How scarce is the Leaf?

[vger105]

Having just had solar panels installed on our house (we love seeing the electric meter spinning backwards!), we're very interested in the Leaf. The problem is there don't seem to any around here on Long Island, a suburban area of NYC. Are they very scarce? Does Nissan intend to increase the production?
TIA for any responses.

 

[walter]

Apparently not to scarce in Stockton Cal. Just look at the thread "whats this button" under new threads...........

 

[tps]

Having just had solar panels installed on our house (we love seeing the electric meter spinning backwards!), we're very interested in the Leaf. The problem is there don't seem to any around here on Long Island, a suburban area of NYC. Are they very scarce? Does Nissan intend to increase the production?
TIA for any responses.

Right now, there are almost no LEAFs here in the northeast US. Expect that situation to begin changing sometime early in 2012 when Nissan starts delivering the first batch of LEAFs to those who ordered in the fall of 2011. Because of Nissan's rollout by states, customers in NY were not allowed to order until October 2011. (I'm still not allowed to order in PA, even though I've had a reservation since 2010.) There have been extremely limited opportunities to spot a "LEAF in-the-wild" here on the east coast so far. Hertz has had a LEAF for rent since April 2011, based at the Seward Park Coop in lower east Manhattan, as part of the Hertz On Demand carshare program. I've rented that LEAF twice for a total of 320 miles. The second time in July 2011 was for 2 days, and I drove it from NYC to my home on the north side of Philly, so many people along that route had the opportunity to see a LEAF in-the-wild, but my impression was that most people just saw it as a Versa with funny headlights and taillights and did not realize what they were seeing.

So far as imcreasing production, part of the problem is that currently, the LEAF is only produced at Nissan's Oppama Japan plant. Although they were projecting producing 4K/month at Oppama, they seem to be stuck at less than 2K/month average. In the second half on 2012, Nissan's plant in Smyrna TN USA is supposed to start producing LEAFs with a projected production of 12K/month. If so, the 2013 LEAF should be much less scarce than the 2011 and 2012 models...

 

[Stanton]

A slight tweak to the previous post: I don't believe the US plant will begin producing Leaf's in volume until 2013 (like Jan. 2013), so I expect them to be scare for quite some time yet. The fact that Japan has yet to meet it's original projected quota of 4k or so per month (due to the earthquake) hasn't helped. I also believe that as the nationwide rollout continues, dealer allocations will reduce the availability of what we've seen in initial rollout states (like CA and TX); in other words, they're trying to spread the same amount of cars (<2k/month) over even more dealers. Bottom line: I think "random" Leaf availability will actually get worse before it gets better (sometime in 2013).

 

[Herm]

I also believe that as the nationwide rollout continues, dealer allocations will reduce the availability of what we've seen in initial rollout states (like CA and TX); in other words, they're trying to spread the same amount of cars (<2k/month) over even more dealers.

The Oppama plant is also supplying Europe and Japan, and watch out if oil spikes again..

 

[LEAFfan]

A slight tweak to the previous post: I don't believe the US plant will begin producing Leaf's in volume until 2013 (like Jan. 2013), so I expect them to be scare for quite some time yet.

Where and when did you here that? The latest that I have read is the 2013 model will be made in TN in 2012.

 

[marccbr]

They are very common here in San Diego. Especially whenever I go to Balboa Park were they have free chargers. I've seen up to 6 LEAFs at once plugged in on just a normal day.

Here is the Autoblog Green link talking about production in the U.S.
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/08/first-2013-nissan-leaf-tennessee-december-2012/