Today is a sad day for me. I canceled my Nissan Leaf order. Years and years ago, I swore that I would not purchase a new car until I could plug it in at night. When the Volt was announced, and subsequently the Leaf, in 2007, I got really excited. The Volt turned out to be priced out of our budget, which was fine because really I wanted the All Electric Car. When the reservations line opened up a year ago, my wife and I were quick to drop the $99 registration fee for the Leaf. We paid for the AV home inspection, and we started dumping money into a piggy bank. We had the opportunity to test drive the vehicle at one of the test drive events, and couldn't be more inlove with a lifeless mass of aluminum and lithium. When we had a comfortable amount of cash in the piggy, we clicked the "Order" button in February.
I am a huge fan-boy of the vehicle. I have spent more hours than I am willing to admit defending the vehicle against common myths. "It's too expensive." Oh yeah? Are you sure about that? Let's actually do the math and find out how much money you really spend on gas. "Small cars aren't safe." First, of all, that's debatable anyway. Second, this ain't a small car. It has plenty of weight, and feels quite a bit larger than the Malibu I'm driving now. "It's ugly." Well, okay. They were probably right about that one. But like a father of a deformed child, I was willing to overlook it's eccentricities and love it anyway.
I was even able to overlook the fabled "Range Anxiety". I live in the DFW metroplex, and rarely drive over the typical 80 mile range. My wife and I share a car, and are more than willing to take the Bus or Train, or even (gasp) walk to where we need to go. But, the only way that we could make the car work with our life style is with the Level III fast charging port. I would claim that a Nissan Leaf, without a fast charging infrastructure, would cover 95% of our needs. But that last 5% really breaks the deal. We need this to be our only car. (We only have one parking spot.)
You can imagine how thrilled we were when EVGo was announced. I got in contact with the people in charge, and learned all about it. Sure, it seems a little pricey at first, but it's not really that pricey once you figure out that their network they were planning to build out would allow us to use the Leaf as our only car. The savings from the insurance on another car alone would pay for the monthly EVGo fees. Yes, everything was falling into place. My wife and I don't have kids yet, but I would love it if my kids never had to see their father pump gasoline into a vehicle.
However. My only hold up was that there the good people with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) have still not yet decided to use the Leaf's CHAdeMO Level III charger. I kept holding onto hope that they would quickly adopt it, what else is there? Nothing else that I know of has been announced that competes with it. But, the SAE have publicly said that they will very likely not choose CHAdeMO, and instead will introduce a competing option in December.
I believe that this is a major error on the side of SAE. Not because I think CHAdeMO is a superior standard to whatever it is they are looking into, but because it is picking a fight for no apparent reason. It's a standards war. It's Beta vs. VHS. Windows vs. Mac. HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. AIM vs. Yahoo vs. MSN. Someone is going to win. A lot of people are going to loose.
Standards Wars always hurt markets. Look at Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD. Who won that one? Blu-Ray, right? No. They both lost. Who won the Instant Messenger wars? No one. They all lost. Does anyone use IM's any more? How about Office Software Suites? Who one that? MS Office won, and now we are all stuck using a horrible *.doc format as the de facto standard. Standards Wars hurt markets.
Nissan, however, is also hurting things. I contacted Nissan about the problem and asked if they would kindly promise to protect their early adopters against future obsolescence? If the SAE chooses another plug for their standard, and it's adopted by the market as a whole, would Nissan promise to either upgrade existing Leafs, or supply an attachment that would bring compatibility. They responded as follows:
"I can not offer any guarantee... It would be wise for companies putting out Electric Vehicles after us, to use the same plug. Customers will be more likely to buy an EV that can be charged at the charge stations that are already in place."
I don't disagree with that statement. It's certainly reasonable, and I would be happy to see that happen. But here is the deal breaker for me and my wife. We cannot afford to place a $35,000 bet on a political standards war. This isn't a fight between $500 DVD players anymore. This isn't $150 e-readers. This isn't a fight between smartphone platforms and their $2 apps. This is a $35,000 car. I only want one car, and I expect a vehicle that I purchase to last 8-10 years. I can't afford to risk obsolescence on a vehicle I purchase. The minimum bet at this table is too high for me. Leasing is off the table for me too, for a different reason.
So, I chose to cancel my Leaf order today. My wife and I will just have to sit this generation out.
Don't get me wrong, I still love this car. I love the idea of All Electric Vehicles. I will still advocate for All Electric, zero emission vehicles. If you have the finances to make this bet, GO FOR IT! I envy you. If you can't imagine life without at least two cars, then definitely consider a Nissan Leaf to replace one of them. But I just can’t count on vehicle manufacturers to do the right thing and protect their early adopters that helped them build their markets.
The reason I am writing this is that I hope someone at Nissan and the SAE reads it. So, to the person at one of these two organizations that has a say in the matter, I ask that you please reconcile your differences. I was willing to take some big risks with purchasing an all electric car and helping you market it through word of mouth to all of my friends and family, but your politics ruined it for me. And if you are not careful, you are going to ruin the whole market as well.
I am a huge fan-boy of the vehicle. I have spent more hours than I am willing to admit defending the vehicle against common myths. "It's too expensive." Oh yeah? Are you sure about that? Let's actually do the math and find out how much money you really spend on gas. "Small cars aren't safe." First, of all, that's debatable anyway. Second, this ain't a small car. It has plenty of weight, and feels quite a bit larger than the Malibu I'm driving now. "It's ugly." Well, okay. They were probably right about that one. But like a father of a deformed child, I was willing to overlook it's eccentricities and love it anyway.
I was even able to overlook the fabled "Range Anxiety". I live in the DFW metroplex, and rarely drive over the typical 80 mile range. My wife and I share a car, and are more than willing to take the Bus or Train, or even (gasp) walk to where we need to go. But, the only way that we could make the car work with our life style is with the Level III fast charging port. I would claim that a Nissan Leaf, without a fast charging infrastructure, would cover 95% of our needs. But that last 5% really breaks the deal. We need this to be our only car. (We only have one parking spot.)
You can imagine how thrilled we were when EVGo was announced. I got in contact with the people in charge, and learned all about it. Sure, it seems a little pricey at first, but it's not really that pricey once you figure out that their network they were planning to build out would allow us to use the Leaf as our only car. The savings from the insurance on another car alone would pay for the monthly EVGo fees. Yes, everything was falling into place. My wife and I don't have kids yet, but I would love it if my kids never had to see their father pump gasoline into a vehicle.
However. My only hold up was that there the good people with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) have still not yet decided to use the Leaf's CHAdeMO Level III charger. I kept holding onto hope that they would quickly adopt it, what else is there? Nothing else that I know of has been announced that competes with it. But, the SAE have publicly said that they will very likely not choose CHAdeMO, and instead will introduce a competing option in December.
I believe that this is a major error on the side of SAE. Not because I think CHAdeMO is a superior standard to whatever it is they are looking into, but because it is picking a fight for no apparent reason. It's a standards war. It's Beta vs. VHS. Windows vs. Mac. HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. AIM vs. Yahoo vs. MSN. Someone is going to win. A lot of people are going to loose.
Standards Wars always hurt markets. Look at Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD. Who won that one? Blu-Ray, right? No. They both lost. Who won the Instant Messenger wars? No one. They all lost. Does anyone use IM's any more? How about Office Software Suites? Who one that? MS Office won, and now we are all stuck using a horrible *.doc format as the de facto standard. Standards Wars hurt markets.
Nissan, however, is also hurting things. I contacted Nissan about the problem and asked if they would kindly promise to protect their early adopters against future obsolescence? If the SAE chooses another plug for their standard, and it's adopted by the market as a whole, would Nissan promise to either upgrade existing Leafs, or supply an attachment that would bring compatibility. They responded as follows:
"I can not offer any guarantee... It would be wise for companies putting out Electric Vehicles after us, to use the same plug. Customers will be more likely to buy an EV that can be charged at the charge stations that are already in place."
I don't disagree with that statement. It's certainly reasonable, and I would be happy to see that happen. But here is the deal breaker for me and my wife. We cannot afford to place a $35,000 bet on a political standards war. This isn't a fight between $500 DVD players anymore. This isn't $150 e-readers. This isn't a fight between smartphone platforms and their $2 apps. This is a $35,000 car. I only want one car, and I expect a vehicle that I purchase to last 8-10 years. I can't afford to risk obsolescence on a vehicle I purchase. The minimum bet at this table is too high for me. Leasing is off the table for me too, for a different reason.
So, I chose to cancel my Leaf order today. My wife and I will just have to sit this generation out.
Don't get me wrong, I still love this car. I love the idea of All Electric Vehicles. I will still advocate for All Electric, zero emission vehicles. If you have the finances to make this bet, GO FOR IT! I envy you. If you can't imagine life without at least two cars, then definitely consider a Nissan Leaf to replace one of them. But I just can’t count on vehicle manufacturers to do the right thing and protect their early adopters that helped them build their markets.
The reason I am writing this is that I hope someone at Nissan and the SAE reads it. So, to the person at one of these two organizations that has a say in the matter, I ask that you please reconcile your differences. I was willing to take some big risks with purchasing an all electric car and helping you market it through word of mouth to all of my friends and family, but your politics ruined it for me. And if you are not careful, you are going to ruin the whole market as well.
