President of Advanced Automotive Batteries: PiP will outsell Volt 2-to-1 in 2012

I believe this was the same concensus at the first Plug-In America Conference in about July 2008, that Plug-In hybrids stand the best chance of becoming somewhat mainstream electrified vehicles.

Plug-in, get your electric drive to work, then travel across the country just like any other conventional car. They'll keep raising the electric ceiling in future revs.

I hope GM can keep their chin up with the Volt. 37 combined on a trip ... that's green car suicide.

 

The Volt is not so bad.. I averaged 42mpg with the car loaded down, so I *think* that I could probably get 44 or 45mpg out of it on the highway. I think the Prius will sell well just because it is the most recognizable car there is, and it has a track record. The price is close enough for me though that I would have chosen the Volt over the PiP... I love my Gen 3 but the Volt is a really nice car inside in comparison.

 

Not sure what Anderman credentials are as an auto sales analyst. AFAIK toyota is planning to sell 50K phvs, gm around the same in 2012. Toyota's sales in 2012 will be highly dependent on how many they decide to make. GM on how well customers want them next year.

You were good up to the last sentence. Given the typical volt driver driving pattern they will use about 108 gallons of gas in 12K miles, if it got 50mpg that would drop to 80, or 28 gallons less a year. If they were all electric that would be 0, in a prius 240 gallons. This is using epa, ymmv, but the big deal for phev drivers is using electricity instead of gasoline. If someone is driving 20K miles a year the volt or leaf are bad choices.

 

I think we'll have to wait and see on this one. The Volt is domestic, and the Prius is made in Japan, so the rate of exchange may impact sales. Toyota has been able to lower the cost of its domestically made models, but I haven't heard of plans to move some Prius production to the US. Is the v or c a 4 code, or are they j codes?

But it will be nice to see what the market response is as GM ramps up production, despite GM continuing to muddy the EV waters with its new round of commercials that insinuate that the Volt is an EV, and not a plug in hybrid, like the PIP. No one should be mentioning Leafs in this thread for that reason.

Anyway, I will stick with Toyota because of the maturity of their technology, and the service life of their vehicles. I would also like to see how the battery fire issue plays out (whether they have been flukes, or will become a standard feature of the Volt.) I'm not trying to be polemic with that statement. As it is, if I were going to purchase a domestic hybrid, it would be the Camry (I owned an early j code) or a Ford.

 

To the best of my knowledge the fires have not eminated from the battery except in the case of the one at the NHTSA crash site... There is obviously something going on surrounding the Volt, but I am unsure what the common link is. I am willing to bet it is the people skimping on the EVSE installations, and that is causing the home fires. That is just me though. If that is the case then SPX or whoever installed them in those peoples homes need to pay the piper.. Is why I am having a personal electrician do our install so I know it is done right, and I have some say in how it is accomplished.

 

Advanced Automotive Batteries

Nothing particular that makes him better than others.

 

That's right. If you commuted (5 days a week) 20,000 miles a year - that'd be 76.9 miles a day, 5 days a week. If you don't get a chance to recharge the Volt, then even the regular Gen II Prius will go farther on a gallon of gas, once you drive farther than around 70 miles.

GM expected 10,000 Volt sales this year - but as we approach the end of the year, they're just barely 1/2 way there. You don't think GM's "50,000 Volts next year" statement is spin?

 

Hill, I thought you were thinking GM would have killed the volt by now. GM said 30K then raised it to 60K world wide production, but won't fully ramp up production until later. 45K domestic, 15K ROW production, so I'm discounting to around 50K sales. It may be optimistic, I don't know. I suspect production problems this year, and expect around 7.5K volts sold or 75% of gm's projections. Discounting the 60K, 75% gives us 45K volts in 2012 which is in that 50K ball park. But if there are volt sales problems, I would expect some similar problems for the prius phv. An analyst would explain that either the volt won't sell, or toyota will change their mind and produce more phvs. Didn't see that in the 2-1 prediction, nor have we heard whether this guy has accurately predicted auto sales before.

 

Volt will have a long, drawout struggle... just like Two-Mode. Carrying such a massive premium and coming up short with HV efficiency isn't exactly easy to overcome. Supporters will continue to place hope on the next generation model, delaying any type of major decision in the meantime.

That isn't the case for Prius. The PHV model is easy to think of as just a package option. You basically get a regular Prius... which is well proven as an appealing choice for middle-market consumers... with a significant MPG boost from adding a plug.
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volt and leaf lease rates are not bad for early adopters, and the owners seem to quite like the cars. Both have been production restricted. The question is when production ramps up in 2012 and 2013 whether they will continue to sell, especially with competition.

The idea of the phv is obvious, the question really is did they do enough and is the price too high. prius sales in 2011 were lower than expectations but some of that was production problems associated with natural disasters. I would expect that the year of the phv will be 2013, not 2012, when toyota does a limited roll out. That is unless someone knows of something that has changed production plans. phv is a good baby step, but I don't expect a phev designed for the american market until the gen IV.

 

With the most recent home I read about, painting solvents and gasoline cans were also stored in the garage. Home fires are reported because of the novelty. Any one with a Prius PHV in the near vicinity will hit the pages too. Of course, you'll hear nothing of all the fires started near a traditional car in the national news.

 

GM raised production capacity for Volt to 25k this year, then later claimed they wanted to produce 16k and then 12k and then how target was 10k.

According to cars.com, there are 3000 Volts for sale in LA area and 755 Prii.
Let me just remind you that Prius outsells it at 1 to 10-15.

I would call it absolute disaster. GM keeps spinning it around, how are they going to find these 50k buyers if they cant sell 1/10 of that without PiP as competition.

 

I can't tell if he is speaking to a global or US audience.
But he does not seem to be exactly on target for USA. EV goal here is not so much CO2 reduction, but creation of green economy leadership etc.

 

Not wanting to beat the issue into the ground, I wasn't going to throw the 3,000 unsold Volts thing. It seems the high price is the real issue ... higher than the PiP will cost. I think that's such a huge issue, that when I read the OP stating 2 to 1 sales difference ... I thought they were actually saying that the PiP won't do well ... because they expect the PiP to 'only' outsell the Volt 2 to 1. I'd guess the sales difference between PiP and Volt will be on the order of at least 5 to 1 - due to the price difference / car pool sticker advantage / regular gas / 4 seater vs 5 / etc.

 

I searched 75 miles around zip code 90012 (downtown LA) to find on cars.com, 199 new volts and 4 used.

There were 1288 Prius for sale, same search.

 

In all fairness, Plug-In Prius is a battery pack added to a very tried-and-true platform, while Volt is all-new. Chevy did make some design mistakes and hopefully they'll figure it out: People buy these cars for the cool motor, not for neck-snap acceleration and the top speed of a Porsche.