Chevrolet Volt tops Sierra Club ranking of plug-in hybrids

What do you think their rational is for not having TX be part of the opening market? Isn't it most likely just a matter of production?

How is it Toyota makes more $$ on PiP's in CARB states?
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I can't think of one rational reason for excluding Texas. Since Toyota has clearly missed their numbers because of lack of demand in Japan and the states they sell in, there can not be a production problem. I would say it is more likely they sell in CARB states and not Texas because of a lack of marketing competance when it comes to plug ins. Really a small number of dealers in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio could serve most of the demand in the state. They even have a plant in San Antonio, but do not manufacture in the bulk of states they did the roll out.

I don't see how a PIP would be more profitable in Arazona or NJ than Texas. It could be they are simply losing money in those states, and don't want to sell anymore until a redesign.

 

I would expect the 1.5/1.8L Prius populations to be about two orders of magnitude greater than the PiP. An Ebay search for "Prius Plug in" found three listed, two 1.8L PiP and one modified 2004 with an ethanol conversion:

• Toyota : Prius Base Hatchback 4-Door in Toyota | eBay Motors - "It also has a conversion to run on Ethanol fuel which is usually around $1/gal less expensive than gasoline." For sale in Los Angeles, the owner is asking $14k

I also found a used, not crashed Leaf in Nashville that included a cost-per-mile to have it delivered. The irony is Nashville is my benchmark for the shortest, highway trip that would be acceptable, ~120 miles from Huntsville, AL.

My thinking is another 18 months and used Leaf prices should start falling. Our first Prius was a used 2003 with 49,300 miles that I drove 800 miles back to Huntsville. For a Leaf, we would fit a tow-bar and drag it behind our 1.8L Prius which it could do very nicely.

Bob Wilson

 

Month of June was pretty poor. My only electric miles were a car2go EV from the airport.
Highest number of miles this month were using Jet fuel for business and pleasure, but the planes were full.
Next came diesel on a cruise ship, also full, but I learned that they use cleaner diesel when cruising the inside passage. Next diesel on trains. I covered about 200 miles with gas in my prius and a borrowed SUV (with 6 passengers). I also was in busses and cabs. Interesting to note that the only way to travel in the bulk of Denali is on park busses using diesel. The ranger offered that they don't use natural gas, because there is no pipeline with natural gas.

I haven't made the jump to plug in because my prius is still very young (3.5 yo) and I am doing a lot of travel for work right now. Certainly if a prius phv had been available when I bought my car, I would be using more electric miles, ratio would probably be around 30% electric given my driving cycle.

Since we are talking about the sierra clubs rankings, I felt it quite fair to point out the rational. It doesn't mean you need to agree with it. I certainly find problems with some things that these groups come up with. Gallons per year is a better metric than miles per gallon

The problem was in your story problem. Somehow you were going a short enough distance for the prius phv to stay almost entirely on electricity, but had the volt burning gas. Clearly for your prius calculation to work, you must be going far less than 38 mile range of the volt. Why would it then need to burn gasoline. Range plus efficiency must both be used..

 

It's my understanding the PIP is expected to be available in Texas by the end of this year, according to information from a GST marketing guy and also Toyota's public statements.

I'm not sure why people think Toyota should be enthusiastic about selling a car for which they probably earn very little profit, which has very low demand (even after steep discounts), and which their public statements indicate they don't really believe in (due to the current state of battery tech). I really like my car, but 11.9 miles of EV is a joke (ducking for cover now).

 

Use CarGurus for your search as well. 28 listed on that site.

Used Toyota Prius Plug-in For Sale - CarGurus

 

It's all a matter of perspective. Think about the 2-mile range the regular Prius has, as well as its limited power in EV.

The resulting MPG speaks for itself. By adding just 3 kWh of capacity, Toyota achieved a heck of a lot. The joke is on the rest of the industry for not being able to compete. Toyota is the only design with the ability to reach mainstream consumsers...

 

I would say rather that not selling in Texas shows Toyota's lack of enthusiasm. If they want to get sales up they need to stop bad mouthing the battery tech, and sell it where people want to buy. I think someone will get a fire lit, and this will change, but toyota is a huge corporation and it is going to take at least another year.

John your definition of mainstream continues to confound me.
May 2013 Dashboard - HybridCars.com


It appears, at least in the US the prius phv is the 4th best selling plug in, and Toyota has the 5th largest market share of plug ins. I would think if it was mainstream, and everything else sold much worse, that they would be number1. What is it that I don't understand about the phv.

 

TRADITIONAL VEHICLES !!!

Continuing to refuse to acknowledge the true competition is a major downfall.

The market as a whole must be addressed. You can't just cherry-pick by only looking at plug-in cars.

 

I guess from that definitioin, the begining prius being not traditional is bad in your eyes.

How do you continue to ignore sales figures, and spout this main stream non-sense. Wasn't it you that said wait for the market to speak. It has spoken, and initial adopters are choosing plug-ins with larger battery capaciites.

From your new definition isn't the accord plug in better than the prius phv, since its normal version sells more cars? That is a truely awful definition.

If we are analsysing plug in cars, as we are in this thread, why would we look at non-plug-ins. I guess by that logic we should also look at F150s. I mean where do you come up with this stuff.

It is really bizarre that when you are shown to be wrong by your own definition, you try to make it mean something else.

 

After nearly 13 years of hybrids in the USA, our new car share of the market is just touching 3.3-3.4%. Given the price of gas, ~$3.50, we are well above the most conservative, first decade predictions of $3/gal used for 'pay-back' calculations and gas prices are still headed North.

Now the real, untapped market are the pickup and utility vans. Even today as I walked through the parking lot, a lot of pickups, SUVs, and minivans are in the parking lot. There are not any car pool workers in our hundred staffed office.

It is the non-hybrid drivers we need to get into fuel efficient vehicles. So I have little patience with non-Prius, fuel efficient vehicle advocates who come here, wasting our time instead of taking their advocacy to 'gasser' forums. I have and do go to gasser forums . . . not to pick a fight but simply state the facts and data.

To put it in simple terms, cannibalizing the Prius community is not a good way to win friends.

Bob Wilson

 

So is 3.3% market share mainstream?
I see more potential for vehicles using an electric drivetrain to get a larger market share than hybrids running on an ICE.

The hybrid, for the most part, appeals to the environmentally focused buyer.

Plug ins also can draw on environmentally concerned people in many parts of the country.
People concerned about particulate pollution in their urban environments.
Performance fans.
Technology fans (which used to be a draw for the hybrids).
National security and financial fans (also used to be the domain of the hybrids).
Luxury fans.

Basically, a much larger potential market. Will they reach this potential, who knows? However, the potential market is there for the taking.

 

This is the same hubris that keeps us playing 'in the small sandbox.' It is the same club Lutz used when he was on a late night talk show and claimed 'hairy legged women, leaf lookers' had Prius. I sure didn't come to the Prius because I thought 'it was green' but rather because it is cheap to operate.

Bob Wilson

 

For over a decade, the measure of "mainstream" has been a minimum of 60,000 per year (5,000 per month).

That is how the Iconic Prius was gauged. It met that volume criteria and enraged those who attempted to label it as a "stop gap" solution. In fact, that is the very reason why GM set the Volt goal of 60,000 for second year sales and stated production capacity of 120,000 would be available for the third year.

Knowing that large automakers, like Toyota, Ford, and GM, each sell a number of models of traditional vehicles easily exceeding 5,000 per month, it only makes sense to measure hybrids the same way. After all, the point is to replace those traditional vehicles with hybrids.

The fact that this information conveniently gets forgotten and re-asked on a very regular basis is a dead giveaway there's an effort at play by some to undermine. We are being overwhelmingly clear & concise: 5,000 per month.

Not paying attention ?!? I have been griping about Silverado sales for weeks.

GM is back to chasing profit, focusing heavily on trucks again. There were 43,283 of that model alone sold last month.

Geez! Look around and notice the forest.

 

That is wonderful Bob and I applaud your decision. Please realize I did not state all buyers, but many.
Most people looking at economy of ownership look primarily at the up front cost of the vehicle first, and the fuel price second. This would explain why cars with lower mpg, but also lower price tags sell in higher numbers.

I value your opinion very much, but if you don't believe PHEVs and EVs have a larger market potential we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

And if they abandoned the truck market, we'd be bailing them out again. They are a business. They make no profit, they fail. GM is not in the financial position Toyota was when they brought the Prius to market.

You want them to make a mainstream hybrid. They need funds to do it. Selling trucks raises funds. The only reason Toyota doesn't sell as many Tundras is because fewer people want them, not because Toyota doesn't want to sell more.

The 2014 Silverado will be available soon. So GM is clearing out the '13s now. No hybrid or diesel , but it will be the most fuel efficient full size truck available.

People want trucks and vans. A company not selling them isn't going to make those people change their minds and get a Prius or any hybrid.

 

That is awesome, thank you John, I never saw you actually define that. If you had and I missed it, thank you for repeating it.
So the Prius reached that level in 2005, 5 years after it was released in the US. Shall we give the new kids on the block a few years to see if they can reach the same level?

 

No absolute was stated. Extremes like that are not endorsed here. BALANCE is what we've been demanding.

The lack of choice has been the problem all along... and continues to be. Such an imbalance is bad for business & consumer.

Volt is far out of the reach of middle-market budgets and there is nothing between it and their traditional cars like Malibu, Impala, and Cruze.

 

And this moral indignation about people buying trucks, affects the plug-in market how?

GM and Toyota are both chasing profit, but both also do some strange things. You may have notice the toyota truck plant is running at capacity (truck capacity shrunk when Tacoma was moved from NUMMI to tundra factory in San Antonio, and NUMMI later shut down), and is highly profitable.

Toyota plays politics much better, except in China.


Again this thread is about plug-ins. Again, obfuscation does not make you a genius, it just makes you off topic.