I agree with all you say especially the part about the G's design acumen up front which is very important.
Production ready to many people means we're ready to send it down the line and out into the world. IMO we're about three years and many millions of dollars from that point. Design iterations and testing are unavoidable. The trick is to limit them to, best case, one relatively minor iteration.
Final question: If you were Nissan how many sets of hard tooled parts would you want assembled and tested for how many millions of miles under all stress and environmental conditions before sending the product out into the world? Keep in mind that fatigue failures are very different than stress failures. On the plus side there is a history with the original torsion. I don't know how different the iso is and how much reliability info can be assumed with a high degree of confidence.
My point is that that the buyer is assuming much risk and is understandably cautious. I would be very happy to learn by the end of March that Nissan had ordered another 20 units and that some government entity had put up at least some money for the bus initiative.
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