Nissan has pushed through its pre-registered cars, now it looking to clear out its factory fresh examples.

HAVING taken just weeks to move a stockpile of pre-registered Leafs - most with mileages and many being 2023 cars - at cheap pricing, Nissan has now applied the same stickers to the last of its brand-new examples. 

Opportunity to buy the Leaf in wholly factory-delivered state in its base 40kWh form for $29,990 and spend $36,990 for the 59kWh Leaf e-Plus version was notified today and impacts with immediate effect. 

For the past month, those same stickers have only applied to pre-registered cars owned by the brand.

Some of those were demonstrators, most with modest mileages and many being 2023 built products. Being plated, they are effectively second-hand, as-new cars.

While on-road costs don’t factor, the new prices represent enormous discounts, given those variants have respectively held RRPs of $63,990 and $72,990 respectively.

The new campaign appears to aim to clean up inventory of the car, which is sourced from a Nissan plant in the United Kingdom that ceased producing it some months ago.

Leaf will continue to be produced out of Japan, but purely for the domestic market. 

Nissan Japan has advised a new Leaf is coming, this time as a crossover rather than continuing the current hatchback form, but production is not expected to start until 2026.

In its current form, Nissan’s landmark model is the long-serving EV in the market and its battery technology has been surpassed by many newer choices, which also have superior range and performance.

However, Nissan NZ believes the new price will benefit the car at a time when the entire NZ-new EV market is in a significant doldrums, with volume down 74 percent year on year.

A spokesman expressed optimism that this campaign will very quickly exhaust the remnant stock holding, whose size has not been disclosed.

He also noted the car was now fully representing as the first NZ-new choice at this price level.

Conceivably, putting brand-new stock at the stickers held by the pre-registered examples might well hasten their depreciation.

It seems conceivable that it will devalue ex-Japan used imports of similar calibre that, not so long ago, were being advertised for more than Nissan now asks for a brand-new example, coming in a fully market-sorted state (so, no retuning of radios or trip computers) and with a warranty.

Leaf’s cover comprises a five-year/150,000km Nissan new car warranty, and an eight-year battery warranty.

It’s just a month since Nissan NZ advised it had pre-registered Leafs for sale at those special stickers.

It has not said how many pre-registered NZ-new Leafs it had to shift, but a salesman told this site on Friday that the promotion appeared to have gone very well. His understanding that just 16 eligible vehicles remained available then.

Nissan NZ made clear that the pre-registered cars were in varying conditions.  Many were 2023 model year cars and some are demonstrators. The Stuff motoring site said an online check it undertook suggested most has less than 500km on the odometer.