Leaf -vs- Volt

[richkae]

People who don't own one will be tempted to call the Leaf the 2nd car. Thats why I tried to avoid that by saying the Leaf is good as one of two cars.
Of course the Leaf will be the "primary" car, driving most of the miles - it should be the first choice for any driving unless you are going to exceed its range.
But it will be perceived by others as the "lesser" car because of its limited range - and that gets it called the 2nd car.
Once you have an EV and realize it drives the vast majority of the miles, you won't call it your 2nd car.

 

[EVNow]

People who don't own one will be tempted to call the Leaf the 2nd car. Thats why I tried to avoid that by saying the Leaf is good as one of two cars.
Of course the Leaf will be the "primary" car, driving most of the miles - it should be the first choice for any driving unless you are going to exceed its range.
But it will be perceived by others as the "lesser" car because of its limited range - and that gets it called the 2nd car.
Once you have an EV and realize it drives the vast majority of the miles, you won't call it your 2nd car.

That is why I use the example of vacation homes. Just as the house you claim as the primary residence is the one you live in for 330 days a year - the car you use for 330 days a year is the primary car.

 

[doug]

Authentic Nissan Leaf apparel says

 

[qwk]

Good one...

 

[VolkerP]

vegan AND without meat... sort of...

 

[jeffhre]

Very few would be happy with a Leaf as their only car. Almost everybody would be happy with a Leaf as one of their two cars. The Leaf has to target two+ car families.

If the Leaf was available as promised by Nissan, some Volt owners would be Leaf owners. Since 70 miles is reasonable in a Leaf and 50 miles per day covers the vast majority of daily vehicle use, the Leaf will continue to be the "primary" car for most buyers. I agree that the "second" car will continue to be important also. Logically even if only a small fraction of days require longer range trips, those trips are clearly important enough to encourage drivers to venture well beyond their normal ranges making the second car very or even critically important for many Leaf owners.

 

[TEG]

Nissan Leaf still beats Chevy Volt in September 2011 U.S. sales, but not by much

...Overall, 2011 sales of the Leaf now stand at 7,199 units in the U.S., compared to 3,895 units for the Chevy Volt. Your eyes haven't deceived you: Year-to-date Leaf sales still stand at nearly double the Volt's sold-in-2011 mark...

 

[JRP3]

I think the LEAF is over 12K units world wide, is the Volt sold in any other country yet?

 

[TEG]

I think Volt is USA only for now. Europe will get the Ampera version soon.

 

[Nik]

I think Volt is USA only for now. Europe will get the Ampera version soon.

Apparently the UK will also get the Volt, for some reason. Not sure about the rest of Europe.

 

[JRP3]

I thought they were showing the Ampera in the UK? Do you mean they'll get both the Volt and Ampera?

 

[Nik]

I thought they were showing the Ampera in the UK? Do you mean they'll get both the Volt and Ampera?

Yes. GM rebadged one of their Korean(?) subsidiaries as Chevrolet a year or two back*, so they'll be selling the Volt too, I believe.

*It shows what a good idea this was because I can't even remember the name of the old marque. Daihatsu? Daewoo?

 

[TEG]

Yes. GM rebadged one of their Korean(?) subsidiaries as Chevrolet a year or two back*, so they'll be selling the Volt too, I believe.
*It shows what a good idea this was because I can't even remember the name of the old marque. Daihatsu? Daewoo?

GM Korea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Korean General Motors Corporation or GM Korea[SUP][1][/SUP] (former GM Daewoo Auto Technology Company or GM DAT)...

 

[dpeilow]

GM are going to take Vauxhall upmarket in the UK and Chevrolet will be the budget brand. So we will get both Voltec cars with a £500 difference in price and better interior/options on the Vauxhall.

 

[dpeilow]

Chevy Volt Outsells Nissan LEAF in October | PluginCars.com

 

[Robert.Boston]

Chevy Volt Outsells Nissan LEAF in October | PluginCars.com

I love the disconnect between annual targets and monthly sales:

Sales of the Chevy Volt continue to follow an upward trend, with October 2011 sales hitting an electrifying 1,108 units. That's a marked improvement over the 723 Volts that Chevy sold in September and nearly three times the 302 Volts that General Motors reported selling in August. Year-to-date sales of the Chevy Volt now stand at a fairly impressive 5,003 units.

Across the pond, Japanese automaker Nissan reports that sales of the all-electric LEAF sunk to 849 units in the US in October 2011. That's nearly inline with the 1,031 LEAF sales in September, but quite a bit below the 1,362 LEAFs sold by Nissan in August. From the year-to-date perspective, Nissan LEAF sales now sit at 8,048 units. That's some 3,000-plus units above the Volt's YTD mark.

Nissan expects to sell approximately 20,000 LEAFs in the US by the end of 2011, compared to half that figure for General Motors plug-in hybrid Volt.

Sooooo...

Leaf YTD is 8,048, and with two months left in the year they expect to hit 20,000? 10,000 would be optimistic, given the 849 sold in October.

Volt YTD is 5,003, so they'd need to sell about 2,500/month in November and December to hit its target of 10,000. That would be a more-than-doubling of the sales pace in October.

That said, I wish these cars well. More EVs lead to more EV infrastructure, which is good for all of us. With 13,051 EV sales from Nissan and Chevy, it's getting increasingly hard to write off EVs as some passing fad.

 

[rolosrevenge]

I think Nissan is going for 20,000 global sales. US is only 8,048 but globally they've sold over 15,000 so far.

 

[JRP3]

I think there is some confusion with the original pre-release LEAF estimates of 20,000 based on reservations. They backed away from those numbers a while ago, partly because of the earthquake/tsunami issue.

 

[TEG]

Their plan will come together if gasoline prices start to rise dramatically just as their Tennessee factory comes online...

 

[stopcrazypp]

From what I can tell, Nissan's firm sales target was always 10k-12k US sales (perhaps 20k world-wide sales), which they announced in June.

I haven't found any direct quote from Nissan that explicitly said the 20k quoted reservations were for the US only, when Nissan announced they would be closing reservations. Nor did I find a quote that said they ever targeted 20k sales in the US (all the references I can find to 20k refer to their announcement for 20k reservations; but reservations aren't the same as firm sales targets).

Anyways, sales targets aren't the most important. What's more important is that this drop not be because of waning demand (as opposed to supply issues or seasonal issues, like model year changes etc).