Nissan get your head out of your bottom

[TRONZ]

Of these initial roll outs, were any of them a 100% EV???

 

[nissanvirgin]

TRONZ and others who keep no bringing up that the car is a new thing and that somehow makes customer service expectations different. That the Leaf is the first EV does not excuse poor communication and lies. It is possible to roll out the first EV and not miscommunicate with or lie to your customers at the same time. The Prius was indisputably much more difficult to design and produce because it had both a battery and a ICE needed gears and a generator to mediate between the two, and thus had many more parts, and nothing like this debacle happened with the Prius. It's because Toyota didn't take reservations with a 6-month ETA only to push it to 12 months and then deny there was a problem that needed to be addressed. Nissan here messed up technically in their predictions despite having knowledge of how many reservations they had and how fast their parts could be produced, and then messed up servicewise by not doing anything to address the dissatisfaction of their customers.

I have come to the conclusion that Nissan most of all wants the recognition and publicity of being the first to roll out a mass-market EV in the 21st century. Hence their glitzy ads and appearances at car shows. Hence their desperation to get their first delivery done in 2010 to make sure they beat any potential introductions in 2011. They actually don't care that they are inflicting psychological torture on their customers. They have made the calculation that the press has said the car is good and they have gotten the glory of being first, so "mission accomplished" as far as they are concerned. This is obvious to me even if Ghosn doesn't pop out of a Leaf on the deck of an aircraft carrier for a photo op. However just as with Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush, Nissan will learn that sometimes it's not just the first impression that counts.

 

[boyodublin]

Wow Nissanvirgin,
You hit the nail on the head here!

We are fortunate to have a person of such great ability with the written expression to represent us so forcefully here. It makes me laugh to read the apologist's responses, especially since most of them already have their cars, even though many were res & ordered months after mine!

 

[tps]

Just curious, but why can't you just order through a CA dealer and have the car shipped home? Is it a state law restriction on buying out of state cars (CA has such a restriction, but that is for smog issues)? Is it a cost issue in shipping the car (which I think you would pay through your dealer anyway)? Again, just curious.

I think you could do this with an orphan, but Nissan won't take orders from people outside the rollout areas. Service could be problematic, however...

I think I could do this no problem if I wanted a Volt. Check out all this fine print on the Nissan reservation page about "the state where the LEAF will reside" (at least at the time of purchase). Nissan will not open sales to the forgotten 36 until they're ready. Yes, a few geographically disadvantaged individuals might snap up a few of the orphans that appear, but there wil likely be far from enough orphans to fill the demand.

I'm not saying it will happen, but what might be the result of reservation holders moving into or out of roll-out states during the reservation process? We know that once you have the car, there's not much Nissan can say. What if you order and then move out of state? (Likely the car gets re-allocated of orphaned.)

Once again, I'd gladly trade places those of you in roll-out states. Until then, I guess I'll have to enjoy my LEAF driving in small doses at $50-$70 a pop via the Hertz Connect LEAF in NYC...

 

[Packet]

I think the fact that this is an EV doesn't really affect the rollout directly, save inasmuch as Nissan's intent was probably to be cautious about rolling the car out into areas they don't have some degree of confidence has a charging infrastructure.

The issue is that all the orders are done through Nissan. Full stop, end topic. Every other rollout, whether it's been good or bad, has been through the dealers.

Some dealers handle a high-demand car's rollout poorly: when I was trying to order a Prius at launch, the dealer in question (who is no longer around, I note) was orphaning ordered cars to people willing to bid above MSRP. In the end, after having my Prius disappear out from under me twice, I threw in the towel and just bought a VW Beetle. But if I hadn't been stubborn about it, I could probably have gone to a different Toyota dealer and had an experience that made me grind my teeth less.

Others handle it better.

My gut feeling is that Nissan was thinking "We don't want to have people ordering cars in states that don't yet have charging infrastructure, because it'll be bad PR," along with "we want to handle all the ordering ourselves so that the cars get where the demand is, rather than one or two dealers snagging all the cars."

Both are understandable goals... but going through the corporate parent to order a car isn't proving a smooth process. And Nissan really, really should have spotted this early on -- right around the time some orders went missing -- and reacted quickly. Dealing with consumers directly is a vastly different process than dealing with the dealers selling your cars, and I think Nissan was wholly unprepared for that... and now is wholly unwilling to admit they were unprepared, which makes the situation that much more infuriating to those who have been waiting the longest and have seen other orders fly through the system while theirs remain in limbo.

 

[Herm]

... but going through the corporate parent to order a car isn't proving a smooth process. .. Dealing with consumers directly is a vastly different process than dealing with the dealers selling your cars, and I think Nissan was wholly unprepared for that...

Its a despicable process, Nissan stabbed their dealers in the back.. why?.. because they could get away with it.

Nissan messed up in two ways, bypassing the dealers and having a reservation system.. This a new tech car, building 3 factories and two battery plants across 3 continents.. and they setup a reservation system that promised delivery by a certain date?.. This was really stupid. Just a hiccup in the sole battery factory in Japan would have introduced delays of months.. a bit of impurities in the raw supplies they use and there it goes belly up. The worst part is that they did not have to do either of these and have suffered as a result.

Nissan wanted to be first in the market for sound reasons, just the announcement of the $32k price was enough to drive a bit of the competition away (Coda), and will probably affect the supply of the Ford BEV (or even of its offered at all) since Ford will lose money on each one they sell.. but they still had no reason for a reservation system. How did the Camaro reservations work out for GM?

 

[boyodublin]

I dunno about this!
I saw a Leaf (obviously an orphan) on sale at a dealership for $55,000!
Markup was for high demand!
Ooooch!

 

[Sheffield]

Just for fun, as an early adopter of the Prius and the hybrid Highlander, here is how it worked at Toyota in 2000 and 2005:

Dropped in to my local Toyota dealer about a year pre release. Asked to talk to the specialist assigned for the car. We were asked what color and y.

so tell me, what commitment did Toyota give you when u dropped in a year early? i was in same boat for 2004 and 2010 Prius. they gave me nada.

Toyota gave me each car on the month of release. If Nissan had done that I would have had my car in January. Instead I have nothing. I'd rather have a car on time than broken promises.

 

[davewill]

Toyota gave me each car on the month of release. If Nissan had done that I would have had my car in January. Instead I have nothing. I'd rather have a car on time than broken promises.

We all showed up a year before release. Were we all supposed to get one in Jan?

 

[WaunaLeaf]

I've got no complaints as I only plopped down $99 and expected a wait. I didn't make any committments beyond that. That being said, there was a big disconnect between the marketing and actual availability of the car. They didn't manage that well at all. The rollout schedule, and even the strategy has changed significantly over the last few months. There has been nothing said to northern reservationists. Tier one has been targeted for new reservations and orders and the Japan rebate worked it's way into the discussion. It also doesn't help that their own statements have been inconsistent in the use of "reservation", "order" and "delivery". Changing the typical buying process only introduced more uncertainty.

In retrospect Nissan wanted to be first out of the gate but simply oversold. They probably should have just treated this like any other new car introduction.

 

[TRONZ]

Wow Nissanvirgin,
You hit the nail on the head here!

We are fortunate to have a person of such great ability with the written expression to represent us so forcefully here. It makes me laugh to read the apologist's responses, especially since most of them already have their cars, even though many were res & ordered months after mine!

Yaaaack! You want to be alone with "4 Posts" NissanVirgin for awhile??? BTW- why are you guys steering well clear of all the fine folks patiently waiting for their cars? It's no fun to talk about the virtues of this silent majority, huh?!

 

[defiancecp]

Yaaaack! You want to be alone with "4 Posts" NissanVirgin for awhile???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

"An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise."

You're right, I should definitely not listen to someone with *FEW POSTS ON A MESSAGE BOARD*!! That certainly negates the validity of their complaint.

Tronz, if you don't like reading people with valid complaints discussing these valid complaints, go elsewhere. Dismissing them - or even implying that their opinion is invalid because of their post count :roll: is just childish and rather rude.

 

[BlueSL]

Yaaaack! You want to be alone with "4 Posts" NissanVirgin for awhile???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

"An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise."

You're right, I should definitely not listen to someone with *FEW POSTS ON A MESSAGE BOARD*!! That certainly negates the validity of their complaint.

Tronz, if you don't like reading people with valid complaints discussing these valid complaints, go elsewhere. Dismissing them - or even implying that their opinion is invalid because of their post count :roll: is just childish and rather rude.

I started a thread on this board suggesting that there was too much attacking of persons, as opposed to ideas. Here's the low point (authored, not surprisingly, by TRONZ):

. . . BlueSL is playing multiple personas on this and just refuses to admit the clear accusation made by his chosen thread title. Good thing we can read. Notice how BlueSL is not even interested about his "range" issue any longer?! But he is very interested/engaged in defending his bashing/invalidating of LEAF owners... which was his intention all along :shock: . IMO, EVNow "called it" regarding BlueSL's title.

Long live groupthink? I hope not. Enjoy your car, TRONZ.

 

[TRONZ]

Actually it was a gag reflex for the weird anti-Nissan love-fest. Oooooh NV your words are soooo big and strong(sic)... give me a break! If you don't want people to read it (and gag) then don't post it. I just find it funny when someone (new) takes a radical, extreme position and claims they are speaking for "everyone". All we need is the crazed soundtrack of Faux "News" playing for the OP to send us screaming into the streets. :lol: But seriously, only having 4 posts just means someone should stick around and actually learn something before claiming that Nissan is releasing a Zombie Apocalypse on "everyone"... or at least begin a newbie rant and constantly insert IMHO for proper context.

 

[thankyouOB]

I love the sound of Tronz in the afternoon.

 

[TRONZ]

Thank You OB

And BlueSL I assume you are talking about this thread where you tried to invalidate the opinions of people who drive LEAFs by referring to them as just "fanboys".

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3356&hilit=Fanboys+attack

Nice crop job on my quote BTW. Here's the part you removed.

"Saying you are a fanboy and accusing someone of being a fanboy are two very different things. The first is meant to support, the latter to invalidate (ex; don't listen to him, he's just a Fanboy.) BlueSL is playing multiple personas on this and just refuses to admit..."

Ya BlueSL you would never start a thread attacking people that love their LEAF... :roll:

 

[Packet]

C'mon, folks. Does this really have to degenerate to this point?

I think everyone can agree that Nissan's handled this rollout in a less-than-ideal manner. This isn't terribly uncommon for a product rollout where you dramatically change the method of distribution or support from established norms, especially if the product proves popular. (See also: Google dealing with the Nexus One, AT&T trying to deal with the original iPhone being activated at home rather than in-store, etc.)

But "well, other companies screwed this up too" is small comfort to the people who are feeling burned.

Folks are right that this really sucks for those who have been waiting a long time; early adopters who are willing to take the plunge and evangelize your products in the earliest stages are invaluable, and Nissan would've done well to work harder at trying to make things right for the people who got lost in the mess of the ordering system. Or at least making it feel less like they were forgotten about. Folks are also right that, in time, this will pass; people will forget the initial mess, people will be able to walk in off the street to buy an EV at a Nissan dealer, etc.

As some have said, a car's a tricky purchase. It's a big one, and if you get rid of your existing car in preparation to get a new one, you can find yourself in a bad spot. And the more expensive something is, the more likely people will get edgy when an order seems messed up. So it's not surprising that tempers are high and hot.

But do we really need to yell at each other over it? There's a lot of confrontational language being tossed around, and confrontational language is always going to put someone with differing views on the defensive. Imagine the difference between, say, "Thank you for dinner! Though in the future, I kind of wish you'd had a vegetarian option too." and "Why did you have to make dinner suck so much by not offering enough options?" The second one is going to put anyone who liked the dinner more on the defensive, while the first probably wouldn't. It doesn't make them 'dinner fanboys,' just disagreeing. (And similarly, putting it in the first way would probably open to general conversation and agreement, where someone might go, "Well, I liked dinner just fine, but yeah, I can see how a vegetarian option would have been nice.")

I mean, even this thread title is phrased in a fairly confrontational manner, so it just draws everyone into argument rather than discussion. And I don't think it's necessarily needed, when most folks would probably agree on some common ground along the lines of "Nissan has not handled this launch well."

 

[FilmMixer]

I am in the July time frame.. ordered 09/08/2010.

Just to add insult to injury, a friend of mine just walked into First Nissan in Simi over the weekend.. took home their "showroom demo" Leaf for 2500 over MSRP..

Same trim, options and color as mine.. he waited three days.... I'll be 10 months when all is said and done (and 15 months from reservation...)

My only real gripe is losing out on the full CA rebate due to Nissan's incompetence... the car I can wait for, it's just a shame to lose out on the financial end due to their complete mishandling of the ordering process.. and not that dealers shouldn't be able to gouge for orphaned or demos, but Nissan could've tried to secure those for customers on the list..

While for some the 2500 isn't a viable "issue" I could really use it to make up for the terrible value of my 3 year old Nissan Altima Hybrid...

 

[Nubo]

People who post crude comments like the thread title [...] are going to start hitting my ignore list.

I guess we all have different definitions for crude. Had I gone through what some here have, my thread title would have been similar but for one word. :lol:

Delivery problems and delays aren't unsurprising. It is the lack of forthrightness, the mangling of something as simple as managing a few thousand orders, and the stonewalling of customer service (POLLEN!?) that has people upset.

More's the pity because it represents such a lost opportunity to foster goodwill and pride of ownership in this huge gamble Nissan is taking. I think we all applaud the gamble. I think most accept that production ramp-up might be bumpy. I think they just want to be treated with respect and appreciation for being early adopters of that gamble.

 

[jwatte]

Try getting healthcare if you are over 55 in the United States, take a pill or two for a chronic condition, and are not part of an employer group. Now there is something that will cause you some heartbreak.

Did't Obamacare fix that? Or did all the politicking water it down until it still can't be done?

Anyway, I think the points are all pretty decent, except for this point:

chargers which may not work with other EVs

Actually, the industry learned from the last time around, and standardized on the charger this time. I recently looked at the charger for a Volt parked in Palo Alto, and it looks exactly the same as the connector that's been hanging in my garage since December. (Still with no car to hook up to...)