Current Toyota Prius Commercials

I agree that your suggestion has very good points to make but I don't think they are having trouble selling everything they make now. I will be selfish and hope that more people don't realize how nice of a car this is to own for many reasons.

Since I will most likely be ordering mine at the beginning of the year (to avoid driving it this winter) I am hoping that Toyota will be able to somehow increase production so that the wait times will not be too bad.

 

I htink Toyota needs to do a better job of dispelling the common thoughts that hybrids need to be plugged in. Everyone I talk to at work thinks that I'll have to plug the car in.

Once I tell them you don't have to and that it saves gas, they're pretty pumped. Unfortunately, I don't get a lot of excited people when I say it saves on emisions...what will it take to make people think of that?

 

you know, i've been psyched about getting a prius since i realized i could have one this january. i've talked to a lot of people about it, and not one has thought that it had to be plugged in. I don't know whether the type of people I hang out with are more likely to know about it (possible) but i didn't think that was a publicly held view.

actually, i've mentioned to many people that i would be very, very, very interested in being able to plug a hybrid car in at home. i'm not quite sure why people would see being able to plug it in to allow for a 'gallon or two of energy' for $1 / 'gallon' as a bad thing. I think it'd make a killer option.

 

You probably run in different groups of persons. I'm one of two IT persons at our company. Everyone is very technologically adept; however, when it comes to real world things sometimes we all have our heads in the clouds (or shall I say reality TV). I'd say most of our employees go home and watch severla hours of reality tv each night. I personally prefer reading up on new technology rather than reality tv, but to each his/her own.

I'm not so hyped about the plug-in feature (if it were a feature). The whole idea of the Prius is that it saves on emisions and the environment as a single package. Plugging in the Prius would be gaining power from another energy source. It's like hydrogen cars right now - true, your car has practically zero emissions; however, creating the hydrogen takes up a lot of energy - it's not efficient to create hydrogen, so the process of making hydrogen is using up the energy and creating the emisions that your car isn't creating.

So, if you plug your car into the wall, the energy that goes into creating the electricity that your car is using isn't really saving you money. However, the Prius as a vehicle itself does save you cost because it's all within a single unit.

I guess what you need to weigh-out is the cost and emisions of using some number kW of electricity vs the milage gain of the car. But, not just your cost, but also the cost of the power plant's emisions - it's difficult to know that because your power can come from many different locations (coal, nuclear, etc.).

The plug-in option would be cool if it came with solar panels

 

This comes right back around to the thrust of the current HSD advertising: Low emissions.

So you plug in your car and fill it with cheap electricity. Yippee! Where did that elctricity come from? A coal-fired power plant, most likely. Think acid rain. Think NOx. Think global warming. Think of cutting down mountains and filling the hollows with spoils, geologyrox, to get the coal to burn to make the electricity, over 60% wasted before it gets to your outlet and plugged in car.

The idea in the HSD (not just for Prius anymore) ads is that we as individuals can make a difference in the world by our individual choices for cars. Everyone knows about smog, so fresh air is a good way to start the conversation.

 

i personally dont think its a good idea to flaunt the Prius' great gas mileage. might as well be rubbing other peoples nose in it. simply would be a very bad idea on Toyota's part. the tact they currently take by advertising good gas mileage as a whole (the add with the cars that get 30+ mpg) as first confused me, but in retrospect, was a brilliant move to not provide the Prius as a target for others who are fuming over their gas bill now.

also we have to consider that Toyota after nearly two years, still cannot provide the volume of product the public is demanding

 

A couple of weeks ago we were at an environmental fair. Toyota was there with a Prius and a Highlander hybrid on display. I went over there and was telling people about the benefits of owning a Prius. They assumed I worked there and were asking me if they could open the hood and such. I just told them I was an enthusiastic owner (the Toyota people there told me that I probably knew more about it than they did). I did get asked if it had to be plugged in.

 

Could not agree more. I like the new commercial but also would like to see one focus on the SUV vs Prius.

 

you can always consider purchasing 'green certificates' that allow you to be sure that the portion of electricity you are using is eco-friendly. If I buy an option to be able to plugin my car, and then, each month, buy enough friendly megawatts to charge my car every night for the commute, i end up saving money each month, and am using, say, 75% less gasoline. would need hard numbers to run the math, but an ideal commuter could probably break even and be able to say he used a lot less gas, and no coal was burned on his account.


EDIT: actually, i'm going to go find some numbers tonight - i'd like to run them through excel. I'd love to see what the option would have to cost to be able to break even in a say, 5 year period.