Due to overwhelming demand, Toyota shifts Aqua production into Overdrive

really, you think 1 million prii are more than half a million? ha! good one.

 

Japan had 60,000 pre-ordered Aquas. I have not heard about pre-ordering for Prius c here in the US. Isn't it about time to start?

 

actually that ended up being "more than 100k Aquas" for full month of preorders .

 

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-c-main-forum/101684-prius-c-in-hot-demand-6.html#post1457313
110K

 

Doug Coleman explained in this video. He did not specifically say it in this video but I think he did in one of What Drives Us episodes.

 

i think 30k/month is maximum for complete factory...so ractis and other cars produced there (6 total), are probably not being produced right now . That explains why Ractis dropped in sales in Feb 2012. Other cars probably have other factories that they are produced in.

 

Toyota sold more Aqua in Japan than all the Priuses combined in the US for Feb. That's a huge demand!

 

...my personal thinking is Toyota got it right with focus on hybrid rather than EV for Japan market. With the shut down of nuke plants in Japan post disaster, I am thinking EV makes less sense there.

 

Well, in the first two months of the year 9,357 Ractis were sold. That's down from last year. Assuming they haven't already been reducing Ractis production there could be 4k to 5k extra Aqua/c produced each month. I hope the USA's supply gets a bit of a bump.

 

But did they cannibalize Prius sales?

Er, no.

35,875 Prius sales in Japan in February. That beats the previous March 2010 record.

There are green subsidies again this year.

 

50% of Toyota sold in Japan are hybrids. That's what a few thousand USD equivalent of incentive can do. A very effective way to cut gasoline consumption that is really a win-win-win.

 

as i explained in another thread, incentives sure help, but incentives for hybrids are only a little bit higher than for normal cars like Corolla (21 toyota models get 75% tax cut).

what drives demand for hybrids is the fact that japanese like them and that their gas is $7-$7.5 per gallon. Prius was best seller without any incentives last year, 2nd best was Fit and 3rd was Yaris, thats how they roll.

so for hybrid, phev and ev demand in the US, gas price hike would help the best, and not small tax credits. problem is that raising taxes for gas would be death of any politician.