Would it help matters if Toyota started to build Prius in the USA as was planned? Wouldn't this, a time of poor economic performance, be a good time to invest in a new US factory?

Building North America's Prius in the USA would free up production of the Japanese factory for domestic and other smaller export markets.

My understanding is the critical resource are the NiMH batteries and not from material shortage ... production capacity. We've pretty well rehashed this one to death but soon enough the patent will expire and maybe we can all get back to serious business.

Bob Wilson

9 months, that is madness! Current UK lead times are 13 weeks or 16 weeks for Peal White.

Floppy

It's not going to get any better if China starts restricting export of rare minerals used in hybrid batteries because they want to use it themselves for their own battery-powered cars.

El Cajon Toyota has quite a few Gen III's on lot. During C4C they could not hold one on the lot. I am still happy I stopped on a whim when I bought my car. If you are flexible then you may not have to wait so long.

China denied that one - they don't want to export the raw ore, but they are willing to continue exporting refined metal.

Besides, the name rare in rare earth metal is something of a misnomer:

"The term "rare earth" arises from the minerals from which they were first isolated, which were uncommon oxide-type minerals (earths) found in Gadolinite extracted from one mine in the village of Ytterby, Sweden. However, with the exception of the highly-unstable promethium, rare earth elements are found in relatively high concentrations in the earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element in the earth's crust at 68 parts per million."

- [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_metal]Rare earth element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The UK Toyota plants are supposed to be getting ready to build the Auris HSD next year, but unless they massively despec it and reduce the cost, no-one will buy one: it's projected to cost more than a Prius T4. If they're going to do that, they should build Prius here instead.

That means prices can only go up, so hurry up and buy now before the prices become out of reach.

We were informed by our local dealer of the situation regarding the allocation and short supply of the Toyota Prius C. It sounds like rather poor planning on Toyota's part and certainly limits our choice and enthusiasm. With all the time, , promotion, advanced marketing (and hopefully research) I am astonished that cars will not be available to drive and inspect before purchase. It is our hope that Toyota improves on their availability.

Well, working a little in retail, the problem of supply and demand as well as delivery is always going to be difficult because of a few key things.

People are picky. People will want something specific. Unfortunately, you can't make a cookie cutter car and then 'inject the icing' onto the car to fit the person's wants. So the best thing you can do is make a bunch of cars that might match needs and then have them rolled out to locations.

Now you might not know this, but unlike stores, not all dealerships can keep a large stock and of course, cars take up a lot of real estate. Dianne seems like she has a large stock, but she is also pushing hard to sell her stock. And the way it has been described is that dealerships need to sell their allocations or else their next allocation be lower. Of course, low demand areas won't get much in allocation because there isn't much of a demand. Another example is when you look at Prius v. I wanted a Blue Ribbon Metallic with ATP... In my area, none could be found. Only Classic Silver or Blizzard White. Reason that turned out that way is what is considered 'popular color selection'. White and Silver, next to 'Black' (Magnetic Grey) and Red tend to be the most popular, 'safe' colors. Off colors tend to not be good sellers and it is a waste of material. And initial runs, it is hard to tell if that is what people want.

Lastly, how much a customer is willing to wait... Again, there will be the custom jobs and the jobs where people just 'I want this now'. As the above example, Dealers will want to get you 'now', not later and they want the people who go 'I want now'. And in our current climate, with gas prices going up once again and people with low MPG cars wanting to save money at the pump, the wait may seem more costly due to FUD than just waiting for the custom job.

While some will say, "I just can't keep them on the lot..." While it is a scare sales tactic, thing is, it may also be true because of the simple fact, people might be buying them because they want the fuel savings, especially if they are the type who don't mind the upfront cost knowing it will be recouped in the long term and not having to feel the fuel costs eroding away at them along with the known maintenance.

. Funny. Read the topic on the -required- vast increase in production of the Prius C (Aqua) in Japan. 30,000 cars per month not being enough kind of explains your difficulty in getting one. Don't worry, we've seen this before with the Prius "hatchback" in the early days. It will eventually fix itself. It's kind of like an Apple IPhone or IPad. If you -MUST- have the newest and "best" before everyone else, be prepared to wait and pay more.

Oh, and that's exactly what this -old- thread was created to discuss.

Toyota has planned to build a LOT of them.

It is hard to predict sales when price of gas is going up and down all the time.

Toyota has made plans to build 1,000,000 hybrid batteries in 2010/2011, and now in 2012 they are doing it. A lot of them thought they would be crazy for doing so, afterall in first 13 years in market, Toyota hybrids sold 3 million and now they are making a million per year!

And also don't forget, it has been over a year since Japan had their major disaster with the Tsunami which took out 1/3 of their power grid and the concern of a nuclear meltdown that could have rendered a good portion of Japan radioactive.

I think someone else is also neglecting that during that time, Japan ASKED companies to SHUTDOWN for a period of a couple weeks DUE to the power issues, which also hampered several production facilities, including US based businesses that relied on High Tech parts from Japan.

The Toyota dealer in Tustin, CA has about 60-90 Prii on the lot, between Prius v, Liftback, and Prius c. These three models make up about 75% of their total inventory right now. In total, I would say they have about ten Prius c.

The Toyota dealer in Irvine, CA has about 60 Prius total, with Prius c being about seven of those. I'm not sure if they have any hiding in the back lot.

I only saw markup on one of these Prius c, in the showroom of the Irvine location that had "custom wheels" that added about $3000 to the price.

The Tustin dealer had at least two that were $20,264 including transport.



(although I tend to like dark gray and silver on cars, the red Prius c looked GREAT!)