Comparison with previous month:

.......... July .. August
Camry.... 33974 ... 54396
Corolla.. 29593 ... 43061
Prius.... 19173 ... 18866
Yaris..... 5483 .... 4797

Interesting trends. Anyone have any ideas on the causes of the relative changes here? Seems Prius didn't get the same bump as Camry/Corolla. Wonder how C4C factors in here...

Production capacity, I think. There just weren't many Prius on the lots when folks showed up. My understanding from our Japanese friends:

~50,000 Prius / month total production, battery limited
~25,000 Prius - domestic Japanese sales (???)
~20,000 Prius - North American sales (???)
~5,000 Prius - everybody else

I'm really looking forward to two other sources:

• Green Car Congress - they show hybrid sales as a percentage of all sales. Last month it exceeded 3%, very nicely.
• http://www.hybridcars.com/market-dashboard.html - they show the hybrid sales across all vendors ... market share. I'm hoping to see Honda Insight get a nice boost too. From what I can tell of the EPA user numbers, that little car has some 'street creds'

Bob Wilson

Very disappointing Prius sales, but not the car's fault. You would think the C4C program would benefit the Prius a lot more compared to the Corolla (not really a good car for today's standards) and Camry (most overrated car in the market), but the absence of Prius in the lots was a killer. Too bad. If Toyota had plenty of supply, the Prius could easily reach over the 30-35K mark I believe. Shame.

I agree. Even in Prius-rich Southern California, they're hard to come by. I wonder how many people stopped in for a Prius and left with a Camry due to the special finance deals.

One can't sell what one didn't manufacture. Prius sales won't increase until production does.

"The Prius mid-size gas-electric hybrid posted August sales of 18,886 units, up 45.7 percent from the year-ago month."
I am glad to see Prius sales up 45%, but I was hoping for more like a 100% increase. Of course, though, considering that August 2008 was the peak of $4.50 gasoline, this 45% increase is certainly praiseworthy.

I think the cash for clunkers contributed to Toyota's overall sales increase. Power Toyota in Irvine had ~300 (systematically estimated) clunkers sitting on their lot last week, and very low new Toyota inventory.

Also the Camry and Corolla are made here. For the last several months TMS has been pumping up the volume of NA-made vehicles to replace the shortfall of J-made vehicles which they are reducing.

It's a matter of exchange rates. It's better to produce and sell here rather than to import and sell here.

Huh???

I don't know if you're in the business but at this large EC store and in our entire market every unit available was sold. There were zero Prius' available at the end of the month at any store. We have 60% of the Prius sales volume in our district.

I'm not sure I understand.
Most people with old gas guzzlers have them because they cant afford a more expensive car.
Cash for Clunkers comes along and they go looking for a new car to grab the opportunity. I'm not surprised these people bought from the cheap end of the showroom rather than lash out on a Prius but it is hard to justify replacing a land barge with a Yaris so Corolla and Camry are obvious choices.

Maybe the incentive scheme should have taken into account the consumption reduction giving a greater incentive to purchase more efficient vehicles.
This could have been a
(base amount) + ($ x combined MPG of replacement) = total government subsidy and scrap value of guzzler.

I hope that makes sense.

They could have sold the Prius for $10 and the sales figures would have been the same. There were no more cars to be had.

Bingo. Same was true last year in July and perhaps August. The waiting lists were several months at the time (I was on one until I got mine at the end of July.) Yet we have a 45% improvement in sales this year. The difference? Production capacity has increased.

You obviously completely missed my point. What I and many others are saying here is that the demand of the 2010 Prius is much higher than the offer, in other words, sales would have been much higher if more Priuses were available in the dealers.

Yes, regardless, Prius sales were limited by production, not by price tag, BUT I liked what patsparks said: the C4C program would be a lot more successful if the amount of cash given was proportional to increased fuel efficiency, i.e. the higher the MPG difference from your clunker, the higher the available cash. Great idea!

Great idea, yes, for those interested in buying a Prius. However, the way I see it the C4C bill was designed primarily as a way to boost sales in a hurting auto industry and secondarily (a multiplier, as Obama says) as a way to reduce the average fuel consumption of the american driver.

If instead the bill was primarily designed to reduce fuel consumption then I would have gotten some sort of rebate for trading in my 99 Ford Contour Sport (21 MPG combined) for a 2010 Prius (50 MPG combined)... over doubling my fuel efficiency! Instead, because my Contour was not at or below 18 MPG combined, I had to sell it at market price ($1775) and just use that money toward the Prius.

At first I was very upset about the C4C bill because it did not cover my Prius purchase... but then when I thought about it as primarily a way to boost auto sales and only secondarily as a way to improve average MPG, then I wasn't so mad.

I get the feeling that even if there were a greater supply of Prius on the lots during C4C (and assuming a greater supply of Corolla, Camry, Yaris, etc... as many lots were simply empty) that the August numbers would have not been that different. Most (and I do emphasize most, because there are always exceptions and most of those exceptions are probably on this site) people who were driving a "clunker" are more likely to find a traditional mid or full sized sedan appealing than a Prius.

In the end, Clunkers was meant to sell cars, and effort was made to prevent a ton of new SUVs from being put on the road.

Good point, but, if the program was designed in a way such as people getting the most efficient fuel economy car would benefit the most, that would still boost automaker sales (perhaps a little less compared to the original program), benefit those automakers who have invested more in fuel efficient vehicles, increased overall fuel efficiency (therefore lower carbon emissions and gas consumption), and, of course, get rid of clunkers (very important).

I'm not sure. Several hundreds of people all across the US were frustrated for not being able to get the Prius on time for the C4C program. The sales numbers for the Prius is not realistic as the waiting lists keep getting bigger. This car is really rocking!

This is the problem, though. I am sure that the legislators realized, when drafting this bill, that if they made C4C primarily about boosting fuel economy, automakers with fuel efficient vehicles (most models of which are foreign) would benefit the most from a US taxpayer funded program.

I think I heard the statistic that Toyota and Honda together accounted for over half of the C4C voucher dollars... although this does help US automakers, I am sure that the big three wish that the bill would have been restricted to US owned automakers.

If the bill, on the other hand, would have been primarialy for improved fuel economy, then I think an even greater percentage of the dollars would have been toward foreign automakers.

I am all for a free market and using my dollars as a vote toward what sort of car (the fuel efficient Prius) I support... and I hope that the US companies will catch up and even surpass foreign automakers when it comes to making gas sipping vehicles. But, I can't argue against the fact that a bill paid for by US citizens during a depressed economy centered around the auto industry should attempt to benefit US automakers.

I knew you were going to come up with that argument. Sorry, but this is a week argument as the definition of an American Car (or production of cars that really benefit the US economy and its employees) is very complex.

Here is the latest data from USA today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-03-21-car-content-chart_N.htm

This is based on 2007. Honda and Toyota have opened US plants after that, so the so-called “US automakers†are not that much more American than Honda and Toyota.

YES, I do think the government should launch programs that would reward companies with higher investments in technology for fuel efficiency. In the end of the day, that would be potentially be a lot more beneficial for the overall economy than just helping out troubled US automakers.

C4C did reward the purchase of a higher mpg car. If the mpg difference was 10 or greater, the buyer got another $1000 credit. Not as elegant as some ratio based system, but involved less chance for messing up a form.

I do not think that it is the job of the US government to reward companies that are based outside of its borders, regardless of the technology they posses. Such rewards are handed out by individual taxpayers within the US, such as myself who owns a 2010 Prius.

Personally, I would rather see the US government put money toward the development and implementation of American based fuel efficiency technology. Screw the big 3, if that is what it takes... in my opinion, if the US government is going to be doling out taxpayer dollars with (and there always is) some sort of underlying initiative, which in this case is energy independence, those dollars should go to companies or inventors who would apply for US patents and who would use their success to create more US jobs.

Basically, if the US taxpayer is going to make an investment (through the government) in something through a government credit or some other stimulus program, they should expect to see a payback for that investment. In the case of new and underdeveloped technology, that payback comes in the form of jobs and a larger tax base/higher standard of living.