Apr 20, 2011: Nissan announces that it will reopen reservations, first “in the launch states of Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington”. Individuals who already have registered on the Nissan LEAF website “340,000 potential owners” will be placed first in line to purchase a Nissan LEAF.
The sequence of events in buying a 2011 LEAF is:
Make a reservation on the Nissan Web site; pay a refundable $99 reservation fee.
Decide whether or not you need/want an EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment): some people find charging on 120V sufficient since they don’t drive a lot. If you need more battery power daily than can be replenished on 120V nightly, an EVSE would make your life much easier.
In your Nissan LEAF account dashboard, make an appointment with a local AeroVironment contractor for them to come and do an “assessment”, that is, a mini-survey for the installation of an EVSE at your home:
Receive a quote in your Nissan LEAF account dashboard for installation of EVSE.
Accept the quote and arrange to have the EVSE installed or
Indicate, in your Nissan LEAF account dashboard, that you want to waive the installation of an EVSE. (Note that in my case, I did steps up to 2.1.1 (receive quote for EVSE installation), and then I decided that I don’t need an EVSE. It took some help from Nissan Customer Support to get me to step 2.2, to waive installation of an EVSE.)
Receive an email notification that you can now select a dealer and request a quote from that dealer.
Receive quote from dealer.
Accept the quote and start the order.
After approximately 10 days, the ability to edit the color of your LEAF will disappear, indicating your order is locked-in and ready to start through the production process.
The next change occurs when your estimated delivery date updates from “Pending” to “Month of …” This month can change, but seldom becomes earlier. This status change can happen only days after the edit color link disappears, but can take much longer.
A number of people put in very early reservations but are still not able to get a quote and make an order. According to Nissan Customer Support, some orders were lost “due to a computer glitch”. Interwiki: mnl++