan.co.jp/LEAF/GRADE/sim.html
Gwido, it appears on the US website also. Our understanding is that it will launch in Japan on the 20th.
I didn’t know this was added to the US website. I didn’t find it. The Japanese one even indicates a price so I assume it can already be ordered over there.
indy – Keeping me on point, as always! It was not my thesis, but that put forth by Mr. Perry that stated that LEAF would follow the infrastructure. I did not know about Detroit and New York until after the event, and I had a chance to check out both projects. I elected to go with the political reasoning vs. the geographical reasoning as to why LEAF was not offered in those states. But… it is speculation on my part. It very well could be the cold weather package that is at issue. Time will tell.
Thank you for the report. It helps me gauge the time frame when I will receive my Leaf. Was there any discussion about the battery waranty?
stanley – My conversation with Mark Perry lasted about 15 minutes. In the setting that we were in, I felt that I couldn’t really make a much greater demand on his time, so we did not get to discuss the battery warranty. We should see something soon, in print, from Nissan with first LEAFs being delivered.
Stanley, here’s what the first customer reported:
“Some news (I think) on the battery coverage, as everyone knows it’s 8 years, 100,000 miles (or whatever the number announced was). There is no warranty on the gradual capacity loss … unless the overall battery capacity falls bellow 60% of the original capacity during the warranty period. I believe that 60% after 100,000 miles / 8 years is actually quite fair. We know that battery capacity will get lower, and I’m fine if Nissan covers the battery under warranty as soon as it drops bellow 60% of its initial capacity. Now I may have mis-interpreted this number, so we should double check on that.”
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1975
“Nissan has made this clear as far back as July of this year, and likely prior to that as well.”
Well, Nissan EV Customer Service replied to my email inquiry on 11-10-10:
“Virginia is a part of the secondary launch market. Orders will start opening for customers in your area in December. According to your profile your order timing will also fall within December. Therefore you will probably be invited to schedule your home charging dock assessment approximately one month prior to final orders opening. Then deliveries are schedule to begin in your area in April of 2011. We appreciate your patience in this matter.”
What else did they feed you at the catered affair? Warren
Warren – welcome to Living LEAF. As noted in the article, Virginia has always been scheduled as part of the secondary launch market. As you may have noted from our articles, as well as others, the Nissan LEAF delivery schedule is fluid at best, with many variables that are not always well publicized. The response that you received on November 11 may have been what Nissan had projected at the time. Our thought is that Mr. Tavares, speaking on December 11, likely spoke with more authority than a customer service representative a month prior. We are not saying that April deliveries to Virginia won’t happen. We are saying that, in Mr. Tavares’ words, “…any reservationist who ordered a car in our first seven launch markets will be driving their Nissan LEAF at the latest by the end of summer 2011″. Only time will tell when the next wave of reservations opens and following that, when the next wave of orders opens. Thanks for your comments. They prompt additional investigation.
Thanks for the helpful information. Great website. I have a confirmed order for my Leaf and I’ve been trying to figure out when I will take delivery. I placed a reservation for the car shortly after they were made available and confirmed my order in November. Does anybody know if there is way to tell where you are in the order queue?
Russell – welcome to Living LEAF. Nissan is not publishing this information. Here’s a link to an article that I wrote recently that will help out perhaps to some degree. And someone commented in another article that your dealer may have some additional information once your car is in the queue.