Nissan Nails Up 6,635 Reservations For Its All-Electric Nissan Leaf in Just Two Days

It is unclear just what kind of response Nissan was expecting, but the number of $99 reservations must have been a pleasant surprise. They are reporting 6,635 paying customers in the first two days. Considering that Nissan is only planning on producing 10,000 vehicles the first year, there could be a shortage. In contrast, GM is only going to manufacture 2,000 Volts this year and maybe 10,000 for all of 2011. We realize that caution is warranted when introducing new technology but there is a real pent up demand for alternate energy vehicles and would like to see supply meet demand in this case.

There are roughly 60,000 people signed up on a waiting list for the Chevy Volt. If these are serious buyers, then Chevy will not be able to come close to meeting demand. Chevrolet can ramp up production rather easily as their Hamtramck facility is capable of manufacturing much more than 10,000 vehicles per year. We do not have to wait much longer to see how this will shake out as the Volt is slated to start rolling off the line in October.

What do you think? Will customers line up in this economy to buy these electric cars and catch Nissan and Chevy with their pants down, or have the marketing experts done their job and accurately predicted their respective sales volumes?

We think that demand is going to exceed supply resulting in even more pent up consumer frustration.