Anyone have a guess why the Gen 4 is so slow in production?

they ran out of steel. btw, 2012 was not a new generation. was gasoline <2 bucks a gallon during any of your previous purchases, relative to inflation?

 

Prius are exclusively produced in Japan.
And yep, there was a steel plant explosion that has affected the supply chain.

Trust me, Toyota would LOVE to sell you a Prius.
Patience is your friend.

 

Toyota will be down in production until April while they wait for the Steel supplier to get back online in Aichi

 

All the articles I can find say production will be down only from February 8th through February 13th, restarting on February 15th. Do you have other information?

 

Why do you assume that production was slow? Could it be that there is a huge queue of orders in front of you? Like the 100K orders in Japan within the first month.

BTW my count yesterday shows 1075 Prii in the local area (43 dealers). Still not enough to make finding the exact color feature match easy, so I can understand the desire to order. Some who have orders have indicated they were told 2-3 months.

Yes the steel plant problem is a large hiccup, apparently they cut back night shifts to extend production through now, and will hopefully get back up to speed quickly. Keep in mind though that the pipeline is probably still full of 3-4 weeks worth of cars still coming on boats and going through the ports.

 

I tried to explain this in the other thread, but you apparently didn't see it. The short of it is that you can't really do a specific custom order for a Toyota. What happens is that a certain number of cars are allocated to a dealership. They have little control over what they are sent. There is some ability for them to tweak a color option, but what packages come with a car is partially dependent on the region of the country you are in. Toyota, or the distributors in some areas, forecast what packages, trim levels, colors, etc, will be popular in an area and request those combinations from the factory. For instance, in Northern California, I can't find a Four with ATP and PCP. But down in Southern California there are 29 of them waiting on dealership lots. I doubt they they got 29 special orders for that combination even before the car went on sale. Obviously in Southern California they feel that more people want the combination of ATP & PCP than just ATP, or just PCP (neither is available separately). In Northern California we only get ATP on a Four.

Obviously Gulf States Toyota felt that no one wanted ATP and PCP on a Prius Four in the Houston area. You could search neighboring states for the car you want. Toyota has a pretty decent way to search inventory in a specific area to see what is generally available. Enter the zip code you want to look in and see what pops up. As I said, there's 29 of them in Southern California. I'm sure Dianne would make you a deal...

When a dealer is given the option to tweak a car destined for them, it's usually for a production slot that is weeks in the future. Coupled with transportation times from Japan to where you live, it can mean 2 months or more to get the car you want. When I bought my Gen2, Prii were selling like hotcakes. I was told it could take 6 months to get the specific car I wanted. I said fine, I can wait. 5 weeks later I had it because a number of people had decided to pass on it and I was next in line. All I did was put down a deposit like you and had to wait until the dealership was sent a car that matched my requirements.

 

production should be back up and running any day now. even so, gen 4's are flooding into north american by the boatload.

 

I don't know if production rates are where Toyota needs them to be. IIRC, one recent article inferred ToyotaUSA expecting 30% YOY increase in sales due to new 2016 model release. I too would be wondering if production rates can meet that target, but the only way to know is wait for the sales figures.

 

My small town dealer has had only one Gen 4 and expects one more next week. Has several orders already.

 

might be a blessing in disguise.

 

well while at the dealer they found what I was looking for and it was reported to be produced on 02/01/2016 and be here 03/20-03/27. I put $500 down and I have a printout with the VIN. Prius 4 ATP&CPC in Sea Glass Pearl, harvest beige. Only thing left is to get it for a good price.