Dashboard: Mar 2013 to Dec 2012

Toyota cant add extra population in Japan... last March sales for Prius were record sales for any car in the history of Japan car sales - due to incentives for green cars. This does not mean that March sales this year were bad - they were actually really really good and around 50% of Toyota sales in Japan these days are hybrid, without any incentives and with pretty high prices.

Toyota goal for Japan production is 3 million/year, anything extra, is over their plans to keep Japan plants sustainable... As to 3.9 million, thats number from 2007, not sure what does that have to do with Prius and Hybrids? As then, Toyota sold 1 million hybrids less per year than in 2012.

I dont see why would they cut Prius pricing? Prius sales in 2013 will slowly go down worldwide due to Prius being older model to be all new in 2014. It is normal car sales pattern around the world.

 

March 2013
1 Toyota Aqua 33,693 16% 1 80,685 1 2
2 Toyota Prius 32,527 -29% 2 73,723 2 1

March 2012
1 Toyota Prius 45,496 131% 1 1 110,479 1 1
2 Honda Fit 34,161 53% 2 2 80,583 2 2
3 Toyota Aqua 29,156 new 3 4 64,592 3 -
Sure from our previous links, you can see the effect of the incentives. The Aqua was new, and could not be produce enough for the incentives. The prius in march 2012 was up 131% from 2011, it has fallen but not down to 2011 numbers. Toyota also controls 50% of the japanese market now.

We should not expect the prius will sell as well without the incentives, and many that wanted them bought them with the incentives, and others might wait for the next round.

 

You were making it sound as if toyota was increasing production versus 2012, which is not the case, and the implication was domestic consumption, again not the case. I was not judging this years prius sales as bad, it just is they are much lower than last year in japan as expected.

Why would they reduce prices in the US? If they want to keep the prius factories humming. Again bw speculation. We don't know what the politics of prius are this year in japan. Toyota may have shifted there to the aqua, in which case prius numbers are not as important as far as pride.

Sure, but there are only 2 big markets, and they may go down fast in japan. Discounting in the US is one way to keep numbers up.

 

They actually had plans not just an option, but they cancelled them. That would have reduced toyota's costs for american prii. They are talking about building the the gen IV in the US, but we won't know for sure until they start building them, or not.

 

It seems fair to estimate that the market for efficient cars is less than 5% when fuel costs < $3.5 a gallon.
If (when?) fuel prices exceed $4 a gallon in 2012 dollars and stay that way, change will happen rapidly because hybrid tech has proven itself reliable when done right.

 

I went to check on California prices based on this and got this LA times article
Six week long drop in California gasoline prices has slowed - latimes.com

Reflecting your article and perhaps gas prices are why March hybrid sales were down 3.6% in march versus last year, even though they are up 14% for the first quarter.

But screeming at me was a link to anti hybrid fud.
Why You Shouldn&#8217;t Buy A Hybrid

Someone paid to stick the FUD link on the LA times page. This is what it says about the links.

 

That "article" linked to others, which are doubtful also

What Toyota Doesn&#8217;t Want You to Know About the Prius

4 Things to NEVER Forget When Buying a Used Car
(here the picture is of a Prius...)


Avoid that Lemon! How to Know If You&#8217;re Getting Ripped Off
(here the picture is of a Prius... - avoid that lemon... :O )

 

Not sure what does it have to do with politics or pride... what I do know that Prius is selling great in Japan and they sell 50% of their vehicles there as hybrids. Since Toyota is raising their production in Japan, doubtful that they will end up losing any production vs 2012, which was my point, regardless of fact that there is no green rabates this year anymore.

As I said, last year numbers were very inflated, and drop in sales has been nothing like predicted, for Prius... other non-hybrids have dropped far more.

In fact, it is kind of crazy how "Prius" market in Japan has become... they sell way too many of them to be healthy really. Few years ago, best seller in Japan sold 10k units per month, not 30k or 40k. Not sure if this is realistic situation - if everyone in Japan will end up driving a Prius of some kind. So next year, Prius sales could drop even more... or year after that. Right now, I find it very uncharacteristic that expensive Prius and Prius c make up 15.5% of overall car market in Japan, which is known for offering many different kinds of models. If we compare it to 2009, when 3rd gen was launched, and what should have been its best sales month, it has sold 10k... so 4 years later an old model selling 3x more than at launch - almost a miracle.

Interesting is also new Crown sales... it has Hybrid version, same as IS300h, and its up 150% YoY. A lot of that probably comes from hybrid which is also very expensive. At 11.5k per month, it is awesome sales for luxury vehicle, far more than anything else in the market (Lexus sells 3k per month overall).... It also shows Japanese market is very different from US - it is VERY front loaded... right now they have 6 month waiting lists for Crown, and in 2 years it will likely go back to 2k per month.

 

You probably are just trying to ignore the context of the discussion but again, here is the context.

Toyota is down in Japanese sales year over year, they knew this would happen, and planned lower production, they now think because of the lower yen, they can incentive dealers in the US, and sell more Japanese manufactured cars in the US. They can do these incentives because the lower yen drops their costs. The ramp up in your article was versus low figures, to produce more cars for export, mainly to the US. The minimum toyota has promised the Japanese unions is 3M cars a year, the ramp up if it remains to the end of the year will increase production to 3.3M or 3.4M cars, versus 3.5 M in 2012. Toyota though has not revised full year production figures from the 3.1M yet. Some years Toyota sells Japanese produced cars at a loss to keep production at 3M. More than half the cars produced in Japan this year are for export.

As you can see in the first quarter Japanese sales of the prius dropped from 110,479 in 2012 to 73,723 in 2013, a drop of 33%. I was suggesting if they want to keep prius numbers up, one of the cars they incentize in the US may be the prius. They obviously have the capacity for it. The prius and aqua are not built on the same lines, which is why there was a shortage of aqua last year.

I said nothing about it selling poorly against expectations. It had large intentives, some of which have expired, and sold very well in Japan in 2012, better than expected, and toyota expected a drop.

 

First quarter and only posted March 2012 vs. March 2013. March 2012 was exceptional with 45,496, March 2011 was tsunami month. I can't find the 110 vs 73 and the 33%. Aqua took over Prius sales lead in Japan.
Jan/Feb/Mar 2013 = 154,418
Aqua Toyota 22,466
Prius Toyota 17,733

Aqua Toyota 24,526
Prius Toyota 23,473

Aqua Toyota 33,693
Prius Toyota 32,527

Jan/Feb/Mar 2012 = 175,071
Prius Toyota 29,108
Aqua Toyota 13,485

Prius Toyota 35,875
Aqua Toyota 21,951

Prius Toyota 45,496
Aqua Toyota 29,156

 

Wow . . . . . . either there are nearly as many "well-to-to" folks buying Tesla's as there are paltry battery range folks buying Leafs .... or .... the extra battery range of the Model S is so compelling, that the paltry range EV folks step it up to buy an EV that they can hardly afford.

.

 

Think of it this way - The tesla S seems to get a high market share in the bmw 5 type market where cool technology and acceleration are valued, especially in california where you get HOV stickers for it and it has very good range.

 

They were in the same section of the blog we were getting information from, it has year to date. The 33% is calculated from those figures.

Again everybody breaks out aqua from prius, since they are completely different platforms, like camry hybrid and prius. There was a shortage of aqua in 2012, and it is likely that with the incentives people bought prius liftbacks instead of waiting for aquas with expired incentives. Think of it like cash for clunkers, people often bought cars close to what they wanted to get the incentives before the program ended. Some others waited, and they are buying the aqua now.

During 2012 the yen was much higher, but now it is expected to stay above 90 to a dollar at least through september. Toyota stated that its break even on imported cars is 78, which they can either raise their profit margin on exported cars from Japan to the US, or drop prices to buy market share. They said they upping export production in April because of the exchange rate. That suggests they are going to drop prices (or increase content for the same price), we just don't know which cars they are going to do it on right now. I don't know if they may at least offer factory to dealer incentives to sell more prius liftbacks in the US is just wishfull thinking.
Toyota ready with NY dealer incentives to move lots of Prius Plug-in Hybrids

We do see $500 off on the liftback in NY in march

 

USA Auto Sales Brand Rankings - April 2013
USA Auto Sales Brand Rankings - April 2013 - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

 

April 2013 U.S. Vehicle Sales Rankings - Top 258 Best-Selling Vehicles In America - Every Vehicle Ranked - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

Above link is all vehicles ranked for US sales April '13. GCBC is lumping Prius/PiP together, not c or v included which seems fair as the v and c chassis are totally different than liftback. 'Prius' sits at #25 year to date. Not bad out of 250 something vehicles.

Accord outsold Camry by almost 2k units in April. Could make case than Accord includes the coupe but Camry includes the hybrid so maybe a wash.

note - didn't see post above, woop.