Isra-Mart srl:US Leaf customers facing delays

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Isra-Mart srl news:

US customers who have placed orders for Nissan's high-profile electric car, the Leaf, are facing a wait for their vehicles, after the Japanese manufacturer admitted it was experiencing distribution bottlenecks.

Just weeks after announcing it would accelerate production to ship 10,000 of the electric vehicles by March, Nissan blamed the slow rollout on bottlenecks in its quality assurance procedures and distribution delays caused by the Leaf's internet ordering system, which bypasses US dealers.

The Leaf was formally launched in December and more than 20,000 have been ordered in the US. But the potential for delays had been raised in the lead-up to the car's initial launch, and over the weekend the company told the Financial Times that only 96 cars have been delivered in the US to date.

"We knew that the production rollout would be slow at first and then would ramp up [but] it's where we expected it to be," David Reuter, a spokesman for Nissan in the US, told the paper. "Where we disconnected was in communicating this to the customer."

Around 4,000 of the cars have been built at Nissan's plant in Oppama, Japan and the company said last month that it was cancelling holiday leave in order to meet its target of producing 10,000 cars by March.

Factories in Smyrna, Tennessee and Sunderland, UK will pick up production from 2012 and 2013 respectively, but until then all production will take place in Japan.

UK customers have put in about 500 orders for the Leaf and the first shipment of 67 cars arrived on schedule from Japan last week.