Andy Palmer and Chelsea Sexton Discuss the Nissan LEAF

[TonyWilliams]

The $100 could change as I get closer to actually needing to do it. But my local leaf tech said he can drop and split a pack in about 15 minutes, so I have trouble believing that more than one man hour should be billed.

One dealership already charged the insurance company $3000 to drop the battery for the paint shop. Given an opportunity, they will take you for whatever they could get.

Caveat emptor.

[thankyouOB]

in the interest of transparency, i ask andy or chelsea to explain why nissan cant just give us a price for a new battery. they have them, right?
what factors are nissan weighing with regard to setting a price for the battery installed.

i assume it isnt just sheer orneriness that prevents them from telling us; they really have some issues that they are debating.
Well, what are the considerations that keep them from going ahead and saying: $6799 installed?
perhaps, there are even pro and con arguments being weighed.

give us a peak, please. we are the customer base, after all.

[TonyWilliams]

I found it interesting that Andy Palmer said they are gathering State Of Health via Carwings. If so, why did Nissan claim that so few Phoenix cars were affected? That just doesn’t ring true.

It's easy. They have to, 'cuz they're getting sued.

Lets say I bet you $100 that I can tell how far you will throw a rock. I don't even need to know your size, ability, etc, or even watch the act being done.

You just throw it, and tell me how far it went. My answer will be that's is exactly what I had guessed and thanks for the $100; would you like to go double or nothing?

[jspearman]

Has anyone else in Phoenix been contacted by Nissan today? I posted it on the 11-bar thread, too, that I got a call from Nissan asking me to bring my car into the dealer next week. It sounded like they are contacting other owners, too, and are flying in a technician. She acknowledged that I had called in to complain about my loss and was apologetic. Said asked about charging habits, number of miles, quick charging (she told me not to QC more than once a week), and asked me if we were happy with the car. I said that we love our Leaf, but that we worry about the degradation too much to make it a pleasurable ownership experience.

She said that she couldn't promise what they would do, but that they would check out the car and perhaps replace some of the battery modules. That took me by surprise. I've been on the fence about what to do with our Leaf, but I'm willing to wait and see what happens now. I plan to talk with them about some kind of lease conversion when I meet with them, since I know the batteries will take another hit next summer. I can do a 2-year lease, but I no longer want to own.

[vrwl]

We never imagined that there would be a customer, and apparently there is, uh, where, who would, say, at the end of five years of life, that they would want to bring their state-of-health of the battery back up to 100%, and therefore buy a battery.

Related to Andy Palmer's video statement about replacing batteries... I wonder if Nissan just thought everyone would replace their entire car (trade in on a new one) once we hit the 5 year mark and that we wouldn't keep the old technology vehicles past the 5 years? It seems strange to think, but I'm wondering if that was their mindset?

[Nubo]

... she told me not to QC more than once a week)...

They really need to get their story straight on this item.

[vrwl]

5) You mentioned one QC/day. Mark Perry said multiple QC's in a day are fine. Which is it? Why are QC's bad for the battery? Is it heat? If so, wouldn't a TMS keep the battery cool and allow more frequent QC's?

I feel guilty every time I QC the car. Nissan has created the first passive-aggressive automobile.

+1 When I went looking for my car, I SPECIFICALLY looked for one with a QC port. Now I'm wishing I hadn't spent the extra money.

[downeykp]

Re leasing vs purchasing, another reason Nissan probably expected more of the former is because the monthly payment is so much lower with the tax credit applied directly. Combined with the assumption that EV features and choices will change in the first few years, I know many folks who leased this time, but intend to go back to purchasing with their next EV.

While the financial advantages of leasing vs. buying are certainly a consideration, Leasing is the path that most high tech early adopters tend to take simply because of familiarity with the technology advancement curve. A version 1 of any high tech product is always a compromise of schedule, cost, component supply, and manufacturing capacity. As a rule, it is not until version 3 of something that it actually meets the original marketing and design goals for the product. That version is usually the first one that the high tech early adopter considers purchasing.

The desire to own the version 1 LEAF really took us all as a surprise, and is a great testimony to the confidence that these early adopter owners placed in Nissan. And while I applaud those of you that subscribe to the notion of owning and operating a vehicle until "the wheels fall off", you must understand that you are a dwindling breed. The replacement and recycling of vehicles today averages 8~10 years or less, so today's vehicles are designed with that duty cycle in mind.

The LEAF is an excellent example of that. It is designed to be 100% recyclable, so having a useful life of 5 ~ 10 years is misleading. All of the components of the car are designed to be used over and over again in other forms. Nothing is wasted.

And in every recycled reincarnation, the resultant reborn LEAF becomes better and better.

I don't buy the lease only scenario that you keep speaking of. Nissan went out of their way with early promises of what the car would do. Those of us that bought did so with the assumption that degradation would be as Nissan stated and could live with the reduced range. Leasing is never a good financial decision if you have the cash up front. Those of us who buy, buy and then drive the car into the ground, getting every penny out of it in the process.

[GRA]

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments on the video. I knew it wasn't going to be as detailed as some wanted, but I tried to press for as much information as I was reasonably going to get on the spot, while also getting in as many questions as I could in the time we had. As you saw in Jeff's comment, it's already much longer than he imagined! Though I too, told him that the last thing you guys would complain about...

As some have mentioned, there was also the reality that lawyers were only going to let him say so much, especially on camera. As it is, I'm surprised that those who reviewed the video after the fact let it stay intact- though I suspect that Jeff probably has some scars to show for that fight.

I did also send them home with some "homework".

1) projected degradation for AZ at 12,500 miles/year, right off the bat.

2) Battery cost.
As an aside, I too was surprised at Andy's response about not expecting customers to want to replace a whole pack, and we had more discussion about this off-camera. Some of this (and other issues) can be traced to Nissan not understanding their EV customers as well as it should, though this is an industry-wide issue. But at least part of his response was based, imo, in his own engineering bent- that it makes more sense to replace modules than a whole pack. (To which I responded that I'd be happy to start with a price for replacing individual modules!) Some of it may be timing, too- I don't know that they expected they'd never need a retail pack price. For sure, they didn't seem to expect to need one so soon.

3) More warranty specificity and possible revision around capacity and degradation.

4) More information on the variables impacting degradation- e.g., how much freeway driving, fast charges, etc. (I actually really like the web app idea for this.)

I expect the latter two will be longer conversations, and the advisory group may be useful for helping to shape at least #4. Either way, I'll keep on it...

As it appears that none of them have ever read it (or even heard of it), somebody needs to hand Nissan's marketing people copies of Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-tech Products to Mainstream Customers", rev. ed. (1999), which delineates the differences between the early adopters and the rest -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's a shame none of them read it before putting the Leaf on the market; it might have saved Nissan and their customers a lot of grief.

[davewill]

in the interest of transparency, i ask andy or chelsea to explain why nissan cant just give us a price for a new battery. they have them, right?
what factors are nissan weighing with regard to setting a price for the battery installed.

i assume it isnt just sheer orneriness that prevents them from telling us; they really have some issues that they are debating.
Well, what are the considerations that keep them from going ahead and saying: $6799 installed?
perhaps, there are even pro and con arguments being weighed.

give us a peak, please. we are the customer base, after all.

They don't want to give us today's answer. LEAF batteries today are made overseas and are probably priced pretty scary due to yen-dollar exchange. Tennessee batteries will be cheaper, and they will likely get cheaper still in 3-8 years when people are actually likely to buy a new battery. So, if they are forced to announce a price, do they scare everyone with a high one? Do they announce a price consistent with the future and just hope they don't get burned by someone insisting on buying now or by the costs not dropping as they project?

There's no good answer for them, and they really wanted to avoid the question if they could. I don't think they REALLY thought no one would ever want one, but they did think they could avoid the issue until cars had passed out of the 8yr/100,000 mile battery warranty. A way out of this corner would be to either liberalize the warranty so that no one will NEED to buy in near term, or offer some sort of extended plan than gets you a replacement a few years from now when you actually need it. What they will probably do is announce a price somewhere between the now price and the future price, and allude to future reductions.