Yahoo Autos Is Pricing to Blame for Nissan Ariya EV’s Slow Sales?
UPDATE: Nissan today (March 4, 2024) announced price cuts for the 2024 Ariya: $3600 for the entry-level Engage trim, while other trims are reduced up to $6000. The changes are reflected in the story below.
The Nissan Ariya finished 2023 with 13,464 deliveries, well behind many EV rivals, such as the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Chevrolet Bolt, Volkswagen ID.4, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Kia EV6.
In launching the Ariya, Nissan set up a new delivery process to give customers the support they want where they want it.
Despite the market for battery-electric vehicles developing industrywide for more than a decade, Nissan’s Trisha Jung notes that familiarity with EVs remains surprisingly low.
The Nissan Ariya is still fresh in the market, going on sale in the US with front-wheel drive in late 2022 before the all-wheel-drive e-4ORCE variant arrived in March 2023.
It finished the year with 13,464 deliveries—about 10 times the sales rate for the smaller (and aged) Nissan Leaf but well behind higher-volume EVs like the Ford Mustang Mach-E (40,771), Chevrolet Bolt EUV (38,881), Volkswagen ID.4 (34,786), Hyundai Ioniq 5 (25,306), Kia EV6 (18,879), and BMW iX (17,301), as well as all the Teslas (except Cybertruck).
Trailing after its first full year of sales, the all-electric crossover—billed as a “small station wagon” on Nissan’s spec sheet—was supposed to launch in 2021, but US deliveries were delayed due to COVID-related chip shortages.
Nissan executives decline to say whether the Ariya is meeting its US sales target “in this very competitive environment,” but the 13,464-unit tally for 2023 fell well short of the 30,000 vehicles reportedly allocated for Nissan dealers in fiscal 2023, according to Automotive News.
Changes for the model-year 2024 Ariya have just been announced, and the base-model 2024 Ariya Engage with front-wheel drive and up to 216 miles of range from a 63-kWh battery starts at $40,980 with destination, down $3600 from $44,580 for the same ‘23 model.
Atop the ‘24 Ariya range is the AWD Platinum+ e-4ORCE with up to 289 miles of range from an 87-kWh battery, starting at $55,580 with destination, down from $61,580 for the ‘23 model.
The new price structure makes the ‘24 Ariya more competitive with the rivals listed above. The longest-range Ariya is the FWD Venture+ trim with the 87-kWh battery and 304 miles of range, now priced for ‘24 at $42,580.
Ariya is assembled in Tochigi, Japan, which makes it ineligible for IRA federal tax credits. The Nissan Leaf, assembled in Smyrna, Tennessee, is no longer eligible for tax credits as of this year (due to battery sourcing), but Nissan says it is working with authorities to requalify the Leaf for IRA credits once again.
Looking forward, Nissan is retooling its Canton, Mississippi, plant to produce battery-electric vehicles for both the Nissan and Infiniti brands, while continuing to build internal-combustion Frontier pickups as well.
Although the Ariya represents a key part of its long-term strategy, the Japanese brand retains a showroom portfolio thick with internal-combustion models, from the Altima, Sentra, and Z cars to the Kicks, Pathfinder, and Rogue crossovers and Frontier pickup trucks.
Whether the needle moves significantly toward EVs by 2030 remains anyone’s guess, but for now the automaker is cementing it relationship customers who have taken delivery of their Ariya EVs.
