wsbca said:There aren't 20,000 orders. There are 20,000 reservations. There isn't anything to indicate that there are even 8000 orders yet. The 8000 is extrapolated from the 40% conversion rate of reservation to order that has occurred so far, for the X number of reservation holders who have been given a chance to order. That is to say, if all 20,000 reservation holders were given a chance to order, the estimate is 8,000 of them might actually order. But nobody knows what "X" is.
Think about how many of the folks on this forum and in the spreadsheet have recently received delivery date information (even people that have ordered as late as November) - even if this forum has far less penetration than we have been speculating (meaning there are lots of orders we know nothing about), to me the fact that so many people we _do_ know about are seeing dashboard activity says the actual number of orders that have been placed is not massive. Which fits with the reality I see around me - lots of people are very interested in our car, conceptually...to go from there to deciding to buy one is a major, major decision. There is much work to be done yet.
Edit: don't get me wrong - I'd LOVE to see thousands of Leafs on the road within a few months. In fact I'm agonizing for that dream to come true as soon as possible. I'm just trying to be realistic, and counting on the underlying assumption that Nissan is in it for the long haul.
I should have been a bit more clear, I know there are 20,000 Reserves, but only 8,00 who have placed an Order. My questions basically was, with the amount of information we have at this point (the fact that so many people are seeing DB activity) is it 'okay; to speculate that by Summer us in the "Forgotten 36" will have a chance to place a Reservation? Of course, that is a matter of opinion and a lot of going off of the little information we know. Like you said though, it would appear a lot *smaller* number of people are actually placing orders, which gives me (A Nebraskan and a fellow "Forgotten 36"er) some hope that I might get to reserve around the time Tier 1 people Reserved last year.
Got to keep up the hope! haha Thanks for the reply man.