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jwhitehouse

Active member
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
42
Location
Arlington, TX
I'm the Don Davis Nissan EV Sales Leader, located here in Arlington TX. I've seen a couple of comments about dealer attitudes encountered, and I wanted to put my two cents worth in. Nissan is being very focused on the end-user with the rollout of the LEAF, and most of their communications are direct to consumer through the official website. Everyone who reserves a LEAF has access to a dashboard to track their vehicle through production. Dealer involvement is fairly limited at this time. When you designate a dealer, your information pops up on that dealers dashboard, but it is information only available to the designated EV Sales personnel at that dealership (and they should contact you). For general infomation, there is much more available on Nissans microsite than currently at a Nissan dealership. If you want to talk to someone at a Nissan Dealership about LEAF, I recommend going through the sales director or general manager of the dealership to find the designated EV sales staff.

During the month of January 2011, there are a few LEAF events in DFW, including the DRIVE ELECTRIC TOUR. There will be LEAF's available for test drives in Irving on January 14, 15, and 16, and I'm guessing most people on this forum have been notified of the event.

Certified dealerships should be getting a demonstrator LEAF, available for test drives, soon. We (Don Davis Nissan) have completed installation of level two charging stations on at our facility, and are anxiously waiting for a vehicle. No specific word yet as to when it will arrive, but when it does I'll put a note up.
 
Welcome to the forum.

I do not think you will get a car to test drive from the tour event. In Arizona no dealership received a LEAF. I was that the drive event in Tempe AZ on two days.

I talked with Mark Perry 2 times over the weekend he was real nice and I got some good information from him. I also spoke to Kate one of the many tour guides.
 
Opps...I didn't mean to infer that there was any possibility of getting vehicles from the Drive Electric Tour. I should have more clearly separated the information. We are expecting a dealer demonstrator, but I have been unable to get specific status on its arrival. The Drive Electric Tour and any dealer activities are totally separate
 
jwhitehouse said:
I'm the Don Davis Nissan EV Sales Leader, located here in Arlington TX. I've seen a couple of comments about dealer attitudes encountered, and I wanted to put my two cents worth in.

Welcome aboard!

How's your discount for early reservation holders? I'm looking for a reason to buy from Texas dealer - care to provide one?

Thanks!
 
I hope we'll see the market for the vehicle expanding, rather than available discounts. The lease program appears the least expensive, least exposed, way to drive one though.
 
I'll play the cranky guy:

Everyone who reserves a LEAF has access to a dashboard to track their vehicle through production.

The entirety of the information presented to me is one word: "Pending" There is no other information available about the status of my order.
In fact, it directs me to the Dealership, who (presumably) will have more information:
"your dealer will be in touch with the exact date you may pick up your LEAF"

When you designate a dealer, your information pops up on that dealers dashboard, but it is information only available to the designated EV Sales personnel at that dealership (and they should contact you). For general infomation, there is much more available on Nissans microsite than currently at a Nissan dealership.

A few folks have posted "screen shots" from the Dealer Dashboard view, and there is indeed additional information over and above what is shared with the customer via Nissan's portal. Manufacturing date, for example.
 
First off, a hearty welcome - seeing dealers participate in forums is nothing short of fantastic and we welcome your contributions.

jwhitehouse said:
Nissan is being very focused on the end-user with the rollout of the LEAF, and most of their communications are direct to consumer through the official website.

Secondly, GroundLoop beat me to the cranky side.. but I'll add a few cents. My opinion is that Nissan is almost all market and media-focused. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated very much the test drive, the meet and greet for early reservers in each launch market , the corny t-shirt, and now two sets of 'I've wanted a leaf for 9 months but still don't have it' stickers... but nothing comes close to the simple act of delivering me a vehicle I am willing to pay them for or even just updating my dashboard to something other then 'PENDING'... a status now shown for a very, very long time.

So with all do respect, I have to disagree with Nissan's focus on the consumer...though it's very good to see some of the first vehicles off the Dec 20th boat finally hitting average consumers' hands today... so I have hope :)
 
What you see on the dashboards is very typical of the way production information is distributed for any Nissan, it's just that most people won't see even that. In the United States, we purchase vehicles generally from dealer inventory, or available manufacturer ground stock. Basically, there are enough vehicles already built that will match any desired configuration. We'll try and keep about a 90-day supply of vehicles on hand for stock, and that's what most people purchase from. Nissan's Order Management System (OMS) covers about 4 months of time when production becomes available to dealers and when the specific vehicle is delivered to our facility. That timeline 'firms' up when a vehicle is serialized. Once a VIN, or serial number, is assigned to a production specification, you'll start to see dates pertaining to a specific vehicle. Even so, the process is driven by manufacturing or transport efficiencies, and it's hard to pin down exactly when anything will happen. I am figuring that the "pending" status is equivalent to a non-serialized 'clean' order. The orders are good and we are waiting for all parts and processes to allign for assembly. Currently, I'm seeing 'pending' as status on all LEAF orders I've processed, and I don't think that's out of sorts. I do understand, however, the annoyance of the wait

To my knowledge, a very small number of LEAF's have been delivered, and maybe one of the new owners could tell us what production status was communicated to them.
 
jwhitehouse said:
To my knowledge, a very small number of LEAF's have been delivered, and maybe one of the new owners could tell us what production status was communicated to them.

My car was ONS for sure until December 1st and then had become SIT by December 9th. Just when it changed during those 8 days, I couldn't say.
 
Hmm on the 11th, I was SIT. I wonder why my ETA is 1/27. Is it really going to take almost 2 months get get to the dealer?
 
I could not edit my color back in the first week of Dec but my car will not be available until March making it three months to get built and shipped assuming March 10.
 
The codes are interesting. Will those be visible on the customer dashboard as well?

Is Infiniti the same in this regard? If I custom-order a G37S with specific color and options, and it has to be factory-built, is there any more/less visibility?

BMW (and Mini) really set the bar in this regard. :) Even my order from Lotus had more progress visibility, and that's practically hand made. Domestic cars too -- look at GM's staging for the Volt orders.

I guess I just want Nissan to come out and put some kind of upper-bound on the wait. "Pending" is a lot worse than "June/July 2011". I feel like I have to check on Pending every day, where June/July 2011 would let me know I could check out of the dashboard for a couple months.
 
AndyH said:
jwhitehouse said:
I'm the Don Davis Nissan EV Sales Leader, located here in Arlington TX. I've seen a couple of comments about dealer attitudes encountered, and I wanted to put my two cents worth in.

Welcome aboard!

How's your discount for early reservation holders? I'm looking for a reason to buy from Texas dealer - care to provide one?

Thanks!
jwhitehouse said:
I hope we'll see the market for the vehicle expanding, rather than available discounts. The lease program appears the least expensive, least exposed, way to drive one though.
I agree - expanding the EV market is a very, very good thing! That was a very 'politician-like' sidestep of my question, though. ;) I'm guessing that means you'll not be discounting Leafs for the early reservation holders? :lol:
 
GroundLoop said:
The codes are interesting. Will those be visible on the customer dashboard as well?

Is Infiniti the same in this regard? If I custom-order a G37S with specific color and options, and it has to be factory-built, is there any more/less visibility?

BMW (and Mini) really set the bar in this regard. :) Even my order from Lotus had more progress visibility, and that's practically hand made. Domestic cars too -- look at GM's staging for the Volt orders.

I guess I just want Nissan to come out and put some kind of upper-bound on the wait. "Pending" is a lot worse than "June/July 2011". I feel like I have to check on Pending every day, where June/July 2011 would let me know I could check out of the dashboard for a couple months.

I spent a few years ordering vehicles from different manufacturers (for a rental car company), and Nissan has never had a good line of transmitting production information to an end-user (and that should be the same for Infiniti). That's what I wanted to impart in this forum. The general lack of information is certainly nothing personal, and not specific to the LEAF...it's all part of this larger system that's geared for Nissan internal timelines and accounting. That's the bad news, the good news is that I've had some success getting more detailed information out of the LEAF website chat line, or the LEAF call center (877-664-2738). We'll see how that goes as market activity and deliveries increase. Nissan appears to be changing the dashboards in response to issues that come up, so feedback is important...please make Nissan aware of anything you don't like. They tell me that anytime status changes, an email is generated to the purchaser, and that a production checklist is available on a purchasers dashboard that is not available on the dealer dashboard. So, the "official" word is 4-7 months from actual order to delivery of a LEAF, email notification when order status changes, and confirmed contact when the vehicle is 30-days away from delivery.
 
turbo2ltr said:
Hmm on the 11th, I was SIT. I wonder why my ETA is 1/27. Is it really going to take almost 2 months get get to the dealer?

Yes, it could take that long. SIT seems to mean the vehicle is built and being transported to the designated dealership. If built in Japan, it will be on a ship, on a train, and finally on a truck...with possible delays all along the way. NNA seems to mean the vehicle is in possesion of Nissan North America (still headed to a designated dealer, but not 'at-sea'). DLR means the vehicle has been invoiced to a dealership. RTL means the vehicle has been retailed. The tricky part is that this status reflects a papertrail, rather than the actual vehicle. For instance, when the vehicle leaves the raillhead on a truck, the status will change from NNA to DLR, but the dealer will still not physically have the vehicle until the transport truck unloads on premises. That can take a couple of weeks in some instances. ETA, however, is when the vehicle should be at the dealer, with the actual vehicle normally, and routinely, arriving within ten days of either side of the ETA. Status is regularly updated weekly, and checking on Tuesday mornings seems to be the most effective and least intrusive way to stay on top of it, in the event the ETA changes.
 
I haven't seen status-change-emails. And where might one find that magical "production checklist" you speak of ? :roll:
 
jwhitehouse said:
I spent a few years ordering vehicles from different manufacturers (for a rental car company), and Nissan has never had a good line of transmitting production information to an end-user (and that should be the same for Infiniti). That's what I wanted to impart in this forum. The general lack of information is certainly nothing personal, and not specific to the LEAF...it's all part of this larger system that's geared for Nissan internal timelines and accounting. That's the bad news, the good news is that I've had some success getting more detailed information out of the LEAF website chat line, or the LEAF call center (877-664-2738).
I think your comment about Nissan's poor production information process certainly makes sense and I suspected the communications rabbit hole we're stuck in is not something that hiring a few staffers can fix. I mean, the LEAF dashboard seems geekily autistic. Lot's of shiny but a total abhorrence of real contact to customers. But to recommend the website chat line!!?? That's been a constant source of mis-information and sleight-of-hand jive for months IMO.
 
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