Have $100? You can reserve your 2011 Nissan Leaf battery car starting in April.
Wrapping up a 24-city promotional tour for its first battery-electric vehicle, Nissan has announced it is ready to begin taking orders for the 2011 Leaf sedan.
Interested customers will be able to place a refundable $100 reservation fee, starting in April, for the lithium-ion-powered Leaf, which will be one of the first in a new generation of battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs, expected to reach market over the next several years. The deposit will put registrants at the head of the line when the formal ordering process begins in August. Nissan plans a phased rollout of the 2011 Leaf, starting in select markets, in December 2010.
The automaker says it will make the BEV available for either lease or sale, but in a surprise move, it has reversed course on what was seen as a creative, if untraditional, pricing strategy. The maker had considered the idea of setting one price for the Leaf itself, then another for the battery, which would have only been available as a lease.
The idea would have been to hold down the cost of the vehicle and keep the monthly battery costs in line with what users might have expected to spend for gasoline. While lithium technology is currently quite costly, the electric current to charge batteries up is cheap – as little as a tenth the price of gasoline, on a per-mile basis, in some markets, for customers charging during off-peak hours.
Nissan offered no explanation why it abandoned the novel pricing approach it had been touting as recently as December, when the cross-country Leaf tour began.
Nonetheless, “The Nissan LEAF purchase process is effortless, transparent and accessible, offering value with a one-stop-shop approach for everything related to the car, including the assessment, permitting and installation of in-home battery charging units,” explained Carlos Tavares, Chairman, Nissan Americas.
The maker has formed a series of alliances with utilities and other partners, across the U.S., to handle such things as the installation of high-voltage chargers, which can significantly reduce the time needed to recharge Leaf’s battery pack. Among those partners is AeroVironment, which will supply and install home charging stations.
Nissan has also formed an alliance with Hertz, which plans to offer the battery car in select markets.
It’s unclear precisely how much Leaf will cost, a figure the automaker may not announce until closer to the formal order-taking process begins, in August. There had been speculation the figure might come in as low as $25,000, especially if batteries were priced separately. But if they’re included, few analysts see how that would be possible – especially if Nissan hopes to make a profit on Leaf. At current lithium-ion prices, industry insiders believe the battery pack on the vehicle would cost Nissan at least $15,000.
It’s not yet clear what markets will get Leaf first, though Southern California and the San Francisco area are expected to certain to top the list.
Leaf is expected to deliver up to about 100 miles per charge, which limits its application to more urban areas. But because lithium batteries are sensitive to cold temperatures, more temperate climates are considered to also have an advantage in marketing the technology.
Along with the many private partnerships Nissan has lined up for the Leaf program, it has also received significant aid from the federal government. That includes a $1.4 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund modifications at the automaker’s assembly plant, in Smyrna, Tennessee, which will build the battery car.