Boomer23 said:
Volusiano said:
Regarding the good will remedy issue that Chelsea asked, Andy basically blew it off by saying that US customers already got 8 year warranty instead of the 5 year warranty in other countries, so he implies that it's already good will enough.
First of all, the 8 year or 5 year warranty is not regarding premature range/capacity loss. It's only regarding battery pack functional failure. So he totally didn't answer Chelsea's question at all. I take his answer to be "there will be no general good will remedy for remaining concerned LEAF owners who are out there, you're already lucky to have 8 year functional warranty".
I can tell Nissan that AS LONG AS there is no general good will remedy for remaining LEAF owners who are concerned, there will continue to be distrust with Nissan and unhappy customers will translate to bad word of mouths and lower sales.
The amount of affected owners may be small, but the fact that Nissan is not going to implement remedy overall means that the level of distrust will continue to be there perpetually, with not just the affected owners, but with EVERYBODY. Nobody would want to recommend the LEAF to anybody anymore if Nissan still refuses to come up with a general good will remedy.
What I heard in the video was that Nissan is handling customer concerns on a customer by customer basis. If I were having premature degradation issues that interfered with my intended usage of the car, I'd be on the phone to Customer Service on a regular basis asking about my situation. I'd also be trying to get in touch with an actual Nissan exec if the CS route yielded no results, and I'd be in touch with Chelsea about my particular situation for her help in escalating my and similar issues to Nissan's top people.
Chelsea asked 2 good will questions, not just 1.
At 9:13 she said "How are you dealing with the good will issue? ..." Then Andy answered "on customer by customer basis" like you said.
But at 10:25, she was not satisfied with Andy's response above, so she asked again: "I know that you said you'll deal with it on a customer by customer basis for the Phoenix issue. Is there going to be a broader good will remedy for those who still love their LEAF, but are concerned that one day this issue will be their issue?" Andy again blew off the question and did not answer it directly. He simply said if you look at battery warranty around the world, it's 5 years, but in the US it's 8 years. I read it between the lines to mean "Don't push the question, US customers are already lucky enough to get 8 year battery warranty instead of 5, so they should be grateful and that's good will enough from us right there."
The truth of the matter is that they did the 8 year in the US only because, and right after, GM announced the 8 year warranty for the Volt. So they did the 8 year only because they didn't want to be bested by GM on the Volt. It's not because they have good will for the US owners. If so, then why don't they have good will for the rest of the world and give everybody 8 years?
By then, Chelsea knew she wasn't going to get an answer out of him, so she moved on with other questions.
My whole point was that Nissan's first answer to the question about handling it on a case by case basis is not going to be satisfactory for people in Phoenix or elsewhere who are not affected enough to render their LEAF totally useless, and can live with the premature range reduction, but are still very much inconvenienced because of the premature range reduction. In their cases, they don't necessarily want to proceed with the lemon buyback, but they still get a very bitter taste in their mouth because there's no other good will measure to satisfy them, short of going through the lemon buyback process.
There may end up being a dozen lemon buybacks in AZ, but there are still going to be 400 very sore and bitter AZ owners who decide not to do the lemon buyback, but still feel that they're royally screwed by Nissan for luring them into buying LEAFs in AZ without enough information and facts to make an informed purchase decision.
And there will be thousands of other LEAF owners outside of AZ in similar fate, who got affected by premature capacity bar loss, but not severe enough for a lemon buyback, but with a very sour taste in their mouth because of a lack of any good will remedy
The problem is now already beyond a technical problem. The problem is now a public relations problem. And it's not going to go away. Look at the last few months alone. That's all everybody ever talked about. And it's going to get worse next summer, and the summer after. More and more capacity bar losers are going to emerge, by the thousands in the next couple of years. Nissan can't tape over the capacity meter on the LEAF anymore. The cat is already out of the bag. Even for owners who are not affected, AND especially for potential buyers, all eyes are looking at Nissan to see if they're going to stand behind their product or not.
Short of a technical remedy, like heat resistant battery chemistry, or TMS, which we now know clearly they don't have for 2013, a good will remedy is the ONLY way Nissan is going to get out of this mess. A lack of any kind of good will remedy at all whatsoever (and lemon buyback is not the answer for everyone) will show everybody that Nissan is not willing to stand behind their product. So who is willing to buy from a company who's not willing to stand behind their product?