The Case Of The Missing Bars: Nissan Buys Back Leafs, Lawyers Sue

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Nissan bought back two Leafs from Arizona customers who complained about deteriorating batteries. Automotive News [sub] thinks “this could mollify a small group of Leaf owners and green-car enthusiasts.” However, it does not look like it.

At MyNissanLeaf.com, the discussion meanwhile fills 400 pages and more than 4,000 posts. Hybridcars reports that a small group of vocal Nissan Leaf owners and erstwhile enthusiasts feel they were “not being treated with forthrightness in their attempts to have Nissan concede their batteries were prematurely degraded due to heat.”

Originally willing to help Nissan improve the car, the spurned Leaf-lovers turn into enemies and Volt buyers. Said one forum poster:

“[Forum member] Tony has been one of the strongest supporters of the LEAF and it is troubling to see the transformation in recent months. I should say that this is troubling for Nissan and its fledgling EV enterprise because clearly, unlike GM (maybe it’s really learned from the EV1 fallout), Nissan has not shown appropriate support for it’s early adopters!

While Leaf owners in Arizona are appalled by Nissan not admitting defects, car executives show more sympathy: “This is early stage technology, and problems arising in a concatenation of circumstances are common,” said an executive of a German car company with extensive American experience. “But if you have ever been the target of a NHTSA probe, or, worse, of a class action suit, and were hounded by a pack of rabid lawyers, you learned to shut up until you know exactly what the problem is, and probably even longer .”

Not surprisingly, a class action suit has been filed on September 24 “on behalf of a proposed Class of all California and Arizona consumers who purchased or leased any 2011 through 2012 Nissan Leaf vehicle.”


Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
8 of 48 comments
  • Mistrernee Mistrernee on Sep 29, 2012

    What will make EV's work: -Low temp/safe molten salt batteries (they're working on it) -standard swappable cells -service stations that heat/charge the batteries and exchange/swap them into a car in a few minutes One downside is that the car would probably need to be plugged in most of the time when it isn't running, especially in colder climates. Anything less than the above is just begging for disappointment. It's entirely possible to do but requires a massive investment up front and until petrol is 3 dollars a litre no private company will bother. If we want to reduce our dependence on oil it's going to take a MASSIVE government investment/intervention. I think it's a bit late and we are past the point of no return.. The time to do something about climate change was way back when Carter was in office. Everyone could commute to work in a screaming jimmy nowadays and the end result would be the same. I'm a bit of a pessimist though.

    • See 4 previous
    • Nikita Nikita on Oct 01, 2012

      -standard swappable cells -service stations that heat/charge the batteries and exchange/swap them into a car in a few minutes The industry cant even come up with a common charge connector. Battery technology will continue to advance and differentiate one EV from another. This has been mentioned before as a solution to slow charge times and it just wont work.

  • SCE to AUX SCE to AUX on Oct 01, 2012

    Heaven help me; I just bought a Leaf this past Saturday (lease, actually). The Nissan discount plus PA state and US subsidies make it very attractively prices. My excellent xB1 is history - traded for the Leaf. And I'm not even a tree-hugger. I'm not a fan of subsidies, but if the money's on the table, I'm taking it.

    • BrianL BrianL on Oct 01, 2012

      Let us know what you think of it come winter time. Should be fine in the summer.

Next