So did they SELL OUT?

Funny but @ 11:00am I got an email from Toyota saying to go order a new plug-in. Hmmm glad I wasn't waiting on that timely email

 

I got an email at that time too. I couldn't help but laugh. I you didn't have a plan before that, you certainly wouldn't be getting an early car!

 

I just got that email about 15 minutes ago LOL!

 

I'm unsure what's happening behind the scenes but I have a client who keeps getting an error message when trying to order his vehicle, so I advised them to call the help line to see if they can assist.

The help line's been absolutely wonderful to me today - a few glitches and they have been on the phone with me on several occasions to help buyers with error messages and other issues.

Bravo Toyota!

 

Still hasn't sold out of as of 4.30 pm pst, over 7 hours after the window opened. talk about high expectations!
at least the login problems have been fixed…

 

Maybe there are some lagging orders they permitted with the website issues. I'm still confirming orders as of 3 mins ago, but they are older confirmation code #'s from way earlier today.

Dianne

 

Got all worked up for no reason. The dealers I spoke to were all saying that they didn't expect it to sell out but seeing the frenzy here online, I was all nervous. There's only so many people willing to pay this much for a Toyota Prius in this slow economy.

 

Dianne, why do you keep insinuating that the car is sold out? it did not sell out in minutes, and it has not yet sold out as of now. your prediction was wrong, and that's okay. it's okay to be wrong sometimes. don't worry about it.

don't forget we are in the middle of a depression and not everyone has +/- 32K to spend on a new car. given that chevy has only sold ~5000 volts this year, it's hard to expect that 5000 PIPs would fly off the shelves in minutes, even with toyota's excellent hybrid track record and HOV incentives in some states.

 

If you could see how many ADVANCED package cars I took orders on today, you'd never believe there's an economic issue in this instance.

People may not be buying high end shoes or clothes, or even high end jewelry or other luxury items, but cars are a necessity and when folks are spending lots of time IN their cars commuting, they don't skimp or settle. Matter of fact, lots of folks consider moving into this PHEV as their skimp/settle move from a larger or more pricy car!

 

I didn't really care if I was wrong or right. Based on the small amount of cars I'd heard was being trickled out to the pre-order system this morning, I guess you can say I was worried they would sell out fast. And, it was also due to the demand thru me, because I had no other way to gauge the demand thru others.

I think it's just great that there are still cars available, and I hope that's true of every geographic area.

Let's say I didn't want to be right... and when I saw that "SOLD OUT" text on the front of the order site area mere minutes after the gate opened, that really, really worried me. One hates to see the gate slam shut on folks who are struggling to sign in or do things in the site ... and sadly, there was dealer training but no customer training! I can't tell you how many folks I walked thru their last step - the acceptance - today. I'm bone tired!

 

Well, she's just doing her job. If it was my job to sell cars I would do the same thing and say it was hard to get. When have you been not told when buying a car that, that particular car was rare or that color combo was hard to get..haha.. It also ensures that there's less negotiation on price for any dealer. Because if I didn't order already, at this point, I would call up a couple of dealerships and start a bidding war, just like any other car that you buy. Play them off each other until you get the best price, you order from the lowest. This process prevented dealers from charging over MSRP for a new car that just comes out but they hype surrounding it prevented people from getting the best price by negotiating, so why wouldn't any dealer want people to think it was rare. Part of the job.

 

Not only would I love to know the breakdown of Regular vs Advanced model (by state as well), I'd love to see a chart of the number of orders (per state) per hour. I want to see how large that initial spike was as all the early EARLY adopters slammed the order process.

Dianne, share what you can! Human behavior on reactions to limited supply are fascinating.

 

Yes that would be interesting!
I'll have to try and format a spreadsheet type of thing... might be interesting to see the cars in order of confirmation, but then that might be a tad skewed with the website glitches too.

 

i just got my order in at 9:00 p.m. est after trying all day. so i would say they have not sold out. i think there have just been some glitches with the web site which, if anything, are slowing down the process.

 

Did anyone else get this error message?

There has been a problem with your submission.

com.tms.oos.exceptions.InvalidXmlException: The locally-constructed request is invalid!

 

i got that a few times when trying to reset my password.

 

I have a customer who keeps getting that when he tries to submit his order and no one's at the help desk right now... arrgh!

 

Tell him to close the window and clear his browser cookies, then try again. Or just try a different web browser.