Slow EV Sales Disappoint And Frustrate Nissan COO
Nissan’s chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga said he was “disappointed and frustrated” by the lackluster sales of electric vehicles in general and the Leaf in particular. Speaking at the mid-term results press conference at the Nissan HQ in Yokohama, his emotional appeal to recognize Nissan’s pioneering efforts in the field of zero emissions had undertones of an eulogy on the electric vehicle:
“Somewhere in the history of mankind, people will have to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and Nissan is assuming the risk to do it now. We were the first volume maker deploy EVs globally. Please don’t forget that we have this passion and a sense of mission.”
Not giving up on EVs, Shiga personally heads a task force to accelerate the sales of EVs. So far, Shiga did not have more to report than mining the data harvested from the connected Leafs, and giving the data to companies that will install quick chargers.
Next month, it will be two years that Nissan launched the Leaf pure EV. According to Shiga, it saw global sales of 42,700 units since introduction, 19,000 of them in Japan.
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.
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- Master Baiter The 10 year maintenance cost should be normalized with respect to the vehicle cost. Of course a $150K Porsche or Range Rover is going to cost more to maintain than a $20K Camry.
- Paul 175k? Pffft not a chance. A VW with that mileage is an enormous bill waiting to happen.
- Turbo Is Black Magic Civic Si all the way… it’s the sweet spot of fun to drive, manual, decent MPG’s, no dealer markup BS. Especially in Canada where you can get heated seats.If you are in the US just buy the last gen Si… it’s still a vastly better car than the current one.
- FreedMike Cheap, fun car. I like it. For what it's worth, good examples of the first-gen models (based on the original Golf) have become collectible and expensive.
- Ajla I won't rank them because there are too many permutations but if I was actually shopping them odds are high I'd end up with some flavor of Corolla over some flavor of Civic.
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I might be more interested if they change the battery warranty to cover capacity loss over time. As it is, virtually all of this type of risk is on the consumer. I have an incomplete table posted here: http://evbww.wordpress.com/
I know this is subjective, but I find the Leaf one of the ugliest car I have ever seen. The curves on the side have no symmetry, uniformity or orderliness. It is shaped like a malformed bumpy potato. Otherwise this type of car excites me. I also think the price needs to be a bit lower however I would have no problem paying what they pay in California for it if it was less ugly.