The Leaf in the US wasn't a marketing communication failure, it was a product placement failure. Americans are willing to compromise on [price] or [interior] or [performance] or [practicality], but not all four.
Americans who drop $40,000+ (in 2020 dollars) aren't the kind of buyers who are willing to drive a vehicle that looks, feels, and performs like a sub $15,000 car, and is less practical than one. You don't need an SUV to be successful either, look at the Model 3, S, Prius, etc.
Americans are perfectly willing to buy economical cars... at an economical price. But if you ask big bucks, it better be something Americans can show off.
Product "placement" failure is a marketing communication failure. If you can't communicate well enough why your product is competing in the price point that it is, that's a classic marketing failure.
"Looks" and "feels" can be addressed by marketing narratives. (And some of the differences between "economy" and "luxury" in cars are marketing more than cost basis. If the American version of the Leaf wasn't tweaked for some of those "luxuries", that can also be a failure of marketing imagination.)
As for performance, I'm assuming you've either never driven a Leaf nor owned a sub-$15,000 ICE car? No EV "performs like a sub $15,000 car", in terms of torque/pickup/handling. That that isn't more well known is itself a particularly larger American industry marketing failure that's left the average American consumer behind the world market.
Communication will get people to the dealership, but if your product doesn't impress people in a test drive, they won't buy it.
> No EV "performs like a sub $15,000 car", in terms of torque/pickup/handling
Torque != power. Low-horsepower EVs like the Leaf feel great in a city where you get the benefit of that torque from 0-30 mph, but that benefit quickly tapers off as speed rises. (aerodynamically, 2x speed requires 4x power) The 2012 Leaf launched with a high-9 second 0-60. The 2012 Prius has a number in the low-10s and the 2012 Yaris has 0-60 times in the low-9s. These are all very comparable vehicles in a highway merge situation. You won't impress your passenger with the performance of any of them on a high-speed American highway. They're fun as heck around a dense city, but most Americans dropping $40,000 on a new car are merging on to divided highways in the burbs.
Americans who drop $40,000+ (in 2020 dollars) aren't the kind of buyers who are willing to drive a vehicle that looks, feels, and performs like a sub $15,000 car, and is less practical than one. You don't need an SUV to be successful either, look at the Model 3, S, Prius, etc.
Americans are perfectly willing to buy economical cars... at an economical price. But if you ask big bucks, it better be something Americans can show off.