Dead End? March LEAF Electric Car Sales Increase by 286.2%

[OKIsItJustMe]

1. Putting things into context for a moment

In a record sales month for Nissan in general, one of their models (the LEAF) also had record sales, amounting to: 1.6% of vehicles sold.

http://www.plugincars.com/ghosn-defends-nissan-leaf-calling-electric-cars-future-automobile-126844.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Nissan's Ghosn Defends LEAF as Long-Term Investment[/font]

By David Herron · April 01, 2013

[font size=3]In some quarters, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has some explaining to do for staking the company's future on the all-electric LEAF. While the LEAF just had its best sales month ever, with more than 2,200 units sold in March 2013, it will take several months of similar numbers to overcome the sting of low sales in 2012. Speaking at the New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) over the weekend, Ghosn defended the choice to embrace electrification, saying that Nissan can afford the long-term investment, and that Nissan intends to make a major move into China with the LEAF technology.

Ghosn described the LEAF as "an asset for the brand." He believes the EV projects an eco-friendly and tech-savvy image of the company. It shows that Nissan "dares going into places and tackling products that nobody has tackled before," he said. Ghosn's rhetoric is persuasive, but this question lingers: Does a company spend 4 billion euros developing a product just to convey a green image?

[font size=4]One Step at a Time[/font]

For Ghosn, the LEAF is more than expensive greenwashing. It's a long term investment in the future of the automobile. With manufacturing now localized to North America and England, Nissan is now ready to, as Ghosn put it, "transform the LEAF from a technological feat to a sales performance." With the LEAF, Nissan has "a great car, a great technology but the main challenge now is to sell."

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But, according to Ghosn, the LEAF is still too expensive. The next step for Nissan was to "localize" production of the LEAF to North America and Europe. That move is part of a broader strategy to move production out of Japan, to the same continent where cars are sold. The reason behind this is monetary exchange rates, and the value of the Yen. The current exchange rates are expensive for Nissan, and moving LEAF production to the U.S. is what enabled Nissan to lower the entry-level price of the LEAF.

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http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/heads-roll-at-nissan-as-leaf-sales-fail-to-reach-half-the-projected-goals/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Heads roll at Nissan as LEAF sales fail to reach half the projected goals[/font]

By Nick Jaynes — March 12, 2013

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Although Nissan has just passed the 50,000 mark for LEAF sales, it’s a far cry from the initial expectations. The Japanese automaker hoped to sell twice that number in the same amount of time.

Only selling 9,819 LEAFs in 2011, Nissan still aimed to sell 20,000 for 2012. It fell just shy of half that goal in spite having slashed prices and increased the LEAF’s driving range.

In light of these less-than-spectacular sales figures, Nissan has moved the corporate vice president of electric cars, Hideaki Watanabe, to senior vice president of Nissan parts supplier Calsonic Kansei and replaced him with former Nissan chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga.

“Chief Operating Officer Shiga is taking direct responsibility of zero emission efforts because the business is Nissan’s top priority which requires global and cross-functional efforts,” Chris Keeffe, a spokesman for the carmaker said speaking to Bloomberg.

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