Toyota Announce Plug-In Hybrid launch

Anyone interested in forming PriusChat Inc and getting a fleet deal with Toyota?

 

We currently have a Prius and VW Jetta TDI sedan. Our plan was to upgrade from the VW Jetta sedan to the sportwagon TDI as soon as they come out. But if Toyota is going to release a PHEV soon we may wait. The TDI is the wifes car so it is up to her. I will need to convince her, so...

What does everyone think, get Sportwagon TDI this fall or wait for the PHEV.

 

Selling to fleets is what vehicle manufacturers must do if they do not have the production capacity to support the dealers. It really gets ugly when you have way too few cars and the demand is expected to be in the >10k/year range. What dealers get the cars and what dealers are told they do not get any of the hottest sellers on the planet? Toyota wants to avoid that nightmare.

 

I believe Toyota wants to sell the new 3rd gen Prius plug-in with lithium ion drive to as many people as possible. But they must be cautious. Lithium batteries are very unstable and I believe they need to test the waters with a rollout to fleet vehicles first and if all goes well and there aren't too many (if any) battery fires or incidents, they'll know the system is ready for the public. I would sign up to be a beta tester of these new Prii if that were an option. But Toyota will use corporate fleet vehicles as their beta testers instead.

I will likely buy the first model year of the new lithium ion plug-in 3rd gen Prius. My 2004 has 63,000 on it and by 2011 should be over 100,000 where my warranty terminates, so I'll be ready for the next greatest vehicle from Toyota.

Keep up the innovation, Toyota!

 

Hmmm. If that’s so, then how did the EV1 and the Rav4EV’s ‘plug-in’ (pun intended) to that “to-much-demand†equation? After all, GM still swears that the reason they only leased the EV1’s (in part) was because they couldn’t give ’em away (but of course you have to ignore the 1,000’s on the waiting list to buy into that).

Don’t forget the good thing Toyota did regarding “Fleet Customers†when they sold the Rav4EV’s outright to businesses. Even “boutique Fleet customers†were able to buy. That meant even mom & pop corporations/businesses that only needed as few as 4 or 5 vehicles were permitted to buy 'em. I’d do that! Ok, you all pony up the retail cost to me, and I’ll turn around and sell ’em to you folks!

 

The PHEV is not going to be out for some time, like 4 years or so. Even then it may be a rather expensive car initially. You may get tired of waiting or what you want is not what appears....but hopefully I am wrong.

 

OK, You explain why Toyota is selling only to fleets first.

 

Not much attention is being paid to history here. The EV1 was sold just for the purpose of meeting the CARB Zero emission requirements, and as such, needed to be sold to the public. This required an immense amount of money to create distributed dealers and sales staffs.
I want a PHEV or EV as much as anyone. I am pointing out that there is a very specific reason that vehicle makers sell to fleets initially. If you look at history, you can figure out this reason.

 

I thought he did. The reason he proposed (in so many words), and I tend to agree with, is they're not sure the design is 100% there yet, and fleet buyers would be more tolerant that the general public.

 

I don't buy that excuse. Toyota is not a company that produces half finished vehicles. Never has been and is not now. Not trying to cause trouble here, but I keep insisting that you have to use history as the guide here. For example, the Prius was initially sold only in Japan for quite a few years. Why?

 

You may have just proven my point. It's well known that the Japanese are more adopting of new technologies than the American market is. In the case of the Prius only being sold in Japan for a few years is the perfect point. Clearly they didn't think the American market was ready for it yet, so they wouldn't sell it to us. In this case, they're not sure it's ready for the general public, so they won't sell it to us. But whether it's us not ready for the car, or the car not ready for us, either way, by the time we see it, it's no longer a half finished vehicle.

 

Still do not agree with that point (but I am very respectful of your view and like to keep the discussion intelligent). The point about the Prius availability to the Japan market was that they did not introduce it as a fleet vehicle either in Japan or the USA. They brought it into to USA as almost the last market, and only after they had enough battery and motor manufacturing capacity.

In the book about the Prius (Prius Die De Wereld Deed Schudden) it was clear that the engine emissions design was designed for the US market from the beginning.) It was a total commitmentment with vast production resources committed for worldwide production, but a commitment that would take a decade to execute. This is something that takes quite some time to establish and sustained. As a result very intelligent planning had the NHW10 fielded in Japan, the NHW11 fielded worldwide, and the NHW20 fielded with very large production facilities in place.

Now with the PHEV Prius, Toyota realizes that the demand for this will be immense. Heck, they have had a hard time keeping up with the Prius demand even after 7 years. Matching sales with production capability is very much a key aspect of Japanese manufacturing (not something GM is known for). How does one do this with limited initial assets? History shows that fleet introductions are a great answer.