When will reservations reopen for the LEAF?
Reservations have been capped at 20,000. The conversion rate is “over half” of these reservations turning into orders, as indicated by Mark Perry, Nissan Director of Product Planning. So let’s say that 12,500 of these 20,000 reservations turn into orders. Full production will commence in the second quarter of next year. With full capacity being 50,000 units a year and roughly half of these coming to the United States (Question to Mr. Perry from Living LEAF on Monday night: Would it be fair to say that we could see 20,000 to 25,000 units per year delivered to the US, including fleet customers and dealer demos? Answer (paraphrased): It should be right around there.), we would expect as many as 2,000 units per month arriving once full production is achieved. With the steady ramp-up in current production between now and the second quarter, certainly all existing reservation conversions should be satisfied with the production completed through the end of the June. This would be consistent with promising delivery to all current reservationists by the end of summer 2011.
Nissan is promising delivery in four to seven months of order placement. Vehicles built in July should be delivered in about three months. This means orders for these vehicles should be placed from April through June to meet Nissan’s delivery promise. If Nissan wants the time frame to be on the short end, the order process (or the ability to Request a Quote (RAQ)) from the dealer should not open prior to June. If they want to maximize the opportunity for reservation to order conversion, they may open the RAQ in April. Either would require the reservation process to open prior to the RAQ. So we could see the reservation desk open sometime prior to April of 2011, with the RAQ process opening up as early as April 2011.
An interesting side conversation that we had with Mr. Perry on Monday evening related to the reservation process. In the United Kingdom (click “read terms and conditions”), once you receive a RAQ offer from Nissan, you have 30 days to decide whether to place an order. If an order is not placed within 30 days, you lose your place in line. Mr. Perry said that they consciously chose not to pursue this path in the US. What brief history that Nissan has with this process in the US shows a high conversion rate in the first seven days after receiving the RAQ opportunity. After the initial surge of orders though, there is a “long tail” as reservationists who are undecided make a decision to order. Once dealers have a LEAF on hand to take on a demo drive, that “long tail” may become shorter.
Mr. Perry did say that the reservation/order process will not change in the near term. As production ramps up, and Smyrna comes on line in late 2012, the process will be reviewed.
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Interesting article LEAFGUY. I wasn’t aware of the 50% conversion rate statistic. I was thinking the initial conversion rate would have been higher because they were enthusiastic early adopters. But is sounds like Nissan is happy with the conversion results. I would probably have deployed a team to contact each customer if they hadn’t RAQed or canceled after a few days. Turn the conversion into a “high-touch” operation with experts to answer any questions or concerns from the prospective customers.
I read somewhere that the conversion rate was more like 80%. Anyway, what percentage of the 20k pre-orders are in the 7 launch states?
I’m in Tier 2 and am really annoyed by the additional 8+ month delay until I can even place a real order. It doesn’t matter to me if the infrastructure is in place or not since I’ll be charging up at home.