Group Buy Discounts: The Nissan Leaf's Last Hope?
With Nissan Leaf sales falling like autumn foliage, a few enterprising EV fans hope to reverse the trend (or at least slow it) through group discounts.
After a Colorado group negotiated a 248-vehicle Leaf purchase for the you’re kidding me price of $12,130 per unit, other groups now wants a piece of the cheap Leaf action. In Montreal, 2,500 Quebec residents just signed up for a reduced group price, while a Wisconsin group negotiated a similar discount.
As one of the oldest EVs on the market, Leaf sales peaked in the U.S. in 2014, falling by half since then. Range is a problem — base models go 84 miles on a charge, and Nissan only just added a battery upgrade that offers 107 miles of electric driving. In an attempt to boost sales, Nissan offers free public charging in 38 U.S. cities.
Slightly boosted range and free juice hasn’t helped U.S. sales, but they’re on the rise in Canada, a relatively small market. First reported in Quebec’s La Presse, a Montreal Leaf owner wants to negotiate a better group price through a combination of dealer, manufacturer and government incentives. Bruno Marcoux patterns his efforts after last year’s buy by Colorado’s South West Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), which knocked $8,349 off the price of a base Leaf, in addition to state and federal tax credits.
As of yesterday, over 2,500 people were signed up for the group discount. Negotiations with Nissan Canada are ongoing, but Marcoux hopes to get the price under $20,000 CDN. To put that number of would-be buyers into perspective, it’s double the number of Leaf sales in Canada last year, and close to the best sales month the Leaf ever had in the U.S.
According to Hybrid Cars, a group-buying program in Wisconsin just negotiated a deal that lowers the Leaf’s price to $14,300. “Rev Up Wisconsin” is a partnership between two electrical utilities and two Madison Nissan dealerships.
The next-generation Leaf likely won’t appear until 2018, but when it does, expect a range of more than 200 miles. By that time, 200-plus mile EVs with prices in the $30,000 range won’t be a pipe dream anymore. The Chevrolet Bolt enters production this fall, with Tesla’s Model 3 following in late 2017.
[Image: Nissan]
More by Steph Willems
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With the Bolt just months away, the great sell off of under-200 mi range EVs is on! Not all manufacturers are as awake at the switch as Nissan though. I'd hate to be a dealer trying to peddle, say, a Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive right now.
Most of Canada has very cold winters. Most of Colorado too. Except for very limited situations, how practical is an EV in such places when they require normal winter heating and defrosting plus their batteries also require heating to avoid damage. Seems EV use - other than Tesla - is limited to very short commutes/city. And what happens to the EV market when guv decides to stop the large subsidies that make EV's appear to be a bargain - other peoples' money.. Solar collapsed in various European countries when guvs decided to pull the promised subsidies and it's now happening in the US too as various jurisdictions have stopped buying expensive solar power from customers.