Prius sales down 40% from May 2007, 31% from last month

Yeah, kind of bad luck on Toyota's part. I believe they had already shutdown the line and started retooling for the '09s before this latest surge in demand started. In April there were plenty of Prii on the lots, and incentives on the Camry Hybrid. A lots changed since then. Looking at the curve below its pretty clear why.

Rob

 

Because automobiles are so complex (lots of parts), manufacturers do a rolling projection of anticipate sales 4+ months in advance. I would guess that based upon sales in the Jan. / Feb. timeframe, they estimated sales in May to be about 15,000 units. With the unanticipated spike in gasoline cost and resultant demand for fuel efficient vehicles, the demand for Prius vehicles was dramatically higher than anticipated. As good as Toyota is, they can't turn auto manufacturing on and off like a faucet.

Thanks for the sales info!

Keith

 

I also think the reason was lesser availability of the NiMH battery needed for the hybrid system. I remember there was a shortage of batteries while they were tyring to get out the next gen battery and only started recently to rev up the battery manufacturing. Also Prius sales were up 25% from Jan to April so it was bound to catch up to Toyota eventually.

 

If Toyota just sold over 15,000 Prii and that represents a 40% drop from last May, I highly doubt that they expected a 40% drop in Prius demand over last year. More likely is 1) some sort of manufacturing problem or 2) the excess demand in the early months of this year meant that Toyota couldn't meet their estimated sales in May.

 

Sales aren't down.

Having been able to deliver more in April & May was a bonus, definitely something not representative of a slip. Extra available inventory is quite temporary.

15,000 per month is on plan for annual sales.

.

 

This is very easy to explain. There was a shortage of cars. I cannot find a new Prius anywhere in my area. Four months ago there were tons. They sold everything they had as soon as the price of gas went up. Now they appear on the lots and are sold within hours.

Add too that the flow of car carriers from Japan and next month will probobly be back right up to normal unless there is a manufacturing problem.

 

"Toyota Division posted sales of 23,654 hybrids for the month. Lexus Division posted May sales of 2,365 hybrids, an 18 percent increase over the same period last year."
Awesome!

If Toyota was smart, from a financial perspective, they would keep the current version of the Prius in full production, and un-redesigned for as long as the demand continues. That old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," is VERY true when it comes to restyling cars. When demand exceeds supply, don't dare hit that "restyle" button!

 

sales are down cus there are no prii to sell, LOL

also have to consider basic economics of supply and demand, although toyota is doing a great job with their cars, they are still in the business to make money...that comes first before anything else

my .02

 

The San Francisco bay area is one of the largest markets for Prius automobiles. Earlier in this year one could walk into any Toyota dealer and buy a car right off the lot because most dealers here had at least 20 Prius automobiles in stock. At least in this area, there was not excess demand, but excess supply.

Keith

 

Here's the REAL STORY:

Prius sales tank in May, Toyota blames battery supply

Posted Jun 4th 2008 4:32PM by Frank Filipponio
Filed under: Car Buying, Hybrids/Alternative, Green, Toyota


This stat might seem confusing given the fact that fuel economy is king at dealerships right now, but Toyota just reported that Prius sales were down almost 40% in May compared to the same period in 2007. While overall 2008 sales of the hybrid postercar are up a little over 2%, this just doesn't seem possible. Just over 15,000 Priuses were sold in May '08 compared to more than 24,000 in 2007. Overall sales in 2008 have slightly surpassed '07 sales through May, with a total of 79,675 units moved this year compared to 76,747 last year, but it seems like something is amiss. Then you read about a battery supply problem that's affected production of the Prius and it all starts to make sense. AutoblogGreen reports that Toyota's VP of Communications, Irv Miller, said batteries are in short supply worldwide and this is what affected Prius production and its sales last month in the U.S. He added that last year's figures were slightly inflated due to, wait for it, incentives being used to move slow-selling hybrids. Ah, the good old days. While there is still an obvious demand for the Prius, our brothers at ABG surmise we'll be on a one-day supply of Priuses until the new one comes out in January. Can you say mark up?

[Source: AutoblogGreen and Toyota]

 

Every Quarter there is one 'thrust' month in auto sales.
First Qtr it's March
2nd Qtr it's May
3rd Qtr it's August
4th Qtr it's December

You can look it up but these are always the heaviest sales months every year. Volumes are built up to take advantage of these cyclical months then the following month(s) are a little weaker.

Everything would have been 'on schedule' if gas hadn't spiked early and driven all the buyers into the showrooms in April. They sucked up all available inventories both on the ground and intransit so that little or nothing was left for May.

Sales... 2008 vs 2007
May..... 15.0 vs 24.0
Apr...... 21.7 vs 13.1

Same sales over the two months each year except that the buyers bought a lot of their 'May' vehicles in April. In fact the dealers lost about 10-12 days of sales due to lack of inventory.

This is a mortal sin in most businesses. It's one of the risks of a very tight supply line. The long logistic and supply line from the subcontractors to the plant in Japan to the US leaves no flexibility. OTOH it keeps costs in line but at the expense of ocassionally losing sales.

 

There is another issue too.. we see it every day. No Prius / No sale.

'Well how about a much less expensive Corolla ( for a sedan buyer ) or Matrix ( the non-hybrid Prius )'. If a buyer can't get a Prius for months and months and gas shows no signs of going south of present levels why would one wait indefinitely for some unknown date.

It's only transportation. Toyota gets to promote it's new Corolla/Matrix and drive their sales up.