Has Toyota fallen out of love with the Prius?

i think it's the price thing that boggles, why wouldn't the asians be able or want to compete, is it an unlevel playing field?

 

In part it's import duties, imposed to restrict the inflow of vehicles from outside the EU. Some manufacturers have got around this by building car plants in the UK, but others haven't because the cost of doing so is too high to be profitable.

But car prices have historically been very high in the UK. There was a time when you could save maybe 20% of the purchase price of a new BRITISH car by buying it elsewhere in Europe. I don't think anyone was really able to explain that!

 

I think that really covers it. There are a number of nicely equipped cars of approximately the same size as the Prius that get mid-to-high 30's mpg (list: Fuel-Efficiency Finds: Cars That Get at Least 30 MPG Combined) ... people are getting really great real-world mileage out of those cars, and not just on the highway.

As others have stated, it's not about matching (in exact technical terms) the numbers of the Prius, it's about getting "close enough" while also offering a feature/luxury/build set up that is more appealing than that buyer finds the Prius. It's about making a car that appeals more to more people than the Prius does while offering high enough MPG that the disparity is small enough that people won't feel overly compelled to choose Prius instead.

Most US Buyers (I won't pretend to know what UK buyers want but obviously this discussion has a more international flavor now) go shopping with a "floor" of MPG they will tolerate, then choose the car they like best that gets their "floor" mpg or better, sometimes much better. Obviously if someone MUST have 50mpg then their list becomes much, much smaller, but even so, the Prius has a LOT more competition then it had just a few short years ago in that regard.

At the end of the day, when it's not crazy gas prices driving sales, the Prius needs to stand more on it's own merits as a "car" than just as a "gas money saving" device. The Gen3 has been basically stagnant for almost 5 years, while much of it's competition has improved dramatically in areas the Prius used to dominate (MPG & Tech).

Therefore, imo, the Gen4 MUST offer substantial improvements in a number of areas, not just overall MPG, that will get the average car buyer excited about them again.

 

Are manual transmissions in personal vehicles still prevalent in UK (and Europe in general), say comparing to North America? I've heard that's the common perception, and backed by stat's. Would the percent of manual transmission be slipping of late? Pretty much off-topic, but just curious.

 

What GrumpyCabbie said.

I had been driving in the US almost 40 years when I moved to Switzerland in 2005.

Wonderful country. I loved it there. And I had a beautiful Audi A6 as a company car.

But gas was over 7 usd a gallon at the time, and I found the thing almost impossible to park. Trying to park a car that big [not that it would be considered big in the US] required me acquiring a new level of skill and precision.

Mostly I rode my BMW1200RT motorcycle and took the train [Swiss trains are among the wonders of the world, without question] and left the Audi at home.

I think I averaged about 3000 km a year [1800 mi]. In the US I drive 20,000 miles a year.

Automatics are common in Switzerland, although there is no doubt that the average car is smaller.

Not many Japanese cars [although one does see a fair number of Harleys ]

The Swiss are very well heeled. The infrastructure in the US is not comparable.

 

>So have they fallen out of love with their international golden goose? Are they deliberately trying to fade it away? Some Toyota employees on the >UK forums suggest that Toyota make bigger profits selling fewer but more expensive cars and thus are happy to sell 3,000 than 10,000. Makes life

I've visited 3 different UK dealerships in the last couple of weeks... none of them had a Prius in the showroom

Phil

 

I think this is where I came in.

 

Since Auris hybrid is made in UK, this is probably what replaced prius on that market IMHO. I guess there is a limit how many similar hybrid cars one maker can sell.

 

For what it's worth the Insight got dropped from here as well.
Toyota still has the future CAFE standards here to keep them interested in Prius fuel economy.
I'd be very surprised if they did anything to endanger their status as a no compromise fuel economy champion.

 

In US, it's actually different. Prius is a bit like a separate brand and hybrid yaris is sold as prius c.

 

yes completely different here. but toyota is popular here and lexus too. i could see them bailing out of the uk altogether some day if brits don't support them.

 

The Auris Touring Sports looks kind of intriguing...

 

I followed a hybrid Highlander this AM and thought about what you wrote. Who knows, maybe there will be no Prius gen IV anymore, but instead hybrid Corolla? The first gen Prius wasn't a brand new car, it was basically hybrid Echo. The 2nd and 3rd gen were distinctive cars, even though some people wanted to downplay them as hybrid Corollas.

I think the oil industry spinsters successfully managed to taint Prius image as liberal nut job car. Maybe Toyota did a research and wants to kill that brand in some markets?

 

I think the market in fuel-efficient cars is in considerable flux at the present time. Where there was only the Prius as a serious contender, now there are a number of different technologies capable of rendering similar, even better, fuel economy.

In large markets such as the US, there's room for just about every contender, particularly at the right price point, but in smaller and more competitive markets such as the UK, there isn't the same opportunity for model diversity, so some potential contenders are bound to get squeezed out. It may be that the Prius is one of those which worked well in the UK market with little real competition at first, but for which there is less and less room now.

The fact that in the US the various hybrids have been gathered together in one Prius brand, while in the UK they have been kept separate speaks volumes, I think, for the different attitudes of these two Toyota corporates towards this segment of the market.