At first, the Leaf noticed sturdy curiosity from tech-savvy, enthusiastic early adopters, primarily on the West Coast. It garnered “hundreds and hundreds” of preorders, the chief recalled.
“There was nothing prefer it in the marketplace on the time,” he mentioned. “It had extra torque than Maxima and a Zen-like driving expertise as a result of it was so quiet.”
However as soon as Nissan met that early demand, gross sales hit a wall of ambivalence from the mainstream.
“{The marketplace} simply did not care,” the chief mentioned.
Nissan had projected U.S. gross sales of 20,000 Leafs in 2012 however delivered fewer than half that for the yr, as electrified opponents arrived. Leaf gross sales peaked in 2014 at 30,200.
Inside the corporate, “there was this huge quantity of strain as a result of Ghosn had simply bullied via these billions and billions of {dollars} of investments,” the previous exec recalled.
To maneuver Leafs, Nissan leveraged state and federal EV tax credit to supply prospects low-cost leases. In Atlanta, Nissan famously supplied a $199-a-month lease on the automobile, which ultimately led the Georgia Legislature to yank the state’s wealthy $5,000 EV tax credit score.
However the aggressive leasing hammered Leaf residual values, requiring Nissan to prop up new gross sales with incentives.
The previous government mentioned that at its peak, the Leaf represented about three % of Nissan gross sales but accounted for greater than 10 % of its incentive spending.
As an EV pioneer, Nissan confronted challenges in commercializing the Leaf, which additional ballooned outlays. With out an ecosystem of battery suppliers to faucet, Nissan needed to develop and build its personal batteries.
“There was a ton of trial and error, with early batteries getting thrown in dumpsters,” the exec mentioned. “We have been going via an enormous studying curve on battery expertise.”
And all of the whereas, the Leaf’s lopsided economics made the concept of latest investments within the automobile more durable to justify, particularly as Nissan’s bread-and-butter fashions, such because the Altima, additionally required redesigns.
“You could not with a straight face say, ‘Hey, I would like one other billion {dollars} to replace the Leaf,’ ” the supply added.