CAR magazine drove the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle earlier this year in Los Angeles in the United States, shortly after its introduction in the US and Europe. Nine months later, we chatted with Pierre Loing, vice president of product planning and Nissan International’s zero-emissions business unit, to see how things have progressed.
CAR: You’ve been selling the Leaf for nine months in both Europe and the US. How are things going?
Pierre: In Europe, we initially planned to sell 5 000 units of the Leaf before the end of this year. Unfortunately, we’ll miss that target for several reasons: the first being the effect that the earthquake in Japan had on the supply of the Leaf and its battery earlier this year.
The second reason is more economical. The current strength of the yen versus the euro makes it a very difficult business case, to say the least. So, we decided that the volume that was left after the earthquake could be reallocated to Japan and the US. We still have an ambition to reach sales of 5 000 units, but only by the end of the fiscal year.
We are seeing orders for the Leaf picking up and, while not across the board, we will be introducing the Leaf to the last of our initial European target markets. So, we expect to hit our targets.
Launching a completely new vehicle such as this obviously requires unconventional marketing and distribution. How do you market the Leaf in Europe?
In Europe specifically, we had several parameters that we needed to take into account when launching the Leaf. The presence of our alliance partner Renault in Europe, which has a very focussed and strong EV programme, is a consideration. From launch, Renault will have a range of four EVs and a fifth vehicle is not too far off.
Renault has spent a fair amount of money on marketing electric vehicles. Because Nissan is much smaller that Renault, it would be crazy of us to try and compete against them and, also, we need to remain efficient within the alliance.
Nissan has a clear vision of being the number-one EV manufacturer in the world, but for these reason, in Europe we are happy with the second position. Naturally, winning the European Car of the Year title helped a lot and, from 2013, we will produce an EV in Europe, which will completely change things from a business perspective.
However, we don’t have volume expectations. Our factories can only produce so many vehicles (currently, about 50 000 units a year) and Japan and the US accounts for a large part of this. So, in Europe, we have adopted a geographical distribution approach. And, these aren’t our conventional “important” markets. For the Leaf, Norway is important. Ireland is important. Portugal is important. Estonia and Israel may become very important markets. But, our conventional “big ones” such as Italy and Germany remain a low priority. The German government has only started talking about supporting the EV market and Italy has not even started the debate.
How about a country such as China?
Oh yes, we are certainly interested in entering China. But, this is my personal opinion since I am not responsible for our operations there.
The Chinese government is very aware of its pollution issues and also of the economical benefits that EVs hold. The country is keen to gain a competitive advantage in the EV industry and promoting such vehicles is the first step towards this.
Emerging markets are becoming increasingly important for volume manufacturers. How long do you see EVS having to be around before it can be effectively marketed in these countries?
It is a very difficult question. But for me, some of the emerging markets are very interested in bringing EVs to market and promoting these vehicles. And to support it. This is possible in some of these countries, because these markets are very small and the level of support per vehicle would be very high.
Having said that, we won’t ignore the technical constraints placed on EVs: heat and road severity remain issues. These can be solved, but this will impact on the cost of the vehicle.
Would you agree that Nissan has been brave for going the full-EV route and not offering a range extender with the Leaf?
Brave? Yes, certainly. But, that doesn’t mean that we don’t investigate other options. With the Leaf, we had clear targets of launching a zero-emissions vehicle.
This also doesn’t mean that we will never offer an EV with a range extender or hybrid vehicles. But, the biggest concern that most customers have seem to be range anxiety or the fear of running out of power. Interestingly, our owner feedback shows that this anxiety seems to completely disappear once the car has been bought and driven. Education and communication is critical.
What have you learned from launching the Leaf?
We are certainly still in the learning process and constantly look at feedback from our customers and bloggers and the like. What we see is that we generally have three customer types. The first group are the early adopters who purchase the vehicle because of its technology and, dare I say, novelty.
The second group are the green-minded people. They buy the vehicle because of its lower impact on the environment. Currently, our biggest markets are those where government incentives are the highest or, put differently, where governments are aware of the benefit that EVs have on the environment compared with conventional cars. Interestingly, Switzerland offers no incentives and despite the resultant high price of the Leaf, is one of our largest markets.
The final group are the eco-conscious people, who not only value the Leaf’s greenness, but also its economical benefit.
Any other lessons that you have learned?
From the battery point-of-view, we are learning a lot about the wide variety of usage and the effect that this has on the battery. Obviously, as with conventional cars, driving conditions, the climate and driving habits have an effect on the range of the battery. We are investigating how the battery reacts to these and are looking for better ways to communicate this to the driver and our customers.
