MORE NEWS ON MARKUPS/AVAILABILITY/WAIT

Which dealership did you get your car from? We ordered (put down a deposit on) a Prius from a Dallas dealership 10-25-03 and haven't received ANY calls yet. :?

 

Toyota does not have a list of our orders. We simply input the cars we request and hope for the best via allocation.

We don't charge a $995 surcharge on "hot" units.

Remember, there are two private distributors in the US and they may do things differently - but the items stated in the first post, are NOT Toyota policies.

 

There's medications for that condition, Dr. Fuscojavascript:emoticon(':wink:')

 

I ordered my 2004 Prius on 2-Oct-2003, and got it on 23-Oct-2003. I paid the sticker price. Sorry to hear that others are having trouble getting them...it's worth waiting for, though. (I live in a moderately hilly area, and am getting 50 mpg on mostly highway driving!)

BTW, I see lots of them on the road here in the San Francisco Bay Area...I wonder if certain areas are being prioritized over others?

 

That would be nice but I'm not sure what approach Toyota could utilize to accomplish that. For one, they could not issue some sort of edict to dealers requiring them to sell only at MSRP (or any other price); that's vertical price fixing and, hence, illegal. Also, I believe that once cars are allocated to dealers, Toyota loses control in the sense that Toyota no longer has possession and, possibly, ownership.

OTOH, I suppose Toyota could make an attempt to identify those dealers that are gouging and/or playing games and mess with their allocation.

 

Yes! Ultimately, this is just a car, albeit a well-designed and innovative car. It may look cool, be one of the most environmentally friendly cars ever produced, and conserve resources, but it's still merely a mode of transportation.

Actually, I'd like to amend my answer to "no, I don't feel the least bit ridiculous". :lol:

 

I think I have 3 or 4 Prii on my street here in Berkeley...and there is one that is always parked in front of my boyfriend's apartment in San Francisco...and there are at least two I always see that have the same commute home from work as me from Fremont to Berkeley...which was all the more maddening to constantly see when my car broke down during finals week in December (my order's been in since October). I have yet to see a red one though (which is what I ordered).

Waiting for a call from my dealer this afternoon. They heard last week there is another allocation coming up soon...and I was #2 for a red BC and #7 for any BC before their last allocation. So maybe, just maybe, I will have my new car in time to drive it to Tahoe the first week of March?

I can't wait to start talking about the car's features rather than how long I've been on the list!

 

as an ex-marketing guy, let me say that i feel for the toyota guys as much as i feel my own frustration in not getting delivery!

do you ramp production on a line that may not be able to handle it and still maintain quality? very hard.
do you add another production line to meet demand? sure, but for a conservative company like toyota, you don't run out and do that, and even if the forecasts are rosy, you can't just start up another line or factory overnight.
do you cut all ads and lose market visibility and future demand to competitors coming out with hybrids? bad idea.
do you advertise a lot and create un-fulfillable demand? VERY bad idea.

what none of us seems to know, and maybe the alluded-to letter from toyota might address, is the REAL "why" behind the lack of production.

i'd bet they just didn't realize how much demand they'd have, priced the car too low for the demand, and never created a production facility that could expand to meet the unexpected demand.

if i wuz them, i'd be building SEVERAL hybrid-only plants in the U S of A, as fast as my furry little feet could run!


still waiting on my Salsa Red '04 #9.........
cheers to all!

 

yeah, me, too! back in november/december, i told my wife i wanted to buy a Prius. she agreed, if it amounted to as little out-of-pocket cash as possible. i shopped, test-drove and decided. yes, i'd sell my '97 Taurus and '69 Corvette, and plus [hopefully] not too much more, pay off the Prius on delivery.
well, ads for the two cars got NO bites or nibbles through the holiday season. but just after new year's a flood of interested buyers showed up, and both cars sold in january. now, cash in bank account, i trucked [Camry'd, actually] down to the dealer with my wife and put down my deposit.

and now we sits and waits, sharing one car where we once had three, and maybe this way the rest of the year.......
<snif>

 

Why pay 1000 over MSRP when you can look on Autotrader to find a car near you and pay the MSRP. There is 148 of cars just sitting on lots waiting to be claimed.

 

Toyota has not taken over handling orders.
Toyota does not have printouts of names and numbers or even what customers order.

I have been asked once a month by my rep how many people I still had in my line for cars. I tell her.

I still only can earn around 3-3.5% of any given allocation of cars in SoCal but I am trying like crazy to up that with fast travel rate and continual influx and outgo of cars to make that 4% by the summertime. That still means that if SoCal gets 400 cars in 1 month, at 3% I only get 12-13... and hopefully someday, 16!

This from a region who continues to send 1000-1200 Camrys *twice* a month, yet cannot meet the demand for the Prius. Gang, this has to be about money and parts / profitability. It has to be. They raised the production from 20K in 2003 to what they thought was a terrific amount of 2004 - 36K! Now, it's reported to be 47K cars... across country, with 4000 dealerships, that's barely 100 on average per dealer per year, and less than 10 a month when calculated evenly. This is about the supply of the parts and the cost of the parts to make immediate changes. It has to be! If they have to pay more for the NiMH batteries on the fly for extras, would you like to see the pricing for all Prius rise significantly? If you were not in a hurry and content to wait, but the squeaky wheels caused Toyota to mid-year price increase by $1000 or more, how would you feel then? Toyota is simply damned if they do and damned if they do not. They obviously have a clear choice and they took it -- make as many as possible without raising the price, and if the public outcry gets too bad, then they WILL do what they have to do.

Many are hunkering down and moving to the Highlander hybrid waiting lists with this long wait. If that was not part of Toyota's plan, then it ought to be looked at as a possible one now. Anyone ordering thru me now is being told about the 2005 HL hybrid coming NEXT year at this time.

Anyway, as I stated earlier, no one in my region - the largest one in the entire country for volume, is taking info from me. They are just sending me cars that have the packages available in my region (3, 6, 8, and 9 as of today) and I hope for the best on color.

Dianne