Dashboard: Aug-Nov 2013

Toyota still needs new ads, for a even larger piece of the hybrid market !!
Their sales fell overall from last quarter .

 

The charging-station count at the ramp I park at for work recently went grew from 2 to 6. Today was the sweetest experience yet. There was a Leaf, Volt, and Fusion Energi.

It sure makes the 2014 outlook something to ponder. The crazy superiority roars have succumb to sales reality. Phew! That being over is quite nice. Perhaps now, the actual competition will get a recognized and the proper audience addressed. It's hard to believe how far off track some got.

We now have plug-in vehicles leading the way. That will draw even more people in for the purchase of regular hybrids. Misconceptions have been replaced with mainstream acceptance... at least for Prius. Several other automakers are striving to reach middle-market consumers too, so there's hope. It's always slower than you'd like. But at least we see growth potential for some.

I'm looking forward to the rollout of Prius PHV here. My dealer sent out a mass email recently, which included mention of the plug-in model. That was a first. Online listing of 2013 inventory seems to indicate the 2014 availability is realistic. So, that might mean something. But then again, the temperature here right now is just 1°F... which is far for ideal for a plug-in. Though, I did still manage 75 MPG from driving 46 miles with 2 recharges.

Anywho, maybe they'll be a surge in sales for the plug-ins this month from those wanting to take advantage of getting their tax-credit money in just a few months rather than having to wait over a year.

 

...another article I just saw on a green car website (sorry should have posted) said:

• Toyota PiP shocked industry being No. 1 Plug-In for October apparently due to the cost reduction
• But now USA PiP inventory now pretty much depleted...so we will not get back to October levels at the moment
• I infer the big PiP sales we saw last year end are not coming

Hey not bad No. 1, is everyone doing the wave? ...me first...OK now you

 

I don't know why anyone would have been shocked. 18 months ago you would have expected the prius phv to lead at least 2 months, it looks like just 1. The suprise in 2013 was that tesla led for 3 months.

I don't really know how many cars will be replenished during this month, but here is insideevs' take

Monthly Plug-In Sales Scorecard

They need 1570 cars sold in december to equal 2012, if they started the month with 600 in stock, its certainly possible that shipments come in to support sales, but the dealers have to want to sell them. I doubt they will hit that number.

GM needs to sell 2760 in december to equal 2012. They are in the same boat as toyota in not managing inventory well.

 

GM was stuck with a very large inventory of 2013 models still available when the 2014 production began. That most definitely is not the situation with Toyota.

 

Your Rav4 EV #'s are not right for Oct or November either. Just FYI.
You will see the PlugIn Prius sales increase across the country simply because more states are going to get them now.

 

GM had low inventory in october and november. Toyota appears to have low inventory in november and december, hurting sales during these two months.

You acted as if it was a major problem that gm had inventory to sell in september. They were able to sell it. So no gm's "problem" of high inventory causing new pricing and higher sales is not the problem I am talking about. As I said at the time, I didn't consider it much of a problem.

 

That's great news if toyota is finally rolling out phv's to other states, dianne. Do you have a schedule that you can share?

Bob, rav 4 ev sales in insideev were 91 in october, 62 in november. Dianne are those those correct?

 

I tried something like that on a smaller scale but it got scrambled when I pasted it into the form. But it was just prius from 1012-2013 Good job.

 

Most of us consider selling at a loss a problem.

 

Think of it this way. The prius phv, volt, leaf, ford energis should be thought of as at least 10 year investments. You know that. If 3000 cars get discounted $3000 because of an inventory screw up, that's $9 million, not much at all compared to stock outs and sending your customers to your competitors. The shortages are much more of a problem.

$9M on over a billion dollar project is a rounding error. But it seems that to some it means that somehow plug-ins are failing. When you look at the strong growth of the segment nothing could be further from the truth.

The only company making profits on this generation of plug-ins is tesla. Perhaps you can tell us the figures since you are so concerned with the volts profitability.

 

We're not playing that Volt game anymore. Reality is, it was a permanent lowering of the MSRP, not a discount. And it was despite the fact that money was being lost on each sale prior to that. It was also $5,000 lower, not $3,000. There's the dependency on the $7,5oo tax-credit too.

According to who? Toyota's shared high-volume Prius platform and heavy investment in the battery market makes it quite reasonable to expect a modest profit, especially considering the higher than median initial pricing.

 

You say this like Toyota isn't playing the same game with PPI. The price cut for the 2014 model is a permanent lowering of MSRP, and there were some nice discounts to be had on the PPI previously. Isn't there a thread here with people getting it for less than a liftback?

The fact that it does share a platform with the Prius is the reason some of us are disappointed with Toyota's actions concerning the PPI. They have a head start concerning R&D and production investment. Why delay expansion of availability or be one of the last to lower the MSRP? The PPI could serve many well, but it feels like Toyota is only offering it begrudgingly.

 

I wouldn't be.
It's the holidays. Peoples' spending habits have focused towards that. Then the cold weather makes thoughts of trudging around a car lot unappealing in those areas with a winter. It's why there are winter sales on cars being advertised, and deals can be made by the buyers willing to stand out in the cold.

We might see an uptick in December as people want the incentive for this year's tax bill.

 

Toyota didn't bet the farm on a plug-in. Toyota didn't reduce base price by $5,000. Toyota isn't depending upon a $7,500 tax-credit.

Toyota offers a variety of choices. Toyota reduced by $2,000. Toyota only gets a $2,500 tax-credit.

No part of that is the same as GM.

 

John I wish you would stop playing the hate the volt game, but its in all of these comments. I made an innocent factual comment that toyota's sales would be lowered because of low inventory from poor inventory management like gm's have been, and you jumped back to a false idea about high inventories. Please can you just stop the games.

I really don't know if gm was making or losing money on each car before the price reduction. It all depends on accounting for fixed costs and R&D. GM most certainly did not drop the price to consumer by $5000 because of high inventories. They dropped the MSRP, and most of that simply reflected the reality of discounting. IMHO it is better to lower the MSRP than to leave it to dealers to discount. GM was following a price reduction at nissan, then toyota quite properly dropped the prius phv. The prius phv also had been dicoucnted from a rather inflated MSRP.

Then the way I know you still have some crap stuck in your craw is the false accusation about tax credits. How well would toyota do without the tax credits? Toyota corporate got paid during cash for clunkers, and for the san antonio truck plant, the mississippi corolla plant. GM got a bigger bail out. The plug-in credit is tiny compared to the billions of tax payer dollars going to each of gm and toyota. Let's not just look at one piece of incentive.

I though toyota had spent over $1B on their plug-in r&d. Is that wrong? How are you going to allocate that? THey cancelled the EQ, so doesn't all of it go for the prius phv? To me its an investment for the future, but if you divide it on the few cars toyota has produced they lose a great deal of cash. You can't use one kind of accounting for one firm, then a differt type for your favored firm.