Steal Your Battery program: Any news? Hello Nissan?

[KJD]

Nissan really needs to address this issue. They have had enough time to figure out the answer to this very reasonable question.

 

[thankyouOB]

i will be telling the dealer that i cant make a second LEAF purchase until i know the battery replacement costs.
I am wiser than I was two years ago.

 

[smkettner]

^^^^ +1

 

[JPWhite]

i will be telling the dealer that i cant make a second LEAF purchase until i know the battery replacement costs.
I am wiser than I was two years ago.

Wise choice for you maybe, but the impact on the dealer/Nissan will be next to zero. I don't think the majority of dealers give a rats $#@ if they sell a LEAF or not, they'll be happy to sell you something else though.

Just got a nice flyer from Nissan showing different vehicles, options, discounts etc. 5 vehicles in total. No LEAF. Got a chance to win a 370z. I also got a coupon for a free oil change

 

[smkettner]

Wise choice for you maybe, but the impact on the dealer/Nissan will be next to zero. I don't think the majority of dealers give a rats $#@ if they sell a LEAF or not, they'll be happy to sell you something else though.

Except many of us have never owned a Nissan before...... and maybe never again.

 

[thankyouOB]

i will be telling the dealer that i cant make a second LEAF purchase until i know the battery replacement costs.
I am wiser than I was two years ago.

Wise choice for you maybe, but the impact on the dealer/Nissan will be next to zero. I don't think the majority of dealers give a rats $#@ if they sell a LEAF or not, they'll be happy to sell you something else though.

Just got a nice flyer from Nissan showing different vehicles, options, discounts etc. 5 vehicles in total. No LEAF. Got a chance to win a 370z. I also got a coupon for a free oil change

au contraire, the sales manager got on the phone sunday when I asked another sales person if i could exchange the free oil/filter change owner reward for a free air filter when i came in for service. (yes, jp, it was the same one you got.)
after being on hold for two minutes, the sales manager talked me up for 10, saying he would see if he could make that happen. and when would i like to come in to discuss selling my old leaf and buying a 2013. he began to rundown his sales pitch.

they are eager to sell the car.

 

[WetEV]

Interesting to note that Smart Car Electric Drive (2013) comes with a battery purchase/lease option. Battery is priced at US$ 5,010 in the US. In Europe, battery was priced at Euro 4770, which is a bit more at US$ 6239 (1 Euro = US$ 1.308 currently), but that price seems to include VAT (19%?) which would mean battery is US$ 5054 before tax. Do note that this is a smaller battery, 17.6 kWh.

Nice to see if Nissan would give a similar option, including to owners of current cars. This is a big issue for me.

I'm thinking about a new car for the wife sometime in the next year, and Nissan might just lose out. I've agree to let her do it when I bought the car, but I'm tired of her taking the Leaf one day a week.

 

[TomT]

+1

Except many of us have never owned a Nissan before...... and maybe never again.

 

[dgpcolorado]

+1

Except many of us have never owned a Nissan before...... and maybe never again.

And then there are a few of us who are willing to cut Nissan some slack for coming out with the first decent mass-produced EV, an enormous challenge.

If that new battery cost is reasonable my inclination is to keep the car and swap batteries as needed. (However, I understand that it depends a lot on how much range one needs and what climate one is in.)

 

[DaveEV]

i will be telling the dealer that i cant make a second LEAF purchase until i know the battery replacement costs.
I am wiser than I was two years ago.

Easy solution - sell them your LEAF and lease a new one for 2-3 years. Then the battery replacement cost is all on Nissan, not you.

 

[thankyouOB]

sorry, drees, while that may work for you, i dont get into the lease game with dealers.

 

[apvbguy]

i dont lease.

please elaborate on your reasons for not considering a lease

 

[DaveEV]

sorry, drees, while that may work for you, i dont get into the lease game with dealers.

Take you pick: battery price game or lease price game. If you are worried about battery price the lease game seems to be the better way to go - very easy to negotiate a fair lease with all the details shared on this forum.

 

[EatsShootsandLeafs]

I actually spoke with an auto journalist about a week back for ~20 min who has toured the battery plant in TN. I told him that the #1 question of people on this Leaf forum seems to be what is the cost of a replacement battery, and if he can get such information out in an article it would be pretty impressive. He did echo that Nissan is a bit cagey with this information. Was going to try and get it, but it's certainly a question Nissan has had thrown around many, many times.

I suppose one way to get the answer would be for a person to willingly destroy their battery and tell Nissan they did it, so that Nissan would not honor the warranty. At that point the person would have to pay cash for a new one and Nissan would presumably sell it. So, anybody who has $5-15k to part with, go!

 

[thankyouOB]

sorry, drees, while that may work for you, i dont get into the lease game with dealers.

Take you pick: battery price game or lease price game. If you are worried about battery price the lease game seems to be the better way to go - very easy to negotiate a fair lease with all the details shared on this forum.

what I want is a price for a car part for a car I own.
I think a fair price for it installed, along with a fair price for the battery I give them, is not too much to ask of Nissan. They are busy calculating how they want to handle that and it is a big decision. i think a huge part of the entire LEAF project will turn on it. the Nissan reputation is on the line.

My money is on Nissan rather than the dealership owners. I think the decision-making and integrity at the corporate level beats the equivalent taking place in the minds of the men and women who own the dealership. i have seen them up close and i dont like the way they behave very much. they give greed a bad name and they treat their employees shabbily, in my experience.

as to leasing, i dont want to pay for a car each month and have nothing in three years after spending 10-12k.
I also dont want to bend my mind around factors, interest rates and drive off payments at the start and, at the end, deal with residual values and allowable mileage. I am just not playing that game.
the entire discussion with those car dealership sales people is an unworthy event and then they send you into the finance guy, who has 3-8 other hoops he wants you to try on.
(and i never go in to price or buy a car without invoice pricing and the consumer reports mass-buying car deals either printed out or committed to memory.)

i get the other downsides. if and when i sell the car, i have to get a price for it and there is the issue of new technology coming along rapidly.

call me an old dog, but this works for me. if it costs a couple of thousand or i win a couple of thousand, i have more brain cells alive at the end and I dont have to write a ck to those people every month.

 

[AP1]

+1

 

[derkraut]

+2 I like your line of reasoning, Thankyouob

 

[JPWhite]

Easy solution - sell them your LEAF and lease a new one for 2-3 years. Then the battery replacement cost is all on Nissan, not you.

Your 'easy solution' comes at a cost that I personally cannot accept.

I was offered $3,500 cash plus a 'free 2 year lease' over 15.000 miles. Sounds great except I'd no longer own the car I paid decent money for.
I currently drive over 15,000 miles per year, so such a deal could get costly. One reason not to lease.

I'll just hang onto what I have until the deals get more lucrative. If they don't I'll still have my vehicle.

 

[thankyouOB]

hey andy,
only 42 days left in spring 2013.
what are you waiting for?

a new battery installed costs _________.
fill in the blank, please.

we are already 8 days past the cross-quarter day.
(you can look it up, but since you are from England, land of the druids, you prolly know what that means.)

 

[thankyouOB]

may 10
battery price blackhole could be keeping me from buying another LEAF.

how about you?