“Ariya has been successfully accepted around the world,” Gupta said. “Even in the United States, we had to request our customers to stop the orders.”
The crossover is Nissan’s second EV after the Leaf, which has grown long in the tooth. The automaker also faced delays in getting the vehicle’s new production line up and running just as the pandemic and semiconductor crises hit.
Deliveries of the base model Ariya began in Japan only in May, after being delayed from March. At one point the new nameplate was scheduled to debut in mid-2021.
The EV will be manufactured in a dedicated new section of Nissan’s Tochigi assembly complex north of Tokyo, called the Intelligent Factory. That plant project required new equipment from overseas suppliers. But COVID-related travel restrictions made it difficult for supplier engineers to visit Japan for installation and operational confirmation, a Nissan spokeswoman said.
Those complications affected the Intelligent Factory’s ramp-up schedule.
One rival EV crossover also is encountering production snags.
Toyota’s new bZ4X all-electric crossover suffered eight days of suspended production this month because of parts shortages caused by the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai.
