Perhaps in preparation for taking those reservations, the NissanUSA Leaf website is down right now. http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car gets you an error message which varies according to which browser software you are using. Firefox gives you:

SRVE0255E: A WebGroup/Virtual Host to handle /leaf-electric-car/index.jsp has not been defined.
SRVE0255E: A WebGroup/Virtual Host to handle http://www.nissanusa.com:80 has not been defined.

IBM WebSphere Application Server

Internet Explorer gives you:

The webpage cannot be found HTTP 404

Hopefully, this is not an issue, but just preparation for the reservations.

Stay tuned.

OK. Now it's back up with a little video about the reservation and purchase process, but no ability to reserve just yet, as far as I can tell. The video is at:

http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/reservation

Good luck!

According to a posting at autoblog.com you will only be able to register after receiving an email with "an exclusive link." The quote from an email yesterday states, "your priority reservation instructions are now scheduled to be sent to you by email between 1 pm - 6 pm (EDT) on 4/20/10. so keep a lookout for that next email. it will include an exclusive link enabling you to start the reservation process in your own market. then with a fully refundable $99 reservation fee, you'll be on the list for a new Nissan LEAF (TM)"

Here's the link: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/04/19/offi ... on-emails/

I thought I was also registered, to receive this email invitation yesterday, but found out late in the day that I apparently wasn't. I registered again and hopefully will be able to reserve my LEAF today.

Let us know how it goes.

Reserved mine tonight. Judging from the tweets, reservation emails didn't go out until around 6:00 pm eastern time. If you didn't sign up online for the early registration, you will be able to reserve one in mid May. Get in line early. The line is getting long already.

I got the email at 2:27 PDT (5:27 EDT) and reserved mine about a half hour later. Everyone I know on the list in California had the same timing. I also created an account using the a different email address but same zip and address, but it would not give me the option of reserving now. It just said i would receive info later, so it appears you have to get the magic email for it to work. Also, some people got an offer for free assessment or installation of the charging station, but others didn't. Apparently that is based on zip code.

I just got an email from Nissan with a reservation "number". It is a mixture of 8 digits and letters between A and F. That sure makes it look like a 32-bit hex number. But it's a very big number - over 1,000,000,000 in decimal.

I happen to know that the Nissan website runs on a UNIX-type system, so I got suspicious: What if this is a UNIX date/time? I converted it on that assumption and came up with a time on Apr 24, 2011. You don't suppose this might be an expected delivery date, do you?

I'd be curious to know what kind of reservation numbers others are seeing. It's probably not wise to expose your number here, but if you want to try converting it to a date, and don't have a UNIX system handy, Windows has a built-in calculator that can be expanded using the View menu to be a scientific calculator. Among many other things, that will do hex to decimal conversions. You can then take that decimal number to onlineconversion.com/unix_time.htm and it will give you a readable date and time. Reporting your date without the time, as I have, shouldn't compromise your security.