OrientExpress said:
fotajoye said:
What is your affiliation with Nissan?
I'm a Journalist, I also founded a LEAF Owners club.
Thank you for the reply;
I speak as a long term customer of Nissan. I even raced a turbo charged 240Z in club racing and have owned several Datsun products over the years.
One only has to read this forum to understand that Nissan management doesn't know how to administer EV policy as they have few people who understand how important the EV range is to the U.S. customer. Doesn't take a genius to understand if you want 100 miles range at 50,000 miles, you have to account for the degradation of the battery over the time frame. Additionally, It appears Nissan's plan was to sell as many subpar compliance cars worldwide as possible and claim the indirect subsidies for short term profits...their approach was to increase their PR budget to convince buyers that 70 miles was all that was needed; nothing was ever said about degradation in the PR...lies by omission, perhaps?
Instead of spending the money on improving the traction battery cells, reducing costs and increasing range, Nissan bought words on paper.
Now Nissan can't even agree on a plan to support their over 400,000 Leaf buyers. All of which will need a replacement battery; Is the price $5.5k or $9k for a 24kW replacement pack? Why doesn't Nissan do the right thing and offer the 40kW pack to gen one cars...in 10 years, a company that earns their salt should have improved their battery cell capacity by 50% and should have reduced the cost accordingly. Tesla gets it and that has been their direction; They have hinted at a 400 mile range starting in March.
I trusted Nissan to know that improving the traction battery was the key to their success in EVs. Instead they slept for 10 years. Not a peep about cell improvements. for years.
When confronted with complaints about the need to water cool their battery packs, their reaction was nil.
All their Leaf problems are battery related and Nissan just doesn't get it. It just goes on and on with the customers trying to make battery suggestions and Nissan with closed ears to the truth. It's as if Nissan sees their customers as 'The Enemy.'
Mechanically, the Leaf as a good little solid hatchback that will last for many miles, limited by a company unable to manage the new battery technology and driven more by profits at the cost of customer satisfaction.
Henry Ford based his company on taking responsibility for satisfying his customers. Perhaps Nissan management needs to read his autobiography.