Nissan might make its biggest LEAF sale ever through a group buy in Montreal, over 2,500 people signed up

As we previously reported this year, LEAF sales in the US are significantly down year over year. Sales are not declining in Canada, but the market is very small for Nissan. The automaker only sells just over 1,000 LEAFs per year in the country, but a current group buy attempt, if successful, could significantly help Nissan LEAF sales in North America.

Inspired by recent group buys by electric vehicle associations in the US, Bruno Marcoux, a LEAF owner from Montreal, decided to organize his own group buy with a local dealership, Nissan Gabriel Jean-Talon in Montreal.

Marcoux got the idea from the successful group buy of 248 by the South West Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) earlier this year in Colorado.

The organization managed to get a significant discount of $8,349 on the LEAF. Both Nissan America and the local dealership contributed to the discount, and combined with both state and federal tax credits, the price came down to a more than reasonable $12,130.

Marcoux aimed at securing enough interest to make it a bigger sale than the 42 LEAFs the city of Montreal bought earlier in the year. In turn, he wasn’t sure if he could secure a discount equivalent to SWEEP, but he is in a better position than ever to do just that.

After his initiative was featured in La Presse, the biggest newspaper in Quebec, and Roulez Electrique, a blog covering electric vehicles in the nation, sign-ups for the group buy shattered expectations and reached over 2,500 as of today.

The LEAF S with a 24 kWh battery pack starts at $32,698 and the SV with a 30 kWh battery pack starts at $37,398. Considering Quebec offers a $8,000 rebate, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the entry price fall below $20,000 CAD.

Marcoux is reportedly in negotiations with Nissan Canada.

At this point, it would probably be a question of availability since it even if only half the people who signed up end up going through with the purchase, and people are still signing up, it would still double Nissan’s entire annual LEAF sales in the country in just one group buy.

It would also represent more LEAFs than Nissan delivered in the US last month.

Marcoux told us that at the moment Nissan could likely only secure a price for about 1,500 2016 LEAFs and the balance would need to be covered by the upcoming 2017 model – though with a smaller discount.

To put things into perspective, there are about 11,000 electric vehicles in Quebec right now. If the sale goes through, the number would increase significantly in the coming months.