The PIP will lose market share in 2013 to the VOLT and be overtaken by the Tesla

Good point...

I think we could apply that point to the whole plugin market...

 

I think you simply have a bad memory;-)
It would be ridiculous for even a well established company to claim a new vehicle model coming out one year after another. Much less a new start up company bringing out cars using technology no one else is willing to try (at the time).

 

I'm still confused. On one hand it sounds like you are making the assertion that Toyota has been selling these cars at a huge loss for a long time. But then you quote an article that states the development cost of the car is on par with that of other new vehicle designs, money they would have to spend no matter what. So whatever "losses" they had to take were normal ones that any car maker would have to shoulder with a new model.

So which is it? The Prius has been a money sucking loss leader for Toyota that will never get paid back? Or a $1B investment in technology that has spread to multiple car lines over a 15 year period?

 

I disagree. I've never owned a Prius, or any other Hybrid/Green vehicle before. However, every car I've owned has been a Toyota (except one) and they've all been great cars. (1979 Celica Supra, 1982 Celica Supra, 1988 MR2, 1991 MR2 Turbo, 1993 MR2 Turbo, 1995 Supra and now 2012 Prius Pug-In). The one exception was a 1987 Chevy Cavalier Z24 that seized up 3 years and 36k miles into a 6/60 warranty. GM refused to honor the warranty. I resolved then never to buy another GM, and to cost them as many sales as possible in my lifetime. That was the first time I got screwed by GM. The second time was the Bailout. With those two things in mind, the Volt was never an option for me. Since I do go on long road trips, neither was a pure EV like the Leaf or the Tesla.

I worked in the parts department at a Toyota dealer for the past 4 years (I'm now at Lexus) and the only parts that we ever handed out for the Prius were wiper blades and lights bulbs. We had customers with well over 200K miles on the original battery, and the cars were still going strong. That's why I bought a Prius. I bought a Plug-In because I work 7.5 miles from home, and wanted to maximize my fuel economy, while not having to deal with "range anxiety", and still be able to take the car on a long road trip. (I drive 1000+ miles one way to Vegas annually) I live in Oregon, so while there is a $1500 tax incentive (that applies to all Hybrids, not just the PiP) there is no "HOV Sticker", so that wasn't even a concern. Toyotas in general hold their value, and the Prius is no exception to that rule, which also factored into my decision.

 

I wasn't disagreeing with the OP, I was disagreeing with John Hatchett (which is why I quoted him). I don't think the HOV sticker has much to do with PiP sales, and it had absolutely nothing to do with my decision.

 

I did. Still not getting your point.

 

I did, and I find that I disagree with the article too. The author is predicting that EV sales will DOUBLE, but somehow Toyota will actually sell 1000 LESS PiPs...That is asinine, and likely impossible. I predict that if EV sales double, Toyota will sell at least 3k-5k additional PiPs. The author is also ignoring other economic factors, like Obama's stated intention to sell the Government Motors shares this year, which may precipitate another crisis at GM. We'll regroup this time in 2014 and see who was right.
Incidentally, anyone who bought a GM before the bailout has no warranty coverage from "The new GM" and has to apply against the bankruptcy for coverage of any defects that would have been considered warrantable. It really makes me wonder when I see Volt owners on here complaining about Prius owners "hating on" GM. What's not to hate?

 

How many Prius' were sold in the first year? IIRC a lot less than 12,000. And the PIP gets to "share" a lot of engineering and parts from the rest of the Prius line. Toyota knows that advanced battery technology is important for the future...they are not going to give this up after just a couple of years.

Mike

 

Goodbye, Prius? Japanese carmakers drop battery electric-car development - Washington Times

 

Odd, why start that with "Goodbye, Prius?"
The article talks about Toyota dropping plans for pure EVs, which the Prius most definitely is not.

 

yea, something is amiss. Did the prius creator move over to Nissan ?

another recent article on the same thread...

Electric cars head toward another dead end| Reuters

 

No.

It maybe an example of senior management targeting the wrong priorities, but one graph of one parameter in one condition is not something useful to judge overall engineering competence. An graph of how far a PHEV can go on one charge would show the PiP being way inferior to the Volt and noticeably inferior to the C-Max Energi. That is not poor engineering on Toyota's part, nor proof that GM has better engineering than either.

 

Aha, yep I bet that was it.
Looks like Toyota is actively working against EVs which is a shame. My wife loved the RAV4 EV, it is quite possible we would replace our Volt with one.
More likely now will be a Model X as our second vehicle, or possible a 60 kWh Model S. I just don't see anyone else with competitive plans on the BEV market.

 

Yikes, talk about sensationalism. Let's go ahead and axe the best selling nameplate in California. Ridiculous. This kind of headline journalism makes me sick.

 

There is one very tricky factor to be aware of. The development of third party PHEV battery packs for the 2004-2009 Prius was not a small insignificant business. It was a big booming business unaffected by Toyota's understandable position that warranty issues could be affected by use these packs. In a corporate boardroom it's a worrisome situation when millions of dollars are going into someone else's pockets modifying your cars. Meanwhile other car companies like Tesla could become Prius competitors. The PiP may have been more of a reaction to this issue than the strategic plans of GM's Volt or Ford's C-Max Energi.

Also keep in mind that vastly more Volts are sold than Corvettes. We should worry more about the Corvette going the way of the Edsel.