The Leaf has been in mass production since at least 2010, predating all Teslas but the Roadster, a limited edition vehicle based on the Lotus Elise chassis (edit) first designed sometime in 2004 or 2005(end edit). The Leaf itself first premiered in 1997 as a prototype at the LA Auto Show, and was sold in similar numbers to the Roadster over the next decade until the production model was released in 2010.

Why is Tesla getting kudos for something Nissan did first?

Because the Leaf has long been closer to a golf cart than a useful electric car. (Though it's getting better.)

The 36,200$ 2018 NISSAN LEAF® SL has a 151 mile range in theory, but you need a significant reserve meaning it's effectively significantly smaller than that. With a 30 mile reserve that's ~121 miles. And needs another $1590 to get a quick charge port and cable.

Tesla has continuously had a backlog of sales IMO because nobody else has gotten a great electric car to market.

Again, the Leaf has been getting much better over time and may work well for many people.

Honestly that makes me think less of Nissan and more of Tesla. Nissan has been working on the Leaf for 20 years and that's what they have to show for it? Mean while Tesla went from nothing to 3 from scratch mass production EVs in a decade.

Full disclosure, I own a 2015 Leaf and I have a reservation for a 3.

Tesla was founded in 2003 and they aren't close to mass production yet.

> they aren't close to mass production yet.

What's your definition of mass production?

Err. 300K cars on the road?

Nissan, a 100 year old company, has been developing electric vehicles for 20 years and has 1 mass produced vehicle that has sold over 300k units in the last 8 years.

Tesla, a 14 year old company, has been developing electric vehicles for 14 years and has 3 mass produced vehicles that have sold over 230k units in the last 3 years.

Why is Nissan supposed to get credit for something GM did first?

edit: cute downvotes, but the fact is GM was the modern pioneer on electric vehicles.

"The General Motors EV1 was an electric car produced and leased by General Motors from 1996 to 1999. It was the first mass-produced and purpose-designed electric vehicle of the modern era from a major automaker"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Lol, Nissan shouldn't either. I didn't bother to do an exhaustive dive into EV history, just the two brands in the OP's comment.

If you want to be technical about it though, then Pope Mfg deserves credit first the first mass-produced EV, released in...1897. (see http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html)

GM Produced less than 1200 EV1s in the 4 years it was available. Tesla has made more Model 3s in two months than GM ever made EV1s.

Cost estimates for the EV1 range from $80-250k per car, the $250k figure came from Bob Lutz, a GM Vice Chairman. and 3.

If you ever actually experienced the EV1 then you'd know that it pales in comparison to even the lowest end Leaf. It was a production version of Impact concept from which it was derived with only minor improvements. This was a 1990s quality GM car with a trim level around that of a Cavalier in a package smaller than a Honda Del Sol.

GM introduced the concept of an electric car to the public but the image they portrayed was unfavorable at best. You didn't look at the EV1 and think "this will take over the world", you thought "I could make that in my garage over the weekend."

Tesla gets credit for delivering the first no compromise EV and one that's actually inspirational.

Nissan gets credit for delivering the first EV that just about anyone can own or see themselves drive.

EV1 was never sold to the public. It was only operated as a lease program at a loss in response to a California mandate.

It wasn't an in-house test program. They were leased to the public in California, as GM s way of working within an incentive/mandate system that existed at the time (Toyota’s original RAV4 EV and Honda's EV+ were, as well.)

Total EV1's sold to the public.

0

Cost to produce, 500,000$ each. GM had zero interest in rolling these things out to the public and it showed.

Not sure where you got that figure. Cost estimates for the EV1 range from $80-250k per unit. The $250k figure came from GM's Vice Chairman Bob Lutz.

"GM stated the cost of the EV1 program at slightly less than $500 million before marketing and sales costs" They made 1,117 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Adjust for inflation and that's well over 700,000$ each in today's money.

Cost per unit would have dropped if they where making 10,000 + / year. However, that was not their goal.

From that same paragraph...

"One industry official said that each EV1 cost the company about US$80,000, including research, development and other associated costs;[67] other estimates placed the vehicle's actual cost as high as $100,000.[2] Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman responsible for the Chevrolet Volt, in November 2011 stated the EV1 cost $250,000 each and leased for just $300 per month.[68] GM stated the cost of the EV1 program at slightly less than $500 million before marketing and sales costs, and over $1 billion in total, although a portion of this cost was defrayed by the Clinton Administration's $1.25 billion Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) program.[69][70][71] In addition, all manufacturers seeking to produce electric cars for market consumption also benefited from matching government funds committed to the United States Advanced Battery Consortium."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Well yea, if you include the governments contribution they spent over 1 million per EV1 produced. Look only at material costs and labor you can get ~80k each, but cost to GM per unit is really a question of: (how much GM spent on the program) / (number produced).

Anything else is subject to spin as for example it costs money to setup a factory making just (parts) + (labor costs) overly optimistic. Similarly marketing and sales costs can easily inflate unit costs to make it look worse.

On the other hand if GM could have used current battery technology and current battery costs they may have tried to make it work. But, it was clear at the time it was going to fail so they had fewer incentives to keep costs down.

> Well yea, if you include the governments contribution they spent over 1 million per EV1 produced.

You're not actually reading the paragraph. It says that the government contributed an unspecified amount from a $1.25 Billion budget to GM. And that the contribution defrayed the stated costs by GM which means a portion of the $500 million they spend was grant money.

"EV1 program at slightly less than $500 million before marketing and sales costs, and over $1 billion in total"

adjust for inflation and that's well over 1 million / car.

The Leaf is a nice car, but it's not aspirational. Spoken as an EV owner.

It's like when the better looking kid gets more attention.

Surely there's a term for this? A company exhausts its resources blazing the trail for those behind it.

First mover and Fast Followers, I think these are the terms your looking for.

Second rat gets the cheese.

Man I wish it was more widely available in the US. I've been interested in once since they were first released, but they were never available to test drive in NM when I looked. I know that someone must be selling them because I occasionally see them on the road, maybe I just have bad timing. I finally gave up last month and bought a Bolt because I'm convinced that GM will hit the 200k federal tax credit before the 2018 Leaf is available here. I love my new Bolt, but wish I could have compared with the Leaf first as it is a much more affordable car, and has sufficient range for our purposes.

The Bolt looks to be a much more useful vehicle, with a range of over 100 miles more than the Leaf.

I'm not crazy about the styling, but that's just personal preference. I wish automakers didn't feel the need to make EVs so gaudy and quirky looking. They just scream "look at me I'm a complete nerd!!"

Tesla is the only one who gets this right.

I could see it being more useful in an area with a large metropolitan area or many closely spaced towns. In a more sparse state like NM, that extra 90 miles round trip isn't big enough to make much of a difference, unless charging stations expand significantly in the future. We bought it knowing full well that we would take our other vehicle out of town most of the time.

There are some attempts to make normal cars electric. The current one is VW Golf, it's small but it's a regular-looking car that also has a fully electric version.

I'm starting to think that Prius and Leaf and other EVs are making the car look sooo bad on purpose.

The car gets the best mileage per charge in town (hybrids anyway), so "wind efficient" isn't really a thing.

Tesla didn't pioneer nor kick off electric cars. The only thing they did is market well. They are the kings of marketing.

They did in fact ignite the electric car market. The attempts to deny them credit for that are fascinating.

Every major auto manufacturer is aggressively moving to electric vehicles because of the spark that Tesla provided. It wasn't the Nissan Leaf that caused BMW to freak out and radically alter their plans and move everything toward electric. The same goes for all the rest of the automakers.

It'd be like pretending the iPhone didn't set off the smartphone boom, because hey the blackberry existed.

"The iPhone didn't set off the smartphone boom, because hey the blackberry existed."

My sentiments exactly, and I can't understand what you're trying to say here. You've defeated your own point.

That's pretty funny right there as Tesla has no marketing budget to speak off. Kindly tell me last time you saw a Tesla ad (made by Tesla)?

Electric cars are as old as ICE cars (look up Baker Electric for one's). That's beside the point. What Tesla did was to produce an electric car that was truly desirable and from many metrics, better than an ICE car. You simply cannot deny Tesla's massive impact on the car industry, even GM have publicly acknowledged it.