prius phv world wide sales

October was another disappointing month for Prius PHEV sales in the US... Only 479 sold...
Source: Monthly Plug-In Sales Scorecard

 

i don't think you're going to see a major jump without incentive before the gen IV. volt is having the same issue on a larger scale. leaf is looking pretty good though.

 

It's quite hypocritical to be told to be patient and wait for the second-generation plug-in offerings, then to criticize for not offering them before that.

 

I don't think I've ever seen john1701a ever say anything critical about the Prius, the Plugin Prius, and maybe even about Toyota. I can understand that since he tends to defend against what he perceives as incorrect or biased negativity against the Prius by others.

So John, can I ask what your negative critique of the Prius and Prius Plugin is? Is there any room for improvement? Has Toyota made any poor or just sub-optimal design or marketing decisions or made any engineering oopsies in the last generation of these cars, in your opinion?

Also, what are the top 3 changes you think they should make that aren't obviously already on Toyota's agenda for the 4th gen?

 

I state goals and make references to them. They immediately get drown out by the overwhelming amount of debate and defensive posts from others. So, that's quite likely. For the most part, they've been on the mark, paying close attention to audience & market.

Since constructive criticism is almost always taken as negative, I'm not sure how to answer. The spin is quite annoying.

Conveying the purpose of PLUG-IN HYBRID could have been handled better. The farce from Ford with C-Max could have been countered too. It's also a missed opportunity for not having exploited the smart-phone interface.

Engineering has been audience & purpose focused. Not having given in to perceived need rather than actual is a major plus.

The thermal efficiency gain from the next-gen is a biggie, very much a high-volume benefit. I agree with their "overall" perspective too, looking at emissions entirely. The convenience of wireless charging is another well worth waiting for, to help draw people to plugging.

My only suggestion is beefing up the interface screens. We've revealed how important GAL & KWH are per unit. Let's have that data presented and readily available for comparisons.

 

Thanks for summarizing and sharing your thoughts.

The advanced instrumentation and graphical user feedback on driving efficiency and hybrid battery level and power capability status have always been excellent starting with the 1st gen cars. I think Toyota could have done better about summarizing the basic core efficiency and charging statistics across restarts and longer periods of time. When I drove the Prius Plugin for a few days I had to keep taking pictures of the screens before turning off the car in order to keep track of things persistently. Also, some values were oddly rounded or annoyingly truncated -- presumably due to screen real estate limitations.

I'm not as familiar with the Ford hybrids, but GM should really provide more detailed immediate and recent driving data and graphs to the driver for Volt 2.0 to at least match the feedback level in the 3rd gen Prius and plugin.

 

The key stat we still don't have is %PiP sales in CA but several of us suspect that is a big number maybe over 60% US sales of PiP. I don't know why Toyota has not shipped any PiPs to US since June (according to one commenter) but that's when the HOV stickers ran out (only to be re expanded). But you got nice 2012s hitting the lots now so I do not know.

 

Such blatant misrepresentation is quite desperate.

It's really simple: GM STILL HAS NOT OFFERED A HIGH-EFFICIENCY VEHICLE FOR THE MASSES.

Remember that "nicely under $30,000" goal? We're still waiting for something targeted at ordinary consumers.

Toyota has sold over 1 million of them already this year.

 

It's worth remembering that Bob Lutz said this in 2007. Sure, he was off by quite a bit since the actual initial MSRP in late 2010 was just over $40,000.

$30,000 in 2007 is worth $34,400 dollars today due to inflation and that's about the base MSRP of a Volt now. There are dealers that have advertised and sold new Volts for as little as $30,000 before tax credits and rebates, which is $26,000 in 2007 dollars.

It will be interesting to see what the new 2016 MSRP will be.

 

Since the topic has already been beaten to death and looking at the market without incentives is not taken seriously, I do have to wonder.

After all, there was no purpose stated, no question asked, or even a prediction given.

 

Like I said, looking at the market without incentives is not taken seriously.

The next-gen offerings must thrive on their own.

 

Sure it is taken seriously. You keep making claims that simply are untrue.
Obviously rebates help speed the initial adopter phase.

You are the biggest force trying to take threads off topic.
Why in the world you would compare non-plugin 3rd generation hybrid sales to 1st generation plugin sales I have no idea.

 

...as far as staying on topic, the global PiP sales figures are interesting but I don't think we have any details from Toyota about the factors leading to the numbers. Are they short batteries? Are they worried about battery life? Are they making a choice to make higher profit margin cars? Is it low demand? We're just pawns in the game of cars, or whatever it was Mongo said.

From Mel Brook's Blazing Saddles of course:

 

Just my hypothesis, but the PiP was probably never really intended to be released, at least in its current form. I think they rolled it out partly due to competition that was coming out with plug-in capabilities, such as the Volt and C-max energi. Though the PiP has extremely limited ev range, Toyota probably didn't want to lose too much market share to its competitors, who would then have a stronger argument for "See, Toyota doesn't care about plug-ins!" Admittedly people will still use that excuse ("Toyota has crappy plug-in capabilities, which means they don't care for it!")

Another reason may be because some people retrofitted their gen 2 prius with working plug-in capability. Though it was/is pretty expensive it showed there were people who'd like it.

A third reason may be as an experiment in testing out lithium ion batteries in the prius. They had to keep the battery small partly to not have to radically redesign the gen 3 for it (remember the PiP loses its spare tire spot, along with a slightly smaller gas tank), and likely to keep costs to a minimum hence why the PiP was originally much more expensive than a non-plugin liftback. It's almost like they're throwing us a bone, despite being very against bigger batteries due to the current issues of cost, recharge time, and range.

Hopefully Toyota's engineers got good real world info on the PiP, so that they can work kinks out in the gen 2 PiP, especially considering that it's being developed at the same time as the gen 4 prius. And more importantly, I hope they make it available nationwide. It can be the most awesome car ever, but if Toyota won't make it easily accessible to people not living in the East or West Coast, they probably won't want to get it, aside from a few determined people.

 

How automakers will achieve high-volume sales when there are no subsidies available, has yet to be addressed. What do you think I said?

After all this time and so many posts, you still don't understand the importance of considering the entire market. Really?

We already know that the design was intended to be verification for next-gen. Toyota has been taking that approach all along. Remember how Camry-hybrid got the two-speed upgrade before Prius?

Engineering can be worked out in great detail. But market response and political/competitor spin is quite unpredictable. Being able to observe a wide variety of real-world data & reaction before going all-out can payoff big-time later on.

Think about this. The small pack currently being used can be squeezed even smaller as battery energy-density increases. Cost will hopefully drop quite a bit too. Eventually, it would be realistic to use in a Prius C. That's a major potential benefit of starting small.

 

It is certainly clear that Toyota has throttled back on getting the PiP sales maximized, so your hypothesis is consistent with Toyota's actions. One other possibility is the development of Plug In battery kits for Prius retrofitting really bothered Toyota. That may have motivated them to come up with something to stop widespread modification of the Prius as a viable third party industry. With the availability of getting PHEV or EV directly from multiple dealers, that goal may have been accomplished.