Nissan addresses range concerns: "Go The Distance" incentive

[AZhitman]

Nissan has just pioneered a novel plan, which it's billing as "Go the Distance."



In a nutshell, it works like this: You buy an electric LEAF, use it as your daily driver 355 days of the year, and never buy gas. (So far, so good.)

Then, when road trip season arrives, you ring up your local Nissan dealer, and they provide you with a gasoline-powered car free of charge.

Abracadabra -- suddenly you've got no "range limitation" on your ride.

Not a bad plan - Would this make you more likely to buy a Leaf, knowing your annual family road trip will be in a brand new, gasoline-powered Nissan?

[TurboSauce]

Do you have to return the gas powered whatchamacallit?

[AZhitman]

No, it's a 2-for-1 deal. They give away free cars all the time.



(...sorry, couldn't help myself...)

[TurboSauce]

Aww Shucks. ( I bet there's gonna be someone who seriously tries to keep both.)

[Phatman]

Uh, no. I'd rather just buy a gas powered car in the first place. Save myself the time.

[MuranoDriver]

That's a nice offer from Nissan but I don't think it is the main "make it or break it" for buyers.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Are you limited to a gasoline vehicle for only 10 days out of the year?

Novel idea, but I'd like to know more about their willingness to give out the gas car, as well as which car they would give. I tend to take lots of road trips.

[BadQ45t]

The Leaf is our commuter extra car. Just did 1,500 mile trip in the XTerra, gets only 21-22 on good days but hauls my crap, dogs, bikes etc with 80 MPH on cruise control. I think this might help out some people, but for most people the Leaf has to be the extra car.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Yeah it would rock if you got to choose which car you could take. For instance, if you had to haul your boat you could get a Titan for the weekend or something. If you had to move they'd toss you the keys to an NV. Cross country road trip? Have the new Altima with amazingly comfortable seats and great gas mileage. Going to a track day? Take the GTR

...ok, I'll settle for a 370 on the track day.

[BadQ45t]

somehow I think the Altima is as good a car as they will give you for that purpose, and that ain't a bad car. I think track days are a bit tougher as I could easily wear out a set of tires in a weekend on a closed course with no cops

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Yeah I never heard anything about this outside of NICO. Is it a real thing?

[AZhitman]

Of course. Nissan doesn't pay me to make things up.

http://www.nissansunnyvale.com/nissan-leaf-ev.htm

[PapaSmurf2k3]

You'd think they'd advertise that... and get a better webpage. What's with all the question marks? It reads like they themselves don't believe it/don't know what they're talking about.

[AZhitman]

It's odd, seems it's something Nissan Corporate pushed out to dealers, but they don't discuss it anywhere in the Corporate page.

Who knows - I gave up on their internal web team and PR decisionmaking process years ago.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

It would suck to be the guy that came up with that idea, only to see it fail and not pickup extra leaf sales just because no one even knows about it.

I mean, its kindof a big deal. You'd think they'd talk about it in every freaking football commercial. Take a page out of the book of Hyundai.

[AZhitman]

Yep. Wonder if that's something we should pass along to the Powers That Be...

You know, the people who make 10x more money than we do...

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Go for it. Maybe we'll both get promoted.

Honestly, the 2 biggest questions I get asked about it are:
1. what happens when I want to take a road trip?
2. What happens when I run out of juice?

The answer to both is usually "you're stranded!"

[Eugene_C]

somehow I think the Altima is as good a car as they will give you for that purpose, and that ain't a bad car. I think track days are a bit tougher as I could easily wear out a set of tires in a weekend on a closed course with no cops

I'm betting it's a Versa. But it's still a great deal. That might actually get me to rethink the LEAF. I'd rather see them try a plug-in hybrid more like the Volt, tho.