#Pre-order

Nissan has finally hit the magic number of 20,000 Leaf pre-orders, and will not be taking any more pre-orders for the time being. An announcement posted on the website MyNissanLeaf states that

“Nissan aggressively anticipated reaching its goal of 20,000 consumer reservations by December 2010 and we are excited to announce that we have reached this goal 3 months ahead of schedule! Therefore, on 9/23/10, Nissan will shut down the reservation system in order to focus on providing the best level of customer service and premium ownership experience to those who have already reserved.

All current reservation holders will continue to have the opportunity to purchase or lease a Nissan LEAF. Those who are interested in the Nissan LEAF but have yet to make a reservation are invited to sign up for information and updates on http://www.nissanusa.com. A subsequent phase of reservations for those consumers will begin next year.”

Looks like any prospective Leaf buyers will have to wait it out for a little while. We’re sure that Chevrolet will be happy to take their money and quench their thirst for an electric vehicle.

[Source: MyNissanLeaf]

Nissan is beginning to ramp up promotion of the Leaf electric vehicle after pre-orders have slowed significantly. The Leaf enjoyed a burst of interest from “early adopter” types. While Nissan estimates that it has 16,300 pre-orders, but observers are unsure whether they will be able to reach the 25,000 pre-order goal by year’s end.

BMW is working with its dealer network to help get U.S. customers to pre-order vehicles. The concept of pre-ordering has all but vanished from the U.S. auto market, although its not clear if that is due to impulsive consumers or because of  dealerships that would rather sell what’s on the lot. This is in stark contrast to Germany where half of all BMWs are pre-ordered.