Toyota April Sales . . .

I think lots of the Shorts thoughts so too when it went from 35 to 40. And again from 40-45 and then again from 45-50.
Someone calculated that between interest and covering the Short options, shorts have lost around a Billion dollars since last fall.

I have never been a fan of Shorting a stock. Too much like gambling. I can't say I am sorry to see the Shorts take it in the shorts

 

with pip sales in the gutter, i wonder what toyota is thinking for the future? i hope it doesn't derail them.

 

I

I'm sure it won't. There's promise in EV. Once the infrastructure gets better (which they are slowly), and general pricing drops (I.e., Nissan Leaf), I'm sure Toyota will have an even better product out there.

 

Unfortunately, Toyota seems to be bowing to the dealers and halting EV introduction. They are also pushing FCV more.

 

Toyota has shown great perseverance with the growing pains of hybrids. I don't think they will bail this time around.

 

This is my opinion. When the next Gen PIP comes out with a respectable EV range and a good price point the PIP will explode in sales. No guarantees just speculation.

Just using my car analytics 10 miles costs about 44 cents in gas using the Prius Hatchback I own.

I'm told to charge the car at home costs about $1 a day. Charging it at the public station is $2.00. Some retailers in town it is free.

There is not much economics in the PIP in it's current form. Now I'm all about clean out of the tail pipe.

The Base PIP a 2013 is about $33,3000. You don't get much with that money, cloth seats, small Nav screen, elect seat warmers, manual seat adjustment, etc. in Cal the incentives are worth what maybe $4,000. Maybe you can haggle a discount from list.

Toyota needs to make a few changes to interest the consumer and again in my humble opinion.

Perhaps more options at the lower price point and improved EV range.

 

In January 1st I went a little more aggressive on Stocks allocation as a percentage of my portfolio. Reaping the rewards this Year to date. Market is again on a tear up today. I look like a hero.

Thinking about taking some profits, but I still think this rally has legs.

 

I went to the dealer yesterday for my Prius hatchback 10K mile service. They usually have a car in the Service showroom. They had a Base Pip. This is a first. A Marketing lady was there promoting the PIP and talking about the car to any willing takers. She said she was not sales but marketing, had brochures in her hand. She was all about talking about the car and educating people. I know PC members are very knowledgable. However many people are not. There needs to be more education for the PIP to accelerate sales.

 

I agree. I actually don't mind paying the pretty penny for the PIP, but charging in my living situation is a deal breaker. Actually I don't mind playing around with local charging stations and rearranging my lifestyle to accommodate the charging (especially since it has a short range battery anyways), but then again, the pretty penny that I pay for the PIP doesn't justify it...well ya know what I mean

 

I agree

 

The economics of the PiP are tricky; but not always adverse. I did a pretty complicated calculation before buying the PiP, and it definitely pays off for me -- although I'll quickly admit my situation is unusual.

My drives all primarily fit within 10 miles; with multiple of these per day. There is time to charge in between; and the small battery means short recharge times. I pay $.14 per kWh, and each full charge is 2.8kWh, so $.39. I burn approximately 1 gallon of gas for every 150 miles (average).

I calculated I would repay the difference in cost over non-PiP in 5 years. Part of this is the $4,000 the government paid me to buy it. In 10 years I'll have gained an extra $6000 of savings. So far my budget has been correct with reality. I'm at 1200 miles and 8 gallons so far on my new PiP.

Note that some others on the forum average more like 300 miles per gallon of gas; so it's a bigger winner for them.

Meanwhile a feel good about the majority of my energy coming from my roof solar panels (which I did NOT factor into the payback time).

Note that I ONLY use my home and free chargers. Paying for a charge is almost always a losing proposition vs. gas, as they are way overpriced.

 

Well said. So what's preventing PIP's from mass adoption? Is it education of the general public?

 

Do you know if Costco or big retail names that still offers free charging? I know only select Costcos even offer charging at all.

 

I just posted on this topic over on another thread. It's super annoying. Quite a number of retailers around San Francisco HAD free charging stations, but didn't maintain them or just got rid of them. Including my Costco. Of course I didn't figure this out until after buying my PiP and showing up at a number of places that listed free charging only to find missing or broken chargers.

Welcome to America. As soon as gas prices drop; we all get stupid again. I know this isn't popular, but if we just tacked on a $1/gallon tax on non-commercial vehicles we would get back about 10x that much in new green jobs as the industry would explode. Not to mention the actual tax money...that could be put into more incentives for green cars.

 

yup, gas prices have a lot to do with it.

 

Retail is very fickle, in and out of marketing gimmicks as quickly as they change plans.

 

Trying to understand your numbers.. Gas buddy lists prices in socal at about 3.70. I'll use 3.60 to be safer.
44 [email protected] a gallon is .122 gallons, which means to go ten miles you would need to average 81.8MPG, which is not consistent with your fuely badge.

At 47.2MPG, 10 miles needs .212 gallons with is about $0.76 at $3.60 a gallon.

A PiP takes 3.1kWh to charge, so for it to take $1.00 charge you would have to be paying $0.323 per kWh which is quite high (though I guess its possible in SoCal if you use only the marginal rate are in a high enough tier. The National average $.12/kWh so the average cost is .$.36 or about half the average cost of gas.

 

That's how I calculate whether it is more efficient to pay for a public charger or stick with gasoline. At $.13/kWh ($.40 per charge) it makes perfect sense for me to charge but if public chargers cost more than about $.65 per charge (3.1kWh) then it's not worth it. Your actual EV range will help determine the final price calculations. I generally assume I will get 10 miles of EV range just to be safe. Some people may use 14 miles because their commute is more EV friendly.

 

i pay .16/kwh or about 50 cents per full charge. in summer, i can go about 15+ miles on a charge. if i get 60mpg for $3.60, that equals 4 charges or $2.00. so i could pay up to .90 to charge or .30/kwh before exceeding cost of gas.