Nissan dealers offering up to $9,775 off new Leaf purchases

Model Year closeout always sees more cash on the hood, so the fact that Nissan wants to clear the inventory isn't a surprise. Remember those sweetheart deals on the previous-year Volts earlier this summer? Yeah, same deal, different timing. Clearing the lots for the 2013 model year. Then, there's the Year End Closeout, to put good numbers up for the year. Not surprising there, either. With 10 days to go, there are still 1,400 Leaf available nationally. By this time, Nissan should have moved 1,000+ cars, based on November's sales rate, and be targeting to move a big chunk of the remaining cars. If we look at the MSRPs, they're $38k, so $9.8k off is a bit over 25%. That's probably about 5% more than it needs to be, but good for the new buyer. Not so much if you pulled the trigger on a "buy" early last month here in Cali - your car just depreciated from $28k down to $18k. Getting back to the start, will the Leaf have a MSRP under $30k? I don't know. With both Smyrna and Gunma, Nissan has a *lot* of very expensive physical plant to pay for, and they've always wanted to recover the cost via volume. If I had to guess, I'd think $32k would be the new number - slightly less than the Spark EV, and what Nissan originally suggested people would pay.

I love it as Americans learn how to do math. It's inspiring. Thanks for the story.

You'd be getting the car at half price. What's not to like?

An increased size battery will likely have a longer life (which the manufacturer can warranty) as it will not be cycled so heavily by most users. Be that said batteries are still expensive and I somehow doubt that they will be able to appreciably increase range AND decrease cost.

It is already a winner at that price. You'll be saving $1500/year in gasoline costs. And you can add to that no oil changes, no smog testing/repairs, an HOV lane sticker, etc.

So it's lease-only? In California? Then Nissan is simply giving the $7500 Federal credit + the $2500 California credit, minus a $225 processing fee. If so, you're leasing the car at full price, with an extra $225 cash upfront. That's utter crap.

In Cali, it'd start at $18.5k - basically price-competitive with the Nissan Versa. That's a very ballsy play, as it pushes the EV cost premium do nearly nothing. Nissan would be pushing back against the entire industry here, trying to prevent any other OEMs from being able to recover big investment costs. If that happens and holds, probably only GM can match them. I wouldn't put it past Ghosn, as he likes to roll the dice.

It's only on lease deals not purchases according to the article, hopefully leasees will be allowed to purchase the car at the end of the 3 years or otherwise they ain't saving a penny. Good marketing gimmick though.

Very lame comment noevfud, very lame comment.