Nissan: We re committed to electrified cars
Nissan: We’re committed to electrical cars
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Nissan will persevere with its all-electric Leaf despite selling only forty two examples so far in 2016.
The Japanese brand cut the under-performing Micra, Pulsar hatch and diesel-powered Patrol models earlier this year but believes it is worth continuing to invest in electrical cars.
Despite being the most affordable electrified car in Australia at $39,990 drive-away, Leaf sales have taken a major hit in 2016, pulling down by over fifty eight per cent on 2015, according to the latest VFacts figures.
Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery admitted the Leaf has struggled for buyers but the company remains committed to it in the long-term.
“Electrified cars have struggled in Australia and Leaf, I suppose, as the pioneer found it difficult to sustain the volumes that we would have all liked,” Emery said.
“I think from our perspective we’re going to stay in the Leaf business because I think there will be a point in time where it becomes a mainstream decision; it’s not a mainstream decision at the moment, for reasons of costs, for reasons around concerns around range and a entire raft of things. I think there will be a tipping point, but I don’t know when that will be.”
Tesla, by contrast, recorded over two hundred sales of its Model S in Fresh South Wales alone in two thousand fifteen despite a beginning price over $100,000. The brand has attracted slew of interested for its Model Three, which will reportedly have a kicking off price in the region of $50,000.
But Emery isn’t frustrated by the American brand’s capability to take the lion’s share of electrical car attention and insists Nissan is well placed for the long-term.
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“Not frustrating,” he said. “There’s no doubt we need to keep telling the Leaf story and the electrical car story. Ultimately the economics are very different in terms of the R&D and the work Nissan is putting into electrified cars and intelligent mobility going forward.
“Tesla still don’t make any money. So from that perspective it is a bit unfair to compare the two vehicles. But in terms of impetus of people making electrical cars a mainstream decision Tesla is going to help the cause, no doubt.”
In fact, Emery believes the success of Tesla can have a positive influence on the Leaf. Especially with an updated model on the way in the near future.
“I think for people who have made the initial decision that they’re going to look at an electrified car, Leaf comes into their investigation fairly quickly,” Emery explained.
“If that means ‘oh look, there’s a Tesla, an electrical car, I’ll go and do some homework’ then Leaf comes into the conversation.
“We haven’t been spending a lot of marketing money on Leaf in the last duo of years because that car is going through a lifecycle switch in the next two years. So from our perspective there will be a time and a place to reignite Leaf sometime in the next duo of years.”
Emery also dismissed the suggestion that electrical cars are becoming a premium fight, with fresh EVs coming from the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Porsche.
“I think if you ask our product guys they would say an electrified mainstream product is what we’re pursuing, in terms of the economics,” he said. “Rather than pushing a car upmarket in terms of pricing or specification of whatever else. I think they see a volume electrified car is what Nissan’s suggesting is going to be.”
