The owner of the first Leaf has been driving it for the 4-5 days and he is reporting / blogging on the Leaf forum, apparently. Plugin Cars has encapsulated his reports:
I'm going on record now as saying there will be a "safety recall" on these in around 2 years.
You know, I made the exact same argument at diyelectriccar and they told me how crazy I was, and how much Nissan had tied up into it, and how EVERYONE is coming out with an EV, there's no stopping us now, etc. I still believe that they will come out with a recall, as you do, but sometime before the big rollout in 2011 (When Oklahoma will supposedly have access, where I live). In addition, they will claim that there was just no demand for the car.....
I'm going on record now as saying there will be a "safety recall" on these in around 2 years.
The EV1 was never sold, only leased so no one who drove an EV1 ever owned it, the Leaf is being sold outright, same with the Volt.
Even if people had them bursting in to flames it would still be up to the owner to choose to give them back if they were faced with a recall.
The only problem I see so far is that they are falling behind on delivery, but I'm sure that is mostly due to each car being hand inspected before it goes out, but it still seems a bit fishy.
I've often wondered if you could prop a bigger pack in the car.
But then again unlike the 1st owner I could likely get the 100miles or more range. He likely just drives pedal to the medal the whole way down the freeway.