When most car companies create new models, their object is to “steal” buyers away from other companies — these sales are called conquest sales . You see, we get loyal to a company and we just keep going back. Well Nissan was hoping that with the release of their new electric vehicle the Leaf they’d be able to rack up some serious conquest sales from people looking for an electric car. It looks like they’ve succeeded. The company is reporting they’ve had 14,000 pre-orders for the leaf and 90% of those are conquest sales.
The Leaf — which has a starting price of $32,780 that lowers to $25,280 after federal tax incentives — will hit the streets at the end of this year. It’s been a long anticipated wait for this little electric beauty, which has a 100-mile range and all the bells and whistles people are looking for — like bluetooth capability, roadside assistance and LED headlights. The makers of the Leaf have also inserted a synthesized sound system for pedestrian safety because of worries about electric vehicles being too quiet to hear.
It sounds like the Leaf has placed itself in the right price range, generated a sufficient driving range, and included all the right extras to draw people into their electrified grasp. Even with concerns over the vehicle’s cooling system and the hotly anticipated Chevy Volt hitting the streets in November, it looks like the Leaf has definitely brought people over to the leafy-green side of the transportation industry.
Via Autoblog Green
Inhabitat are you giving away one of these bad boys? eh?
I honestly wish every car company had thier own “Leaf” for sale. It’s been too long of a wait for these types of cars. For a while there i thought the best America could do is the Tesla, and that’s still not a practical car. Granted the Leaf is still out of most consumer’s price range (the Honda Insight is the only PEV car that comes close) but it’s a start. Now we need the Utility Companies to start using more green energy and we’d really have a revolution on our hands!
Based on the initial waiting lists to get a prius, the demand for a fully electric car was always so painfully obvious, that i could never understand why companies weren’t racing their asses off to push the first one out the door. (although i always imagined that the oil companies had manufacturers in their back pockets..)
the public response to this vehicle is in no way surprising. congrats nissan!
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