Nissan Leaf Demand Outpacing Supply

Nissan’s hack-and-slash pricing strategy for the Leaf electric model is working well. Moreover, it might be working even better.

Erik Gottfried, the automaker’s chief of electric car, informs Nissan will be short of inventory for its EV until late fall. Nissan is nowadays delivering about 2,000 of its electric vehicles every month, which is more than 4 times its sales figure from the previous year.

The relative deliveries boom started when Nissan announced during the Detroit Motor Show in January that the Leaf would get a mild bump in range and a $6,000 cost reduction. Clients started replying, and they haven’t stopped.

Moreover, the reply was so positive that Chevrolet is providing discounts on the Volt plug-in hybrid. Ford informed about a $4,000 price reduction for the Focus EV last week. Honda is lowering the cost of its Fit EV.

That doesn’t mean adoption of the Leaf and its competition to bring the vehicles mainstream. Not even close.

“Not every dealer has pursued delivering the Leaf yet,” Gottfried informed Carsbase. “But what we’ve seen recently is that one dealer in a city will start marketing the vehicle and have a huge success with it. Then the other dealers in the market will understand there’s a real opportunity and start marketing it, too.”

As sales carry on to grow, Nissan is going to broaden charging infrastructure by adding more than 100 charging places at dealer locations in 21 U.S. markets.