An Australian look at Prius v Volt v Leaf

In 2010, Toyota made 523k Prii:
Number of Vehicles Produced in Japan by Model | TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE

As we know now, after latest news on Prius c, Toyota indeed intends to produce over 1,000,000 million hybrids in 2012 alone.

 

btw, should we all be happy that Toyota is going to sell more than 1,000,000 hybrids in 2012?

Sometimes some of you guys sound bitter ))

As I said before, sales of all Prius models will be over Camry sales in 2012... now Toyota wants to count all their Prii under one, so I doubt they will keep them separate.

If Prius did sell 420k in 2011, then 22% extra production means 520k for 2013, then we have Prius v, which will sell another 100k world wide at least, and Prius c with 320k and Prius PHV with some 20-30k world wide.

That comes awfully close to 1 million of Prii alone in 2012. It all really depends on availability and start of sales of PHV and v around the world, with lithium batteries... if they can produce many of them, it will go over 1 million Prii in 2012.

 

For the US market I've been expecting Prius' market share to drop as more 40+mpg models become available here to compete for Prius customers. If true this should start to be evident in this year's sales and should be really clear by the end of next year.

That's not to say total unit sales will drop necessarily; Prius helped start a trend that will have the entire 40+mpg category going nowhere but up in US market share.

Maybe Prius' diversification (esp. the c and v) will help it fight for new market territory and prevent customers lost to all the TDI, Skyactive, Ford and Hyundai hybrid models that were not available even two years ago.

 

No, I think it will be great if toyota sells 1M hybrids. I just doubt they will be able to do it. They should be able to greatly beat 2010 though.

The thing is its not only up to toyota. Analysts even separate golf from jetta sales. 1 Million hybrids is more than double what toyota did last year, does it really matter if the aqua/prius c get counted as separate than the prius/prius v/ prius phv?

I wish you the best of luck in your forecast.

Toyota expects the prius c/aqua will bring new customers into hybrids, that is why they are predicting an increase in the US to 220K for the prius family. The much larger increase they are expecting is in Japan, where they have a great deal of pre-orders for the aqua.

 

Austin, those are not my forecasts, but Toyota's. They simply ended up being very similar to my own predictions from week ago, because i made those predictions after looking at the numbers .

Maybe Toyota is deceiving their investors with claims of 320k Aqua produced and 22% increase of regular Prius?

And they sold more than half a million hybrids in 2011, despite the earthquakes and floods... as I mentioned before, They made 523k Prii in 2010 alone.

 

I haven't seen official numbers for anything but aqua/prius c and camry. The rest are whisper numbers, unless I missed an anouncement. I think it would be smart for toyota to keep them whisper numbers.

I hiope they have a very good year. Most years we fall very short of hybrid whisper numbers. Its a lot better if you sell 850k and compare it to last year, than say you fell 150K short of forecast. I'm not saying anything else. If they sell 1.1M that would be even better.

 

what are you talking about, what is whisper number lol? This is publicly traded company...

they said they will raise normal Prius production by 22% and Prius c 320k. That means 520k + 320k for Prius and Prius c... Thats 840k withouth Prius v, Prius PHV, Camry Hybrid, Auris, Yaris, Highlander RXh, CTh, GSh, etc.

You can find numbers for most of these cars in their PR, there is no such thing as whisper numbers... This is not GM or Ford, that may or may not produce these cars.

I know, you are stunned that someone actually produces hybrids instead of talking about them

 

A Whisper number is an unofficial estimate. If you have an official estimate, I would like to see it. Nothing wrong with these things.

Toyota has missed analyst estimates that had official guidance 3 of the last 4 quarters. These are revised each quarter. It is not easy estimating car demand, nor exchange rates. I'm not trying to argue. Ford also missed their numbers 3 out of the last 4 quarters.

 

missing $ performance in Quarterly reports, especially after earthquake and floods, is different than missing on number of cars being sold... especially when they sell they will sell more than a million, they might miss it but not by much.

Reason Toyota is #1 most valuable car company in the world (by wide margin), is that investors trust them and what they say. Reason why GM has such poor stock performance, is that investors dont believe a word they say.