Posts Tagged by Nissan Leaf
2GreenEnergy Video Report: Electric Transportation
| April 12, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Here, 2GreenEnergy Video Report host George Alger interviews me on the subject of electric transportation. We cover fuel-cell and battery EVs, the most likely consumer adoption curve, and the imperative on the part of the OEMs to begin to produce EVs.
Why Such Combative Reporting on Electric Vehicles?
| February 12, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I know everyone seems to be all worked up about the delays in the production of electric vehicles. Some even (erroneously) conflate this with a lack of demand, or pessimism about the industry generally.
Venturebeat notes:
Nissan … initially planned for 200 Leafs to be delivered in December, but then scaled it back to just five Leafs, according to a Nissan dealer VentureBeat spoke to last year. Nissan spokesperson, David Reuters, called the report “patently false” and said that instead, 50 Leafs would be delivered in December with two shipments, one at the start of the month and one at the end. But that didn’t happen either. Instead, the company sold 19 Leafs that month.
First, why say Nissan “sold” (rather than “delivered”)19 Leafs that month? What’s the agenda here?
And let’s keep all this in perspective. We’ve taken a few steps on a very long path — one that, by the time it leads us to our destination, will have replaced a toxic system in which we process 72 million barrels of crude oil per day. That’s worth a bit of patience — and a bit of support — don’t you think?
Nissan Delivers the LEAF
| December 14, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
My friend Paul Scott (EV/renewables consultant and all-around good guy) announced that his employer, Nissan/Renault, began its transition to electric in earnest on Saturday. In his blog on electric transportation, he points out:
Nissan could have delivered the first LEAF to a celebrity to get maximum coverage but, to their credit, they delivered it to Olivier Chaloudi, CTO of a tech company in the Bay Area who happened to be the first person to put down a $99 deposit. I like that!
I love the pure joy with which Paul writes. He’s not afraid of calling out the bad guys, but there is no nastiness in any aspect of his bearing — least of all his wonderful command of the written word. Tell it like it is, Paul.
Nissan's Leaf and the Electric Vehicle Adoption Curve
| September 8, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I commented last week on the Wall Street Journal’s article on Nissan’s electric vehicle – the Leaf. The author points out that Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has made this commitment “without even knowing if people will buy them.”
Every time I come across this idea, I wonder exactly what the writer means. Obviously, people in one-car families who take that car on frequent long trips will be extremely unlikely to put up with the inconvenience of a pure battery electric until fast charging stations are ubiquitous – and we’re certainly a million miles from there.
But isn’t it equally obvious that many people in multi-car families with garages will be eager to replace one of their cars with something that costs 80% less to fuel – and even less to maintain? I know there people who don’t care about the environment. But even people who can’t spell “ecology” or “terrorism” or “war casualties” or “lung cancer” will see very quickly that an EV is a good idea purely on a dollars and cents basis. After rebates, the Leaf will cost under $20,000 in many states. Nissan — and those who follow — won’t be able to build enough of them.
Introduction of the Nissan Leaf in Hawaii — Textbook Niche-marketing
| September 2, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
One of the keys to successful product launches is finding a niche that’s bound to be successful, and using that success to tell the story to a broader audience. Nowhere is this more important than in the introduction of electric transportation. Fortunately, as demonstrated in this article about the introduction of the Nissan Leaf in Hawaii, this niche-marketing concept is not lost on these folks.
When you think of an environment whose attributes make EVs a slam dunk, it’s hard to imagine better circumstances than most of the island nations – or, in this case, island states: low speeds, expensive gasoline – and, best of all, finite ranges that are easily accommodated by a reasonably sized battery pack. If Leaf drivers get anywhere close to 100 miles on a charge, there will be very little range anxiety to dampen the Aloha spirits of native Hawaiians and their tourist customers.
Paul Scott and the Nissan Leaf
| August 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
When my friend Paul Scott, co-founder of Plug-In America took a trip to Yokohama last June to test drive the Nissan Leaf, I never dreamed it would include a private lunch with CEO, Carlos Ghosn — and ultimately — a gig selling the Leaf at Santa Monica Nissan. If you’re in town and want a great EV made by a team truly committed to the future of clean transportation, ask for Paul. Tell ‘em Craig sent ya.
See his blog post on the subject here.
Nissan LEAF – Mainstream Coverage
| August 28, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I try to stay at least partially connected to the mainstream coverage of renewable energy and electric transportation – not so much because I believe there is truth there, but because I need to know what the mainstream consumers believe. This morning’s article in the Wall Street Journal on the Nissan LEAF was telling, for two reasons:
The author asserts, “Such a car would have been science fiction five years ago.” This, of course, is utter tripe. Until they famously killed the electric car over a decade ago, GM was making EVs that its customers absolutely adored. Some insiders report that the project was killed not because it was a failure, but for the precise opposite reason: it proved that the world had a huge appetite for electric transportation, and GM had no sincere interest in heading in that direction. At the same time, Toyota was having a similar experience with its electric RAV-4. When the decision came to recall and crush all the EVs, a maelstrom of protest arose, the remnants of which are still present in our conversations today. In any case, it most certainly completely untrue that the LEAF would have been science fiction five years ago. Anyone trying to follow this subject with any level of precision and honesty has to wonder about the agenda that could drive revisionist history like this.
The other obvious point the author repeats dozens of times through the article is that the driving experience is a nonevent. “I can think of hundreds of ways to describe the Maserati’s ear-strafing exhaust, but I’m at a loss to describe the nearly mute and rheostatic squeeze-and-go response of the LEAF,” he writes. He goes on with similar language to describe the braking system, the turning, etc. – ensuring that any reader will feel like less of a person to purchase a LEAF.
Again, one wonders about the agenda here.
What’s Wrong Inside Toyota?
| July 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I spoke with a couple of the people promoting the 2012 release of the Prius plug-in hybrid yesterday at the 2010 Plug-In show. Gosh, this seems like a strange concept. Its all-electric range? 13 miles. The net effect for the typical customer? A bit better gas mileage. “This is what Prius customers want – a more efficient Prius,” one guy told me.
I was incredulous. Maybe they want that now, pal. But do you honestly think they’re going to want that two years from now, when they can have a LEAF, an I-MiEV, a Mini E, a Volt, or half a dozen other EVs of various sizes and types? You’re going to ask them to go through the exercise of plugging their car in, just to get slightly better gas mileage?
This is a truly terrible idea. I have to think something has gone terribly off the rails there. Unless they make a major change, I predict that Toyota’s decade 2005 – 2015 will be the biggest single meltdown in automotive history.
Where Is the Electric Vehicle Industry Going? Judging by the 2010 Plug-In Show…
| July 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
The 2010 Plug-In show, featuring the latest in electric transportation, is now in the books. I spent yesterday at the event, meeting people, interviewing key industry players, and taking in all that the show offered. But while I enjoyed the experience, I was totally unprepared for what I saw.
In a word: small. The main impression that anyone would take away was how incredibly and unforeseeably tiny the event was compared with those of past years. I can’t be precise about this because, in truth, I never stopped to measure, for instance, the 2008 event, held in the same place (San Jose’s McEnery Convention Center). But yesterday, we had 38 exhibitors (down from many hundreds) in a floor space that could have accommodated a tennis match, and (I’m guessing) perhaps only a thousand or so attendees.
So what happened? I’m not 100% sure, but I have a guess.
Read More
Nissan LEAF – Manufacturing Facility
| May 28, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
The other day, Nissan began construction of a 1.3 million square-foot manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tennessee that will produce the lithium-ion batteries to power its LEAF – slated for US production in 2012.
I’ll be very happy when I can formally eat the words I’ve been writing these past few years – words to the effect that the OEMs – due to their lack of real incentive to put EVs on the road – are very likely to dawdle and continue to spew a never-ending stream of excuses why production quantities of EVs are impossible. I know that Mark Perry (Nissan’s North American director of EV and Advanced Technology), whom I’ve met a few times, was clearly miffed with me last fall when I expressed some level of skepticism about the effort. “I thought you were paying attention,” he said. Mark, that’s not the issue. I am paying attention; trust me.
