August Sales.. Volt leads the pac new overall sales record, Leaf and PIP set records too.

Yes, I meant a premium after all credits involved were included. You might be right though that having Toyota price it higher by the amount of the tax credit and then let the government foot the bill might be the way to go if they can manage it.

The RAV4 EV is sold only in California, because it is strictly designed to meet California's CARB-ZEV requirements, and as I said, at a huge loss to Toyota for each one sold. (Some estimates suggest that these cost Toyota as much as $140k each to build) Selling a few more will not come close to covering what it would cost Toyota to expand this market. In any case, the RAV4 EV's days may be numbered as Toyota already says they plan to meet the California regulations with a newly developed hydrogen ZEV.

 

OK its a bit of a dated read. And, not to try and steal the thunder of the OP's quoted article (nor focus on August/pigeon hole stats) - but I was surprised when reading how during the 1st half of this entire year:
Sales Surprise: Battery-Electric Cars Are Outselling Plug-In Hybrids

To those who continue to beat the "limited range" ... "too expensive" ... "range anxiety" etc, etc, hand-wringing drum ... surprise surpirse.
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First I would say the horse race between plug-ins - bev versus phev is entirely created by those that don't like plug ins.

Second the numbers clearly show range anxiety with the sub 100 mile ev range cars. Just read the last survey of owners. High percentages (IIRC 95%) have anouther car they can drive if they need more range, and they appear to be doing so. The push of more bevs to phevs is from tesla S which is 200+ miles.

 

Well I guess it's true...saw 2 Leafs in NoVA yesterday....have only ever seen one before this.

One had vanity plate/Clean fuels plate LOL OIL (whereas is the VA clean fuels logo)
I had wondered if if was possible to get both a VA Clean Fuel plate and a vanity plate at the same time.

 

Some ideas pop to mind:

• OIL-64
• TAX64NO
• OIL64TAX
• MPG64TAX
• TAXED-64

Bob Wilson

 

ok, non sequitur ... but still fun


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oh - really . . . and how strictly designed does any EV have to be, in order to meet CARB-ZEV requirements

Then there's the idea of selling at a "Loss". For years, it was thought that the Gen II Prius was sold at a loss. Was it? How do you quantify its "halo" effect ... how do you quantify the R&D value of its millions & millions of miles, only determinable after your product travels millions of miles ...
Iow, there's more payback to some products than what the dealer rakes in. Thinks of the millions of gallons of gas, NOT used, for example, by all the EV's - Plug-In hybrids & regular hybrids ... and that quantity of resource saved continues to grow. Just saying ... you don't make money until you spend it first.
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In order to get maximum credit? Quite, since its no small doing to fulfill the quick re-fill requirement, which the RAV4 EV does not. I absolutely agree in general with your other points. For GM creating the Volt has huge value beyond what they sell them for. Toyota was clearly not that invested in this vehicle though or they would have built it themselves. How much knowledge was gained by contracting out the important bits to Tesla? The RAV4 EV is no halo vehicle. Toyota barely acknowledges it exists.

 

The only requirements are electricity, natural gas, and/or hydrogen and credits depend only on city range (not even highway) and speed of refueling, although carb looks to be changing that to disallow battery swaps to keep its fuel cell favoritism on credits. That speed of refueling extra credit expires in 2018 IIRC, long before there will be many fuel cell vehicles.

The gen I sold at a loss. Toyota said gen II was profitable, and there is much evidence to support them. You can not as the haters seem to do figure out profitability in year 2 of a product, you need to take the whole run 2003-2009. R&D also was allocated to the Lexus RXh and camry hybrids. Gen III is highly profitable, and the marketing benefit of the prius's green halo sold many non-hybrid cars and trucks for toyota.

Well lets look at an example the EQ 50 mile ev, contained a lot of R&D, but really had little chance in the market place. If you really want a electric city car there is the $139/mo smart fortwo, the slightly larger imev, the upcoming forjoy and vw EUP. Not much of a spot. Spending money would be good money after bad.

On the prius phv, they could stand to invest some, and actually put it at a more competive price and roll it out to other states. It almost seems like toyota has GM's ev1 sales strategy. Hurt sales on purpose to claim it is trying, but really want to kill it. The problem is tesla, nissan, and gm are there saying people want these cars. It could just be a lack of competance. Either way toyota can fix this. The brown halo gm got from its ev1 strategy cost it a great deal of sales. I'm sure toyota doesn't want to go there. That is why I am confident toyota will eventually see the light and start working harder on PHEVs and BEVs.

 

PiP, PiP, Hooray!

 

The Year of Living Electrically in the Chevy Volt Saves Owner $2224.25 in Fuel Costs