Nissan: We Can Match Bolt

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

evnow

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Messages
11,480
Location
Seattle, WA
http://wardsauto.com/industry/nissan-we-can-match-bolt

“We will have offerings that will be comparable and at one point exceed the competitors again,” Michael Bunce, Nissan North America’s newly installed product planning chief, tells WardsAuto here during an interview at the 2016 North American International Auto Show.
 
I've always said it would take some real competition for Nissan to up its EV game and that they'd rest on their (fairly earned) laurels until then.

But it's interesting to see so many vehicles now in development/planning with these range claims. WHERE ARE THOSE BATTERIES? Do they yet exist in usable form or is this all predicated on laboratory data and predictions?
 
mwalsh said:
I don't personally think the next gen LEAF will be competitive with the Bolt. I can't say why I feel that way, but I just don't.

Such negativity! I'm fascinated how we can own a Leaf...for about the same time...with similar experiences...and come out of it with such different viewpoints. I think Nissan was a leader in the EV revolution, and I think they will be again. The economics have changed in that I don't think any of us would have predicted gasoline < $2 almost 5 years after we bought our Leafs, but life is full of surprises. I still think the massive investment in platforms and battery technology (maybe only Tesla has invested more) will pay off in the long run for Nissan.
 
I believe that Nissan's misstatements, lack of statements, false claims, and outright lies over the previous few years are responsible for this attitude of many in no small part... It is hard to simply take them at their word due to this...

Stanton said:
Such negativity! I'm fascinated how we can own a Leaf...for about the same time...with similar experiences...and come out of it with such different viewpoints.
 
I think the next generation LEAF will be more feature rich than the Bolt (radiant drivers heat sounds really exciting), and it will probably offer a more comfortable and premium interior- but my experience with how Nissan handled the battery degradation issue tells me that I really shouldn't go back to Nissan if a competitive product is available from another manufacturer. The corporate response to the battery degradation issue was a huge disappointment. Frankly, I don't trust Nissan, and they have a long way to go to rebuild that trust.

I love my LEAF, but I'm glad it's a lease. If I can love this car in the condition it's in, I'm sure I'll love the Bolt even better.
 
Stanton said:
Such negativity! I'm fascinated how we can own a Leaf...for about the same time...with similar experiences...and come out of it with such different viewpoints. I think Nissan was a leader in the EV revolution, and I think they will be again. The economics have changed in that I don't think any of us would have predicted gasoline < $2 almost 5 years after we bought our Leafs, but life is full of surprises. I still think the massive investment in platforms and battery technology (maybe only Tesla has invested more) will pay off in the long run for Nissan.

I wish I could tell you what is driving my feelings in this matter, but I can assure you it's not Nissan as a brand. Nor is it my experience with the Gen 1 LEAF. Perhaps you can hazard a guess based on some of my previous postings? If I mention "cheese" does that help any?
 
Or "cheesy"? It's just that the Leaf has such an econobox aura. Non-woven "carpet" being a fine example. And the dumpling shape. And the cabin air filter door that you have to break to remove. Or the lousy 12V charging algorithm... If they didn't fix any of this stuff in six years, will they get it right on Leaf 2?

-Karl
 
I am looking forward to some affordable competition, Bolt will not be available here until fall 2016, wait and see I guess. Probably be an OBL by then :D
 
Nissan needs to bring a entirely new game to LEAF 2 to really compete, not as much with the Bolt which seems really boring to me but more in terms of potential pressure from Tesla. Even if the Tesla is $10K more it would make the Nissan seem overpriced from a perceptual standpoint. Nissan seems to really be clueless in some areas of quality and features and when it comes to performance in an EV they have their head in the sand. If they deliver a higher range boring car with only slightly better performance it's really going to hurt them unless they come in at an insanely low price point. By the time this is all out there we may see a surprise Toyota Prius EV announcement.
 
Nubo said:
I've always said it would take some real competition for Nissan to up its EV game and that they'd rest on their (fairly earned) laurels until then.

But it's interesting to see so many vehicles now in development/planning with these range claims. WHERE ARE THOSE BATTERIES? Do they yet exist in usable form or is this all predicated on laboratory data and predictions?

The batteries for the Bolt and the Model 3 exist already. There are batteries for other competitors but they don't matter as much.

As to resting on their laurels after watching Tesla do monthly or there about updates to the Model S software since 2012 it really bites that I can't drive to the nearest Nissan dealer and get upgraded software for my 2012 Leaf and I know that if I buy a 60 kWh Leaf it'll have outdated software the day it ships and they'll never update the software in the 4 years after that.

I still have to press OK every time I start the Leaf.

I still have to use a OBDII adapter + phone to get SOC% (could be hacked into the dash in place of the trees or added to the center screen either would be a huge boon for reducing the drain on my 12v battery and make life more convenient for others that borrow the car)

I still can't set charge timers with any sort of flexibility on end percentage or setting more than one charge timer per day. Something on that front wouldn't be that hard to modify if you had access to the source. Change the 100% setting to 85% and the 80% setting to 70% and then override or no timer set would do 100% and I'd have 3 functional levels with a minor software change. Put more effort into it and give me a slider or more than two end percentage buttons and that'd be even better (I'd like a 50% and 70% and 90% if I had 3 buttons).

I could go on and on but you can't tell me that a company as big as Nissan can't do a simple post sale software update/fix/release of any kind?

That alone is reason enough to buy the Tesla Model 3 over the Leaf 2. Just knowing how ever many mistakes Tesla makes they'll at least fix some of them. Not just one, but multiple items are guaranteed to be suboptimal on both cars and Tesla will fix some items. If they start out equal the Tesla car will be better by month 6 before Nissan can even get the next "model year" out.

Will Chevy be any better on software updates for the Bolt? Even if not at least they have active cooling for the battery pack for those of us living south of the 40th parallel that have seen degradation on the Leaf.
 
All I keep thinking with the leaf bashing, is the Leaf is out in the wild, we can buy them. Yet some are saying the bolt will be" the car", it's not out yet and it made by our friends that brought us the EV1 and then took it away, but some trust GM and not Nissian?

I guess what I am saying is every manufacture has their own problems and issues and different directions (and Lawyers), which I think is great and ultimately what will push EV's forward. As it has been said before but worth repeating, it amazes me they do all this work on a vehicle type that is already pretty efficient, compared to the "fleet" why we don't have a Volt SUV or minivan is beyond me, doubling 40 mpg to 80 saves a bunch, but doubling 15 to 50 is a much larger jump, much more significant and in a much larger market. I believe they are taking baby steps, really a bunch of babies taking small steps in all different directions until they see how this works and that doesn't work, learning from each other as they go.

I just keep hoping this trend continues to move forward.
 
As for trust, I would trust Nissan over GM.

As for competitiveness, I suspect that Nissan will be quite competitive, if not again the leader. They have a lot more of these on the road, with a lot more miles driven and a lot more data collected than anyone else. I sincerely doubt they've completely ignored all of that advantage and have been sitting idly on their laurels. It wasn't until 14/15 that decent direct competitors showed up. I think many will be quite surprised by what Nissan puts out there in the 17/18 timeframe.
 
But I concur, if they are going to be competitive with the Bolt in 2017, we should be seeing something at the car shows by now. However, they don't want to cause everyone to stop buying the Leaf and wait for that nice gem to arrive. Chevy doesn't have that same concern as they don't have an EV with a substantial market base to get hit. So their best marketing tactic is to try to tease potential EV buyers into waiting for the Bolt rather than buy now.
 
dhanson865 said:
Nubo said:
I've always said it would take some real competition for Nissan to up its EV game and that they'd rest on their (fairly earned) laurels until then.

But it's interesting to see so many vehicles now in development/planning with these range claims. WHERE ARE THOSE BATTERIES? Do they yet exist in usable form or is this all predicated on laboratory data and predictions?

The batteries for the Bolt and the Model 3 exist already. There are batteries for other competitors but they don't matter as much.

As to resting on their laurels after watching Tesla do monthly or there about updates to the Model S software since 2012 it really bites that I can't drive to the nearest Nissan dealer and get upgraded software for my 2012 Leaf and I know that if I buy a 60 kWh Leaf it'll have outdated software the day it ships and they'll never update the software in the 4 years after that.

I still have to press OK every time I start the Leaf.

I still have to use a OBDII adapter + phone to get SOC% (could be hacked into the dash in place of the trees or added to the center screen either would be a huge boon for reducing the drain on my 12v battery and make life more convenient for others that borrow the car)

I still can't set charge timers with any sort of flexibility on end percentage or setting more than one charge timer per day. Something on that front wouldn't be that hard to modify if you had access to the source. Change the 100% setting to 85% and the 80% setting to 70% and then override or no timer set would do 100% and I'd have 3 functional levels with a minor software change. Put more effort into it and give me a slider or more than two end percentage buttons and that'd be even better (I'd like a 50% and 70% and 90% if I had 3 buttons).

I could go on and on but you can't tell me that a company as big as Nissan can't do a simple post sale software update/fix/release of any kind?

That alone is reason enough to buy the Tesla Model 3 over the Leaf 2. Just knowing how ever many mistakes Tesla makes they'll at least fix some of them. Not just one, but multiple items are guaranteed to be suboptimal on both cars and Tesla will fix some items. If they start out equal the Tesla car will be better by month 6 before Nissan can even get the next "model year" out.

Will Chevy be any better on software updates for the Bolt? Even if not at least they have active cooling for the battery pack for those of us living south of the 40th parallel that have seen degradation on the Leaf.

Tesla is not a large conservative Japanese corporation or huge auto maker. Pushing software to cars requires specific hardware not traditionally used by automakers until now by Tesla. There are many reasons Nissan did not do this and why they can't. In the future this will likely be more available but they barely got the LEAF out in time and the systems were cobbled together unlike the ICE cars. Engineering time after that gets devoted to fixing issues, providing small feature changes, and development of the next car platform which will likely not be anything to rave about just like the Bolt which I think is a bit hyped in certain circles at the moment. I don't see anything ground breaking or exciting on the Bolt other then the fact that it's a big improvement over the LEAF which is not saying much. The name is also a stupid marketing decision that provides no segment identity and nothing but confusion for consumers and dealers that will wonder what car people are talking about. Only a company like GM would come up with such a dumb name like this and the NOVA. I already had to repeat it three times to someone this week because a VOLT an BOLT sound the same. I wonder who was the brain child of this idea. Just wait until people call the service department to schedule an appointment, "You have a Volt? No a Bolt? Ok, A Volt" No! Just add an accent and see how comical this is going to get.
 
DarthPuppy said:
As for trust, I would trust Nissan over GM.
Ditto. My parents have been burned by too many not very reliable GM cars, which is all of them they ever had. They stopped buying GM ages ago. Other than a Dodge Caravan (obviously not GM), it's been only Toyotas and Nissans for them and myself since then. (I'm on Nissan #4 now. Prior to the Leafs, it was a 350Z and a Maxima.)

Back w/GM's old management, it seems GM was always in denial about the superior reliability of Japanese cars and always kept saying their cars were competitive. To this day, they continue to make a boatload of unreliable cars (and FAR too many battering ram of death class vehicles) but at least they've improved in other aspects such as apparent build quality, interior quality, NVH and handling.
 
Comments about software updates is interesting. I doubt any traditional OEM would match Tesla this decade.
 
Back
Top