The state of the hybrid market from the dealer's perspective

That's good to hear that consumers are showing a little more sense, enough that dealers take note of it.... Even if they're still short-sighted and likely to swing right back to gas hogs if gas prices go down a little!

 

Over here in California, there are zero new Priuses on the lots, with waiting lists. Corollas and Yarises appear to be in abundant supply, as we see them flying off of the lots, yet oddly there seems to remain an unlimited supply. The only oddity that I don't understand is that preowned/used Priuses seem to be moving off of the lots very slowly. When I conduct a yahoo autos search of used Priuses in within 15 miles of my house, there are about 100. (Although a search for Suburbans turns up a supply of about a thousand). I would think that consumers would be flocking for preowned Priuses. Perhaps there is something about the price-point that I am not seeing. On average, do used Priuses cost more than new ones?
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Most used Prius I've seen on msn.com/auto are priced higher than new ones. Most are probably just ordering new ones.

 

i recently ahve been thinking about selling my 06 prius and ordering a new 09. i really dont think i could do with out my addison for as long as it would take to get a new one.
while the f250 is cool, the cost of running it would far exceed any profit i got off my used prius.

 

It might be the issue of the owners of the pre-owned wanting almost what you can get a new one for so why bother with used when you can get a new one for a couple thousand more?

JackDodge,

No it is the other way around. You can get the brand new Prius for a couple of "thousand less" but you will never know when your ordered car will be available!
Now, if you want an used one, pay a couple thousand more and available "Now"
We as Toyota dealers, when go to dealer's auction and if we see an used Prius
everyone bids so high for that car and therefore ultimate retail price is, "Higher"
than the new cars MSRP... with Gas prices through the roof, the "Old" Prius are bringing higher prices than if new ones.. Krazy Markets!

 

"only" $4.70 for diesel? thats cheap! its being sold for $5.09 a gallon here!

 

I think that the reason you may see an abundance of Used Prius could also be related to the fact that you can sell it for what you paid for it. Someone who bought one may be wanting to sell it and pay off bills.

 

When I was looking at buying a Prius back in March/April (before the waiting lists and such, thank God) it became clear to me that buying new was my only option. The only used Prii I could find already had WELL over 100,000 miles on them. Many people I know have echoed the same thing. It seems that when people buy a car like the Prius or the Insight it's because they anticipate doing a lot of driving.

By the way, I have my car listed on Craigslist right now for $8,000-9,000 more than I paid for it. I don't know if I'll get an offer or not, but I'm curious. I could easily take the profit and go without a car until the market cools down. Why would someone pay that much? Well, if they want a Prius, mine is available right now - for a price.

Tim

 

By the way, I have my car listed on Craigslist right now for $8,000-9,000 more than I paid for it. I don't know if I'll get an offer or not, but I'm curious. I could easily take the profit and go without a car until the market cools down. Why would someone pay that much? Well, if they want a Prius, mine is available right now - for a price.

Tim

$8.000 ~ $9.000 more than your initial purchase price? Wow, if you get it, you'll be
doing better than us the dealers! We normally mark up a couple of grands over auction bid purchase price..

 

Just about everything has a price

 

WHOA! Could you imagine having to pay that much for gas??? The craziest part is that although it seems like some distant hypothetical situation for most of us on this website, it is Reality for some people! Every once in a while, I still see people racing around in those jacked up pickup trucks like it was still the year 2000.

I've been hearing lately that eBay motors is the best place to list cars. I don't know anything about it or what the commission is, I've just heard a lot of people talk about it lately.
To help attract attention and get your nine grand, you should throw something in to enhance the appeal of your offer. "Brilliant Toyota Prius with free strip club annual passes." LMAO!!! "Brilliant Toyota Prius with HOV stickers and free lapdance tickets included." ROFLMAO!!!! That'll get your phone ringing!
More realistic, maybe throw in a flat screen television or something in your advertisement. For $9K markup, I assume you have HOV stickers. I'm sure you've come up with some clever marketing for the HOV stickers. You might actually have something solid there. If HOV stickers are no longer being issued, AND Priuses are in high demand, then those HOV stickers are worth more and more every day. Oil hit another all time high again today. Your Prius may sell for $9K markup before you know it. You just have to find the right buyer. You should park it in one of the beach cities on Saturday with for sale signs.

 

The difference is that you guys have to sell cars to make a living. I don't.

When my girlfriend saw that I had posted it for sale she was almost in tears... "But I LOVE your car!!!" I told her that she too could buy it off me for $30,000 if she wants.

Anyway, I love the car too. So I'm not really trying to sell it like a dealer would be doing. I'm just making it "available." If I never get a buyer I really won't be disappointed.

Tim

 

You should see some of the boats in this area. Some of them will put in a thousand gallons of marine diesel, which sells for about 45¢ a gallon more than road diesel. Our marina used to only have a thousand gallon diesel bulk tank, so when the big boats showed up the marina staff would call the distributer and start a tanker relay. Now we have a 10,000 gallon bulk tank.

Our sailboat, on the other hand, holds 35 usable gallons of diesel fuel. Motoring at fuel throttle without sails we can go for seventy hours on that, which works out to about 500 miles. Cut the speed a bit and you can stretch that out. Sailboats are pretty efficient motor boats, but not very fast. The efficiency goes up a lot when you shut down the engine and use the sails.

Tom

 

Sort of a sea-going hybrid, eh?

 

Exactly. It's amazing how much power there is in the wind.

Tom

 

i have seen a few of those, they are monstrous

have you seen a f650?

im not joking there is a guy in town that has one. ive been trying to get pics of it for months. it looks like that international truck that recently came out. basically a ford semi with a f450 bed and cab. the dude has blinged out wheels and a thumping stereo in it.

it looks like this