| That's a rather extreme supply problem, which is not the norm with new car models, esp. not ones that where heavily promoted. If its a real supply problem, I wonder if electric cars in general will have some problem as they try to go mass market. It could also be a case of purposely limiting supply. The incremental costs for building the cars are kept down, the marginal profit per extra sale is kept high, the high cost of the R&D can be at least partially considered an investment in PR, and should their be a real surge in demand, say through legal mandates, even larger subsidies or targeted tax breaks, and/or some major oil supply disruption Nissan can pick up production later, without having the Leaf starting to look like a failure now (which would likely happen with fully ramped production if it happened now, all those cars going unsold would generate losses, and lessen the perceived appeal of the cars). |
