Sep 21 2015
Chevy Bolt vs Nissan LEAF – Chevy Bolt Winner

GM has a winner with the forthcoming Chevy Bolt and investments are being made to support the fast tracking of the Chevy Bolt for late 2016 early 2017 release. The manufacturing will take place at the Orion plant in Detroit, Michigan.

With a target range of 200 miles it will be the first long range all electric EV, to compete with Tesla.  The Nissan LEAF still pales at less than 100 miles range and when you factor in range loss and poor battery design and chemistry you will be kicking yourself for buying a glorified golf cart. And that is what the resale value on the Nissan LEAF amounts to, those paying upwards of 30-40 are seeing cars coming off a lease and sold for as low as $3000 because nobody wants to deal with the battery issues Nissan created.

With Nissan LEAF owners taking Nissan to court and two class action suits “settled” other owners are left with 9 bars  of battery capacity and not even 60% of the advertised promised range. With the fiasco Nissan created other lawsuits are sure to follow, perhaps lemon law actions, and small claim courts actions will snap Nissan out of the game they are playing with the EV industry.

And nobody is talking about how the federally mandated low/zero emission vehicle investments by manufacturers are being processed, did Nissan get a big Federal and State break for make an investment in the Nissan LEAF, only to sell large gas guzzlers?  Why are people who worked at Nissan no longer there and so happy once they left? Apparently working conditions are as bad as owning a car that a company doesn’t really care about supporting early adopters.

Nissan could get their act together and make things right, perhaps offering those Nissan owners a pro-rated rate on the battery, it is not rocket science, traditional battery manufacturers offer such warranties and they seem to work pretty well.  They other thing is Nissan could be more transparent, and put a more front facing team like they did when the Nissan LEAF launched, but that was a different era at Nissan, most if not all of those people are either gone or moved to other positions.  It will be interesting to see who from Nissan will be at the upcoming auto shows, and who will be on hand representing Nissan on the 2016-2017 LEAF. My guess is that just like they have been doing at many events for NDEW Nissan will have its marketing company handle customer facing interactions. Bad move, for Nissan, when you put a marketing company with limited knowledge and no real vested interest in the success of the product or perhaps they are even aware of the shortcomings of the product, why would anyone buy a LEAF?

At the various NDEW which Nissan was a sponsor, either Nissan failed to appear, or was there with limited presence and not many people showing interest in their product.  Nissan is being displaced in the EV space and it is happening right before their eyes and they can’t see it.  Sales are down, and they are scrambling to try to save it, but the ship sailed long ago, and has started to sink.

Nissan you have a big problem and it starts from the top.

Kudos to GM for taking the right steps to make a product that will surely be a hit in the market.

 

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