Toyota Plans For Prius To Dominate US Sales

2008 Sales of Toyota Hybrid Cars:
Prius ----------- 158,886
Camry ---------- 46,272
GS450h ------------ 678
LS600hL ----------- 980
Total Cars ----- 206,816

Toyota sold 1,358,573 passenger cars in 2008 so hybrids made up 15.2 % of Toyota's passenger car sales in the US.

Other 2008 Hybrid Car Sales:
Honda Accord ------- 198
Honda Civic ------ 31,297
Nissan Altima ----- 8,819

That makes a total of 247,129 hybrid cars sold in 2008. A total of 7,246,599 passenger cars were sold in 2008 so 3.41% of passenger cars sold in 2008 were hybrids.


2008 Sales of Toyota Hybrid Trucks:
Highlander ----- 19,391
RX400h --------- 15,200
Total Trucks --- 34,591

Toyota sold 859,089 light trucks in 2008 so hybrid made up 4.0% of Toyota's light truck sales in the US.

Other Hybrid Truck Sales:
Ford Escape / Mariner -------- 19,522
GM Tahoe / Yukon ------------- 5,876
GM Escalade ---------------------- 801
Chrysler Aspen / Durango --------- 81

That makes a total of 60,871 hybrid light trucks sold in 2008. A total of 6,959,026 light trucks were sold in 2008 so 0.9% of light trucks sold in 2008 were hybrids.

Combine those and 308,001 hybrid were sold out of 14,205,625 vehicles so 2.2% of total vehicles sold in 2008 were hybrids


Interesting Toyota Numbers:
Toyota sells 78.3% of all hybrid vehicles in the US
The Toyota Prius represents 51.6% of all hybrid sales in the US


Toyota Numbers From: Pressroom : Toyota Reports 2008 and December Sales / Toyota
Hybrid Numbers From:Hybrid Car Sales, December 2008 ~ Hybrid Car Review
Total 2008 US Sales Numbers:http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/nht...eports/Associated Files/March 2009 Report.pdf

 

I absolutely believe that Toyota has a great shot at reaching its goals.

 

umm pretty sure the Pri cracked the top 10 FOR ALL VEHICLES more than once last year. granted $4 gas played a part.

but the article states gas is a buck 50 less this year, well, i think they talking about last weeks gas cause its not so slowly going up around here. pushing $2.70 for the cheap stuff at the cheap station.

i think its a no brainer for Toyota to predict high Pri sales... the cheap gas prices we enjoy now i dont expect to last much more than another year or so

*edit*
ok, then maybe it was for "all passenger vehicles" since we pathetically still seem to buy more full sized pickups than anything else

 

Design has nothing to do with market share for hybrids.

It's all about price--the price of the car and the price of gas.

Right now, at $2.50 /gallon, the Prius is too expensive to get a large market share.

Plenty of 30 mpg cars out there for $15K and less.

 

PriusSport:

Plenty of 30 mpg *highway* cars out there. The only car I can find at fueleconomy.gov that might fit the bill of costing less than $15k and also get > 30 mpg combined is the Toyota Yaris. A stripped down Corolla comes close I think.

 

I can think of a few more:

2010 Hyundai Accent ----- 27/29/33 ---------- $9,979
2010 Nissan Versa -------- 28/30/34 ---------- $9,990
2009 Chevy Aveo --------- 27/30/34 --------- $11,965
2009 Smart ForTwo ------- 33/36/41 --------- $11,990
2010 Kia Rio / Rio5 ------- 27/30/33 --------- $12,145
2010 Kia Forte ------------ 27/30/36 --------- $14,390
2009 Scion xD ------------- 27/29/33 --------- $14,650
2009 Honda Fit ------------ 28/31/35 --------- $14,750
2010 Toyota Corolla ------ 25/30/35 ---------- $15,350

Notes:

• Hyundai Accent and Kia Rio are on the same platform with the same drivetrain. Both are rated 27 city / 33 highway but for the combined mpg the Accent is rounded down while the Rio is rounded up
• Prices from Edmunds.com / MPG from fueleconomy.gov

The graph shows a clear connection between fuel prices and hybrid sales. Notice hybrids sales spike every year fuel prices rise in the spring and early summer.

 

The limitation has been NiMH battery production. This came home last October during the Georgetown plant tour. They said the reason for the slack production of Camry hybrids was the lack of batteries.

I understand this critical resource is being addressed.

Bob Wilson

 

battery production was supposed to be doubled... ummm soon??... well to be honest with ya, i thought that had already happened. seems to me that they were to have a max capacity of like 600,000 units?

 

Finger in the dike ... when do you turn and run ... that's the quandry.

Oh ... and how's that Volt doing. Hummin' along? Don't forget, you DID promise you'd sell me one soon. Do you remember when ? I do.

.

 

I will. 16 months to go.

 

You view things as far back as last month and as far into the future as next month. Typical detroiter perspective.

Your lack of knowledge about the industry appalls me. Did you not know that the Prius was in 'ramp down' mode last month as the new 2010s arrived?

I'll forgive you for lack of knowledge about how a good auto company works. They don't over-build so that as the new models arrive there's excess inventory of unwanted old models sitting around. This is a Detroit strategy. I see it every day at our Chevy store.

For the short-sighted detroiter...here is the 2008 ranking of the top 6 Toyota models:
Camry
Corolla
Prius
Tacoma
Tundra
RAV

Come back at the end of this year and I'll give you another lesson in how not to miss the forest for the trees.

 

Middle of a worldwide recession, possibly a depression, and oil is $72 a barrel today. Never seen that happen before. Doesn't take a lot of imagination to see $150 a barrel as soon as economic activity picks up again. At least in the near term. At that point, I say it's going to be deja vu all over again, for Prius sales. That nice round "50" mpg is a real eye-catcher.

 

Ramp down? Toyota lots are bursting with the 2009's, did you forget that. There are still thousands of 2009 Prius at the ports. Thank you for educating me about the auto industry. By the way which auto company lost the most $ last quarter?

 

this list should be posted with top sellers of American car companies. doing this will illustrate that there remains a huge need for full sized pickup trucks since they are the top sellers at the B-3 (formerly Big 3, now the "broke 3" cant say bankrupt... and i actually see Ford surviving since the competition has weaken considerably)

and up to now, i took this "truck-heavy" lineup as poor marketing. but then i realized it was their way of "giving back." they knew that many needed the trucks for business, farming, reaffirmation of their manhood, etc... right? by overbuilding the models insuring a glutted inventory at each MY end which results in a great price as the manufacturer's way of saying Thank You for all the money you have given us over the decades.

My sister works for a pretty big Ford dealership. there, they have about several hundred pickups, a couple hundred cars, 2 FEH's and one Fusion hybrid. with the fusion and a fully loaded pickup is their "display" models.

the fusion is selling for $29.5 K after a $600 discount. the truck is selling for $16 K after an $11,000 discount. so the dealership sells an average of 10-30 trucks a week. and on the hybrids, they sell what they get in since there is a continuous waiting list for them.

 

Truck heavy lineup as "poor marketing"? Question for you what does Toyota buld in their newest US plant? Priuses? Yarises? Corollas?

 

i had already anticipated that reposting Toyota's top sellers showing the trucks at the BOTTOM of the list would mean nothing to you.

then again, maybe a list of "existing unsold inventory across makes is what we need. or maybe we should look at why one company had lost money while another seemed to have not. granted recent history shows everyone losing money, but a few of those companies are recent entries into "red land"

 

I am not talking about what is sold, I am talking about what Toyota made their latest US investment to sell more of. TRUCKS and SUV's. San Antonio and Mississippi.

 

As of May 1, 2009(latest info) Toyota's highest days supply was Tundra and Prius. My source was aToyota dealer.

 

If Prius is over 10% of Toyotas passenger car business I think it would be unfair to call it a niche vehicle. Would GM drop a model that accounted for 10% of all its passenger car sales? I don't think so, they have whole brands that most likely struggle to account for more than 10% of GMs passenger car sales!

 

They just dropped Saturn and Pontiac, a larger portion of passenger car sales for GM and Prius is for Toyota. I would not classify the Prius as a niche for Toyota but would classify hybrids as a niche in the US auto market.

For some idea of the scale, in 2007 Toyota sold 181,221 priuses. GM sold 455,201 full size suvs, in 2008 Toyota sold 158,884 Priuses and GM sold 285,817 full size suv's and that was with gas prices around $4.00/gallon for much of the year.