Last night, January 10 around 11 pm, on my Nissan customer online "dashboard", my delivery month estimate changed from "Pending" to "Month of March, 2011". I'm very excited and feeling much more upbeat about the ordering and delivery process. Maybe it was my "rant" in last week's blog that shook Nissan out of their freeze. :) Now I'll have to wait to find out the actual date in March when we get to meet our new LEAF.
Actually, a LOT of people who are waiting for their LEAFs had an update to their online dashboards. I'm seeing a good many people (maybe 30 or 40) on the www.MyNissanLeaf.com forum happily reporting that their delivery month was updated to March or April. It appears that a logjam of some kind has been cleared at Nissan's Oppama manufacturing plant. The rumors are that there were some defects discovered in the first group of LEAFs delivered and perhaps things were slowed down in order to fix the defects in the next group of cars to be delivered and to resolve the issues in the manufacturing process. I've also been told that Nissan had to sell a certain number of LEAFs in their home market of Japan to meet some kind of battery quota. Whatever the reason, things seem to be moving along now.
What I'm Driving Now
I mentioned last week that my Nissan dealer asked to buy out the lease on my BMW so that he could sell it as a used car. That was a good deal for me as well, because I avoided hundreds of dollars in lease end fees. Yesterday was the day that I took the BMW to Connell Nissan and came home with a rental car. It was a bit sad for me, but I was so happy with the lease-end plan that it didn't affect me much. I was also interested to see what kind of rental car Connell would provide for me. As I mentioned, the whole idea of the BMW lease/purchase came up when I was asking my dealer at Connell whether he could help me with a rental car while I waited for my "ship to come in". He agreed to rent me a car at a good low rate while I waited, and the BMW deal helped him to make that rate even more attractive.
So yesterday, I drove home in a 2008 Nissan Altima Coupe. It was a pretty nice car, with some extra features like keyless entry, a trip computer and a power driver's seat. It wasn't really practical, with its two door body style, but then neither was the BMW. It was used though, a 2008 model with some miles on it and possibly some problems in its past, but it was fine for my purposes.
Today, I got a call from Connell Nissan that I had left some personal belongings in the BMW and also that they wanted to swap me into a newer rental car. I went over there today and turned in the Altima and got into a nearly new Nissan Cube. I'd always been intrigued by the styling of this box-on-wheels, so it was fun for me to try this one out. It isn't as luxuriously equipped as the Altima was, but it does have a Bluetooth phone system and iPod connection. I think that those features are part of the youth-focus of the Cube. It is fun to drive, roomy inside and quite a novelty to drive around. Truth be told, I like cars so much that if I got to drive a different car each week, no matter which car, I'd be pretty happy. I realize that for lots of people, that is their definition of a pain in the rear, but it's part of what floats my boat. Carol and I ran some errands in the Cube today and it was perfect for buzzing around town.
Insurance Wrinkle
I also found out that while my State Farm auto insurance covers me for liability and damage to a short-term rental car, such as one that I would rent on vacation, it doesn't cover me for a car that I rent for over 20 days. Thanks to a caution from a friend who is a State Farm agent, I spoke to my own agent and he added some additional coverage to our existing Prius auto policy for a few extra dollars that will cover the long term rental of the Nissan Cube.
What Happened with the California Rebate Fund?
I mentioned last week that the important California Clean Vehicle Rebate Fund had taken an unexpected drop in available funds to the tune of $590,000 in one day! The staff at the California Center for Sustainable Energy who administer the funds are refreshingly responsive, and one of them reported that Staples had purchased about 30 large electric Smith delivery trucks, and they are eligible for rebates of $20,000 per truck! We individual electric car buyers are not happy to be competing with large corporations for the same pot of money, but that is the way the fund is set up, so that's the game we're playing. This may not be the last big hit on the fund before I apply for my rebate, so I have to brace myself for that. Meanwhile, I'm tracking the fund daily and it still has enough money for about 460 LEAFs (or Codas or Teslas) from the 2009-10 funding, and there was supposed to be an additional $5 million approved for 2010-11. So we should be okay for a few more electric cars before we have to wait for new funding.
EDIT: I just read that an additional $2 million was added to the 2011 funding for the California rebate program. This will be on top of the $5 million that is already destined for the fund for 2011. AND, this additional $2 million is ONLY for four door electric cars. So the commercial companies that are buying electric trucks, the Tesla roadsters and the NEVs (neighborhood electric vehicles) that are too slow for highway use are all excluded from this particular sum. The $2 million alone would be enough for 400 LEAFs or similar EVs. Again, the GM Volt is not eligible due to emissions rules. At this time, if all of the remaining funds from 2009/10 and 2010/11 were rebated to LEAF or similar car buyers or lessors, there would be $5,000 rebates available for over 1,800 cars.