Toyota Prius outsells entire list of KBB top 10 Green Cars for 2015

mmm, and mint.

 

+1

I just was pointing out the perception put out in most of the media is not the reality. The initial adoption of the plug-ins are going much faster than most car technologies. The volt and leaf were only first delivered to customers in 2010, Plug-ins are a bigger percentage of all markets then hybrids were at a similar time.

Hybrids helped push technology for regenerative braking, electronically assisted steering, and electronic air conditioning. These things were much better understood, and cost less in R&D when plug-ins started selling. This made the first plug-in generation much more polished than the original Prius and insight. Plug-ins are also suceeding in the performance and luxury categories which hybrids simply are a failure. I don't think hybrids prepared adopters for plug-ins at all though, we are still on that technology curve. These adopters have more to adopt than prius drivers that simply were buying a "better gasoline car".

No but we should give the e-golf and i3 a chance ;-) They are quite new, and the torque news click bait seemed to be all upset that they were not green simply because they were not selling well yet. Again the list included the entire prius family (liftback, v, c, phv), they just thought these newer entries deserved spots on the list above.

The US market is flat in the first 3 months, but should see some small growth at the end of the year. The big growth will come with gen IIs of the hot selling plug-ins plus the outlander phev and tesla X and III.

The worldwide market growth this year will mainly come from china that is just now getting its infrastructure together, and europe that has been slower to adopt than the US. Some are predicting 50% growth in plug-ins this year as plug-ins catch up to the US in these markets, and more doestic companies get their plug-ins more polished.


+1

The trickle down effect of technology.

 

what if it turned out that almost all ev buyers owned a hybrid previously? i still think there's a mental hurdle that hybrid vehicles helped prepare us for, whether we owned one or not. but i may be thinking too close to home.

 

Zythryn has a thread about demographics of trade in's for plug-ins. If every one was a trade in, there is no way we could get such high numbers from china where plug-in sales will soon outpace the best year of hybrid sales

Even in the US 2014 plug-in sales were about 26% of hybrids, Since less than 50% of hybrids are traded for hybrids or plug-ins, and more of those for hybrids than plug-iins (edmunds) then there simply are not enough hybrids being traded-in to account for all the plug-ins. Most hybrids are less than 7 years old so many more are sold each year than traded-in. Initially the volt and leaf were claiming around 35% of hybrids traded in, but since then the number has probably dropped significantly.

Now some tesla buyers came from the prius, sure, they chose the prius as the lowest gasoline car, and it no longer fits. Most prii buyers in the mid 2000s were much wealthier than the demographics for a car that price, especially in california. 48% of prii traders in the first quarter though according to that edmunds survey bought an ice car, not a hybrid or plug-in. Many of this around 20% of tesla buyers wouldn't have bought a hybrid again anyway. I would think more people that wanted to use less oil would by a plug-in if hybrids didn't exist. Hybrids did drive R&D that reduced costs and added refinement to plug-ins though. So net effect of hybrids on plug-ins is probably positie in the US and CHina, but negative in Japan.

 

and some might have sold their hybrid privately, or they might still own it.

and the fact that they wouldn't have bought a hybrid again means they owned a hybrid.

 

After the first set of EVs were crushed, the only remaining options were hybrids and <cough cough> diesels. I still remember the dealer markup and auctions of limited availability in the mid-2000s.

Just folks need to realize swapping cars also requires a real need and/or advantage. Need can be crashed or too broke to fix. Then shop for the car that meets one's price/performance requirements. Over time, the market has only gotten better.

Bob Wilson

 

Why ask a few people when you can ask hundreds of plugin owners?

Efficient car market growth and trends | PriusChat

The number of plugin owners that replaced hybrids is about 15%-20%.

As many, if not more people are replacing SUVs/Trucks than efficient (>40mpg) hybrids.
In the case of Tesla, almost half of the replaced cars are luxury or sports cars.

Electrics are drawing from a wider audience, which is why, even with the required change in behavior, they are growing faster than hybrids did.

 

thanks, i would be most interested in leaf numbers. i wonder if nissan has done any polling. to me, it's the closest thing on the road to what the (above) average joe would buy. nothing else is really telling because of price, not pure bev, or quantity sold.

 

Link to the Leaf survey is right up top in the first post.
Replacing a hybrid came out at 11% so far.
My Nissan Leaf Forum &bull; View topic - Poll: What did your Leaf replace?

 

Resale Prices Tumble on Electric Cars - Videos - Boston.com

 

One analyst who seems to use extreme examples to prove their position.
EV prices have dropped about $5,000 since their introduction in 2010.
If the new cars drop $5k, so do the used.

The $7500 rebate comes right off the top as well.
As does any state incentives.

Basically, an EV bought before the price cuts, lost about $14,000 before considering time and mileage.

In the case of the Volt, that is over a third of the original price.

In the Volt's case you can also add that people are waiting to see the second gen cars this summer.

Used EVs are a great deal, however, that is not unexpected.
It is certainly not a reason to think they are struggling. They are struggling less than hybrids.

 

43 people switched from a gasser to leaf. difficult to take away much from that compared to 2001 prius.

 

True, we don't have direct numbers from the 2001 Prius.
We can see total sales though. And the total sales for EVs are growing faster for plugin cars than they did for hybrids.

As for the polls I posted, those give us a very rough (due to sample size) indication that only a minority of these buyers are coming from hybrids.
Basically indicating a market larger than just people concerned about saving gas.
Or, possibly that EVs are doing a more effective job at getting people to make the switch from gasses to EVs?

 

but everybody made the jump to prius from gassers.

 

	group	count (8/13)	% (8/13)	count (3/15)	% (3/15)
1	hybrids	53020​	3.54%	33655​	2.19%
2	diesels	16002​	1.07%	10182​	0.66%
3	plug-in+EV	11363​	0.76%	8735​	0.57%
4	total	80385​	5.37%	52572​	3.42%

• August 2013 - peak sales
• March 2015 - most recent month (not worst)

Bob Wilson

 

ball don't lie.

 

Volt and Prius are long in the tooth and haven't even had a significant visual refresh or functional improvement in a long time to spur sales. Some people could be waiting either for price drops on the left overs or the new and improved much publicized versions. Gas prices are still relatively low too so that spur is not helping now.

 

yep.^^^

 

There's a few of us here that came from diesels.

 

bless you.