Ariya

Make
Nissan
Segment
SUV

The most disappointing aspect of the Nissan Ariya so far has been an inability for customers around the globe to get their hands on one. With a debut originally scheduled for the middle of last year, delays have continued to plague the stylish EV. In April, Nissan said that the on-sale date of the Ariya was pushed back from late March to this month in Japan. Unfortunately for customers in the United States, the Ariya is even further behind schedule, so much so that Nissan has decided to stop taking orders for the vehicle here. Nissan wants to avoid taking orders for Ariyas it simply can't deliver within a reasonable timeframe.

"Every customer wants to have it, and we don't want customers to wait," said Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta. "Ariya has been successfully accepted around the world. Even in the United States, we had to request our customers to stop the orders." Instead, the Japanese marque will limit orders to numbers that can realistically be delivered - right now, those numbers are unknown.

Nissan's decision not to overpromise on deliveries is wise in an industry that has been severely shackled by supply and production constraints. Ford knows this all too well with many Broncos still failing to reach customers. Ford has also stopped taking orders for the 2022 Mustang Mach-E, an Ariya rival.

Bill Wallace, CEO of Wallace Auto Group that operates a Nissan store in Florida, says that "taking orders that never get filled only makes for unhappy customers." He supported Nissan's decision to halt US orders for now.

The Ariya is manufactured at the company's Tochigi plant north of Tokyo. Part of the reason for the delays is that the plant required new equipment from overseas suppliers but restrictions linked to the pandemic made it challenging for engineers to visit Japan to install the equipment.

Relatively affordable, uniquely styled, and exceptionally safe, deliveries of the first Ariyas are meant to start in fall 2022 in the USA. For potential customers who haven't yet ordered the Ariya, the wait could be a lot longer than that.