A 5-seat Toyota Prius Prime is on the way

Initial rollout was limited to orders and the tail-end saw the inability to get stock. Calling 4 is fine, though it makes growth seem more than it really is.

And this isn't 60% of the states... California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Hawaii.

As stated countless times by others, market depends upon availability not past demographics.

 

Those states covered 60% of national Prius sales.
So PiP sales could have been roughly 40% higher with national availability. As it was, the PiP sold over 12k units a year in its 3 best years, including that first year of 11 months.
This why I think 20k per year is possible for the Prime. 30k would be amazing, but I feel it isn't possible at this time. The gen4 hasn't reach last year's numbers.

 

Ok... then, what is the scope of "at this time" ?

Remember how year #1 and #2 were "initial rollout" and the following "mainstream" for Volt expectations.

 

another thing occurred to me. prime buyers will be guiney pigs. if the 4 seat thing doesn't work out, and a 5 seater comes out, it could really squash resale value.

 

True. But someone could then pickup a nice gently used 1-3 year old 4-seater Prime for an excellent price. If not buying the Prime with the intent to keep it for years, maybe it would make more sense to lease the 4-seater.

 

Any plug-in purchase is subject to market volatility.

Mid-Cycle updates could cause down values. But then again, demand for plug-in vehicles could command a premium due to inventory shortages.

 

of course, it depends on the lease price, which depends on toyota's estimate of market value at the end.

 

I used "at this time" cause of the reason for this thread. I think if a 5 seat one becomes available, it will sell better.

The resale value will already be pushed down by the incentives for new cars and questions about the battery life, as it is for current plug ins.

And whether they incorporate the value of incentives into the lease.

 

true, but it might be pushed down even more. look what happen to pip.

 

You replied with a request for detail with another vague reference.

goodbye

 

At this time Synonyms, At this time Antonyms | Thesaurus.com
Seeing how the Prime isn't available yet, I don't mean the immediacy of those synomyns.
The Volt and Fusion Energi are the two big sellers of PHEVs. I don't see anything compelling about the Prius Prime to allow it to get 50% more sales than them that a "modest rate of 30k" would require.

Being Toyota and a Prius will go a long way to helping sales. Regardless of whether anyone actually using the middle seat, it is a handicap to sales though.

Really?
You don't get a straight forward, plain spoken response once, and you walk away.

At least my response was short.
How about this?
The title of this thread is the Prime getting a fifth seat. I don't think will sell better than the others until that happens.
or
Until Toyota designs a plug in with the North American market, the one most likely to be the biggest for plug ins in the near future, in mind, the best they can hope for in terms of sales is being near the front of the pack.

 

then it remains to be seen if the people who said 'toyota should take a risk' will put their money where their mouth is. i never said it, and i likely won't be buying the current iteration. i did ask for more ev miles, but i never said i would be willing to give up space. i thought the new chassis would be designed to hold more battery.

if the new camry gets this kind of 'bold design'? sales will plummet.

 

why, didn't volt pull it off?

 

Since they created TNGA for multiple models of cars, I'm pretty sure the engineers were also told anything they design must fit in other cars as well. More likely Toyota designed the battery box as modular as possible to fit other vehicles as well. Probably part of their push for wider usage of like parts. The Prime, unlike the PiP, has the same size gas tank as the Prius lift back and it probably is in the same spot as the Prius lift back so they can use the same mounting hardware too. I'm sure there were some battery design decisions surrounding the gas tank size and placement as well. This is not the answer you want to really hear or that it even helps, but I'm sure it wasn't a "Toyota engineers designed the car so they can travel with their wife and two kids but have to leave their mother-in-law home".

 

i'm still in the 'toyota does not care about plug ins' camp, until they prove me wrong.

 

It's unfortunate the "waiting until affordable" approach gets portrayed as not caring by some. But that does make it easy to see why others believe it. The anecdotal evidence is abundant. I've witnessed the history that confirms Toyota's focus is delivering a product for the masses... and isn't concerned if it give the impression of "falling behind".

People can think what they want. Some have made up their mind already. Some prefer to wait & see. It won't affect the outcome. Ordinary consumers don't participate online anyway.

 

Well, they were right, in most cases. Although in my case I did well with my Prius for a couple of reasons. One, I drove it a long time and then it got totalled and I got a higher than average insurance value for the car after 11 years. Two, I managed to claim the same provincial tax credit TWICE. I was in the first wave of Prius owners, and at that time the rebates were structured in such a way that you could claim the credit on leases and you could claim it on purchases, whether new or used. So I leased it (not being sure if I'd keep it or not), and claimed the tax credit. Then I bought out the lease / purchased the car as a used car and claimed the tax credit again. Initially they denied me saying I couldn't claim the tax credit again on the same car, but then I wrote back saying there is no requirement in program that says it has to be a different car. So they reviewed my file and gave me the tax credit again, and then later changed the program to exclude this loophole.

On the other hand, some American buyers of the PiP got hosed, when resale values of the PiP dropped through the floor. It shocked me to find out that a year after I got my PiP, American PiPs were sometimes selling for LESS than the regular Prius with similar mileage and options.

We bought the RAV4 Hybrid. I'm not sure what you mean about people in Yellowknife being the only ones to put on winter tires voluntarily. It's not a requirement in Ontario but the majority of people do it, and also did it even before the insurance companies starting providing small discounts for it.

And yeah, AWD to go up to the shops is great to have, even in the city, and even when you have winter tires on. For example it's a real pain in my PiP to go up the hill from my house to the shops in the winter after a big snowfall even with my X-Ice 3 tires on. The PiP really struggles, and the traction control makes it worse. It would be easier to climb the hill without the traction control, but Toyota has not given us an easy way to deactivate traction control. The only way to turn off traction control is to use a hack that isn't documented in the user manual.

If the RAV4 Hybrid didn't have AWD, we simply would not have bought it. No, we don't need a hardcore form of AWD to climb huge boulders in the outback, but the AWD in the RAV4 Hybrid is a great feature for city dwellers in Canada.

BTW, another big consideration for me going forward will be the multimedia system. Toyota is really resisting going with Android or iOS. That wouldn't be so bad if Toyota had a competitive system, but they don't. Toyota's multimedia system still is poor, even in our 2016 RAV4 Hybrid, and it's worse in our PiP. Yes, I will factor in the multimedia system when choosing my next car.