01/21/2026
We just went to the Nissan dealership and what a "testiment" to this Country it was. There was open hostility to we the car owner having battery information on our EV, referral to Nissan corporate as to why, inability to get anyone at corporate to explain, and a manager who was clearly anti electric vehicles, after supposedly embracing them by putting in a fast charger, yet now laughing at people spending an hour "refueling." To start we wanted to upgrade our 2013 Leaf, which is a stellar car, with exceptional design, ride, and simplicity, going from our current degraded 24Kw battery that gives us about 60 mile range to a 64Kw that should get over 200miles. We purchased the "plug and play" battery for around $10k, which included door to door, awheeled shelving unit for the old cells to turn into back up storage and an inverter to charge them with PV panels. We did our research and the manufacturuer that specializes in this asked us for the diagnostics to preprogram the battery so we could simply drop the old battery out and plug and screw back in the new unit (only a 100 lbs more and fits the exact contour of the original battery pack, so no shims).
We went to the dealer to get diagnostics on the car, they wouldn't let us talk to the technician or simply give us the ouput from their equipment, saying the data belonged to NIssan?! It took a very intriguing and often heated conversation with the Manager to have them give us the most rudimentary diagnostics. The Manager was a diehard Catholic Trump supporter and felt sad that he was so smart, capable yet misinformed. We could have simply bought a OBD2 bluetooth coder and the the app. but felt engaging the local dealership in a college town with one of the top environmental schools was worth the extra effort. We ended up getting the coder anyway nowing we will need it in the future and may help with any issues in installation.
It was indeed a learning experience, but the resistance to change was disheartening. I understand that the transition to renewables and all things green disrupts the current business paradigm, interferes with the profit motive, and no one wants to be told adapt or die?! Harsh! It exemplifies the challenges of corporations taking control, undermining our right to repair laws, selling our location and habits data to "consumer" and surveillance companies, gutting our mifddle class manufacturing and sending it overseas, etc. It demonstrates the historical alliance car manufacturers have had for decades with dirty energy and the financial markets, that gave us lead pollution in our blood, asthma in kids, low test scores in eposed low income highay communities, the invasion of and occupation of Gulf States and now Venezuela, the cutting of pipelines through sacred lands and the polluting of our ground water. Amazon's forray into car sales with Hyundai and now Hertz spells the deathknell to car dealerships, who are already struggling.... with change?!
Buying cars often feels like an anxiety-inducing ordeal that can last hours. Car dealers now face their challenges, including a consolidating dealership land...
