European Prius info

It's an 'on the road' price. Includes VAT at (currently) 15%, delivery charges, number plates, 12 months Vehicle Excise Duty (£15), and First Registration Fee (£55). Dealers will probably throw in a tank of fuel as well - some manufacturers say £50 of fuel but with the prices where they now are, you can't put £50 of fuel in a Prius. (45 litres at 90.9p = £40.91.)

 

Says 14.6:1 steering ratio for 17" wheels on page 40, 17.6:1 for 15". Strange that they're not offering 16" wheels which were standard on the old model.

It's a factor of the precision of the measurement, and the scale; measurements are reported to 0.1 litre/100km. Maybe we need to start reporting litres per 1000km to one decimal place - the system was designed for cars using 10s of litres per 100km. The loss is 2.5%. A 1 mpg loss in the EPA numbers is 2%. The stated 72.4mpg (Imperial, EU cycle) for the 15" wheel becomes 70.6mpg for the 17".

I believe EU kerb weight is calculated to include a 75kg driver. (Must have found some slim drivers!) The 2G is stated as 1325kg IIRC.

 

Hi Mike,

Allow me to correct you on this. IPA is not standard, IPA is part of the High-Pack only. We only get two possible combinations: base or high-pack.

The base has no navigation, bluetooth, IPA (includes camera), etc.

 

The Verso [Corolla Verso] has been around here for a while now but they're a little cramped if you have the third row up so it's not a good sized 7 seater,there was however an Avensis Verso that was really roomy but they discontinued that model in 2004.
In relation to current prices here in Ireland,back in July the way cars were taxed was changed based on CO2 emissions and this in turn changed forecourt prices,a while back i was speaking to my local Toyota salesman and he told me that the price for a Base Prius had dropped from €29,000 to €27,000,here there are 3 models,Base,Luxury[which i have]and Navigation,which bascically is Luxury Pack with Nav and not worth the extra money IMO.

 

Our exchange rate has been falling like a rock. Only six months ago the GBP/USD rate was $1.85:£1, making the equivalent price $33,059. It's now $1.41:£1, making £17,870 = $25,196. It peaked in November 2007 at around $2.10:1.

GBP/JPY rates follow much the same trajectory.

By OECD purchasing power parity, in 2008, £0.653 bought about the same as $1, or $1.53:£1. On that basis, £17,870 = $27,341. That makes the last several years' foreign exchange prices very optimistic. I think this was due to flows from foreign countries wanting to invest in UK securities, partly taking advantage of relatively higher interest rates. Those flows have now reversed.

Toyota are putting prices up as of Friday; the T3 rises to £18,370 on the road. Other models also increase by £500. ($28,106 by PPP method.)

 

A nightmare of bureaucracies and taxes...

 

Hi Patrick,
We have here what's known as VRT[Vehicle Registration Tax]that's added on to the VAT and at different rates depending on engine size and CO2 Emissions,it's effectively a tax on a tax,it's been deemed illegal by the EU but the Irish Government refuse to remove it and according to an AA spokesman if they were forced to remove it they would tax something else on the car and it would be tied up in courts forever so noboby has ever challenged it but the way the economy is at the moment i'm sure it won't be long before the automotive industry here in Ireland starts making representations to further reduce the cost of cars,afterall it was supposed to be an open market within the EU.....Eh,not so,
So if i buy a car in NI/UK for let's say the Sterling equivelant of €10,000 but that car is worth €15,000 in the Republic,then Customs & Excise will charge VAT & VRT on €15,000 and they also charge for any extras that car may have,infact the deem SRS Airbags a LUXURY and not a safety feature....that's what you're dealing with!!

 

One well-known Englishman (the son of an American woman) once quipped that Americans and Englishmen are two peoples separated by a common language!

 

Native Americans?

 

Well asked, but you may as well question whether Churchill was a native Englishman. The "natives" were, perhaps, Celtic and Gaelic, though no doubt there had been another race before them. Those folks then were invaded and ruled by Romans, to the point where their ethnicity changed radically across but a couple of centuries. Later, the Jutes, Frisians, Angles and Saxons, all Germanic tribes, moved in when the Romans moved out. The Danes certainly had their way in coastal areas (Dublin, of course, but also many places in England and Scotland), as did other Viking groups. Another group of Scandinavians were invited to the fringes of Gaul to be a protective cover from the raiding Vikings, and they took over the Duchy of Normandy (North-men). Just about the time one Dane got "England" under one rule, good old Harald had his eye shot through by the Norman archers of William the Bastard (Dane, through and through), and ever since that day at Hastings, the groups continue to contend with each other to the point the Normans and Saxons basically prided themselves in being "English".

Now, where were we . . .

 

Which is why Churchill once was also reputed to have said that "the English are a mongrel race ... and proud of it"!!

 

Patrick,

GBP is at historically low levels right now, allowing for inaccurate pricing comparisment between USA and UK prices of everything.

In Continental Europe, you can save up to 40-50% of the cost of car if you import it from USA, while paying same customs and tax fees. Yes, cost is so much higher in Europe. Problem is that if your country has homologation rules, you wont be able to do so... I saved 40% from my Lexus purchase by doing it in USA and importing (and paying huge customer/taxes fees nevertheless).

 

as to the Prius, obviously model with 17" wheels is "sport" option.

as to the equipment, i am pretty sure there will be 2-3 grades depending on the country, just like there is today. For instance Verso equipment info is different for our country than PDF info (different standard equipment).

 

europeans hate gray so they added some accents to make it look better... all black interiors are the norm in Europe, gray is very unusual and to us looks cheap.

 

eastern europe... we dont have homologation yet so we can import US vehicles and save money on luxury ones. For instance germans have homologation which US vehicles cant pass so they cant import it like that, thus protecting their own dealers.

Pricing difference is uniform with all vehicles, not just Prius. US is cheaper due to more competition and lower cost of everything due to huge unified market (and taxes, but that cant be changed anyway).

Another thing to note is that average vehicle being sold in Europe is between Yaris and Corolla class. While in USA, Camry class is the best seller. So in Europe, Prius price is way above average selling vehicle (from 50% to 100% more expensive), while in USA, it is below. This is what explains different sales in those two regions.