LEAF sales continue to plod along

LEAF production line

Yes… we know we sound like a broken record

Nissan automobile sales data show U.S. LEAF sales of 535 units in June. It appears that until Smyrna comes online, sales will remain slow, but we must also acknowledge the fact that in the markets that have had the LEAF for some time now (California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Tennessee and Hawaii), LEAFs are starting to accumulate on dealer lots.

For instance, a quick autotrader.com search shows almost 400 new 2011 or 2012 LEAFs available in Northern California, almost 300 in Southern California, over 100 in Oregon, and over 200 in Washington. Arizona has about 40 available, but Tennessee has over 150 and Hawaii is just showing a couple. These dealer inventory LEAFs are the result of orders placed based on the early LEAF reservation system with the potential owners opting to not purchase the car when it arrived.

These LEAFs could have been abandoned for any number of reasons. Financial conditions may have  changed, or family situations may have impacted the decision. One must also consider the impact of media reports on an individuals selected course of action. No matter the reason, it appears that there is a change in the desirability of the LEAF. It could be that more choices are now or will be available soon. We will take a look at some factors that we feel may be impacting LEAF sales over the next few weeks.

This entry was posted in Industry News, Is the Nissan LEAF right for me?, LEAF 101, LEAF Availability, LEAF Information. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to LEAF sales continue to plod along

  1. Frank Twohy says:

    Thank you Ernie for the update. Perhaps you could cover in the factors stuff you will be writing about the concern of loss of capacity bars that are showing up, and if you think that will result in lower sales and reduced trade in value of the LEAF. Do you think Nissan will need to make changes to their battery management system etc.

    Frank

    • Ernie Hernandez (LEAFguy) says:

      Frank, that is exactly one of the issues that I have in mind to cover. The last I saw, there are 80 pages or more of posts that have been written about the battery capacity loss issue on mynissanleaf. I wanted a discussion to develop, but now it will take me awhile to wade through it all and try to make some sense out of what really happened. Once I’ve had an opportunity to review everything written by the parties involved, I will write up an analysis.

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