An Australian look at Prius v Volt v Leaf

"an extra ''B'' setting that feeds more power to the batteries when braking." Sigh. Someone has not done their homework.

 

I read this in The Age yesterday. Sucks.

It's weird though, I've just noticed my neighbour has a Nissan Leaf... I thought you couldn't buy them here.

 

You can't - officially.

Perhaps a grey import from Japan or other RHD country. Saying that though, according to Wiki 16 Leafs were imported for evaluation purposes in Victoria (so maybe he's one of the lucky few?) and official imports start in June 2012.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf"]Nissan Leaf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] (about half way down)

 

Just had a look at the article and one spring jumped out at me;

A handful of diesel-engine small cars with manual transmissions consume slightly less fuel but they emit more noxious gases that are nastier for your health than unleaded petrol.

Now if only the UK motoring press would actually make note of this. They could also add 'slower' to the list too.

 

just an poor article overall:

Tell that to Toyota who is going to make more than 1,000,000 hybrids in 2012 alone.
Idiots.

 

Yeah but remember that Australia has one of the highest emissions per head of population in the world. Why bother with a Prius when you can have your 5 litre Holden or Ford.

Hybrids seem to be popular in places that suffer either bad smog or high fuel prices - or both.

 

it is 2012, internet is everywhere... author should know little facts about automotive industry - nobody should be calling Hybrids niche vehicles... people read that and make bad assumptions based on that.

Also - most popular car in Australia was Mazda 3 for 2011

 

Yup its the age of the internet.. so the facts can be found. I looked but did not see good stats for hybrids down under, the best I found was this link
Global hybrid sales slowly on the rise | Car Advice
Suggesting its 1.1% of 2010 sales. Even for USA, which has more hybrid vehicles than any other country, GC was correct. Hybrids represent about 1.18% of all cars in the USA.. and of new car sales in 2011, hybrids were 2.2%. Its a niche segment with a long uphill climb to take over a broad market segment. We all need to keep pushing it.. questioning our friends why they are not in hybrids!

 

It seems terms are not well defined. Hybrids outside of Japan and the United States are a very small niche. In the US @2.2% its still a niche, but the prius is not a niche car. It has good sales.

I would take it like the v8 is a niche. Not many pay for the extra power. even in the F-series the turbo 6 is taking over. You can't even buy a v8 in a top selling midsize car. More cars are getting hybrid as an option, but its still a niche.

 

it is pretty much not an niche anymore when Toyota sells 1,000,000 in a year .

1,000,000 of something is not a niche.

And 95% of those 1,000,000 will be in USA, Japan and Western Europe, markets that are relavant to us - so that makes it even less niche. Cars that get sold in rest of the world have little to do with our cars.

 

to push your point even further - Prius has sold 500,000 in 2010, and it is probably one of the best selling cars in the world right now. In fact, I would not be surprised if it outsells the Camry worldwide. Is Camry niche? ;-).

If we count Prius c, Prius v and Prius all together, expect Prius to become top 5 selling car in the world in 2012.

And thats with hybrids still being pretty expensive everywhere but Japan and USA.

In Europe, it is pretty expensive to buy an hybrid. Prius c will probably be 2x the price of cheapest Yaris, which sells a lot!

 

huh. To me less than 5% is a niche. As I said the prius which is a high selling midsize liftback is not a niche car. Getting 0.5% of the market is a good sellng car. I don't see next years sales of hybrids in the US getting above niche status though. Europe's take rate is much lower. In australia, well the numbers are truly small in both percent and total volume. I would like to see hybrids crack that 5%, and I'm sure by 2015 it will happen, but right now the take rate is only 2.2% and its 2.1% if you exclude plug ins.

 

Where are you getting your numbers?
The best year for Prius sales (2010) was under 460K units world-wide.

In the 15 years of Prius sales the total is just over 1M in US and 1M in Japan..

Maybe you are mixing up your news.. the Prius cumulative sales reached 1M in the US this year, making headlines. But that was not per year, it was since the launch. 2011 Sales in US were about 140K units.

 

I agree that in the US hybrids have moved well beyond "niche". But I'd be shocked if Prius outsells Camry worldwide anytime soon. They might run neck-and-neck in the states, but on a recent trip to Beijing I counted fewer than 5 Prius and *zero* hybrids of any other kind eek. Whereas the normal Camry is advertised on Beijing billboards as an exciting beast, and there are a fair and growing number on the roads there.

Japan's domestic market might counterbalance those stats for now (Prius seems very popular there), but until the mainland Chinese decide they want breathable air again, Hummers will outsell hybrids over there.

[I did see far more Prius in Taiwan than in the Beijing area, but nothing remotely like the ratio in California.]

 

Prius and hybrids are generally selling well only in Japan, USA and Western Europe.

But Camry doesnt even sell everywhere. In Japan, only Camry Hybrid is sold. In most other countries in Asia, Corolla is considered near luxury car, and Camry is luxury car.

Corolla is different story as it sells everywhere and sells well. Prius wont ever reach it.

But Camry? I bet it will outsell it next year, world wide.

 

ok, so Camry sold 726k in 2011. Prius 523k in 2010.

Thats without v and c and phv. Quite likely Prius family will fight with new Camry on favourable terms in 2012

 

Btw, Japanese factories production numbers for 2010:
Number of Vehicles Produced in Japan by Model | TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE

 

If you are interested, here are some estimates. Prius sales declined in 2011 along with the rest of toyota, but final numbers have not been supplied by toyota yet. Prius (426K) was the 5th best selling car for toyota behind Corola (1020K), Camry(726K), and Yaris(550K), Hilux(455).
Best Selling Cars – Matt's blog » World 2011: Hyundai Elantra millionaire, threatens Toyota Corolla!

The toyota aqua/prius c are on a different platform than the prius, so will not be counted in numbers for best selling. The phv has limited production in 2012 which means that it will add little to sales figures. Toyota sales for 2011 fell behind GM and VW groups.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2011/12/25/the-worlds-most-popular-cars-are-changing/

 

Thank you AG, this is a great source!

Including the Prius at #26 (426,000), it appears that sales of the top 26 vehicles were 16,900,000 units in 2011. The top-selling Corolla got 6% of this group (which would be a bit less than 6% if ALL vehicles were considered). The Prius was at 2.5% of the top 26.

Which made me rethink what "niche" means. Toyota has 5 vehicles in this group: do they seriously expect that they could eliminate 4 of those and maintain the same total sales volume with just that one? The big companies offer a variety to suit different needs/wants and then try to make each vehicle profitable by juggling production volume, R&D costs, etc. A portfolio of vehicles aimed at different "niches".

And smaller companies that don't appear anywhere on this list (e.g., Porsche) seem to survive quite well at far lower volumes because they are optimized for that.