prius phv world wide sales

I think only people on prius chat have asked for a volt with a smaller battery. In the polls people have requested more range.

The other cars will use the voltec drive train but won't be volts. That is where they will offer a plug-in with a 5th seat. Why give details about price or range, when it may reduce current volt sales. They also have a longer range bev in the works.

With falling gas prices gm sees the cruze, sonic, and spark are their inexpensive gas only cars. Yes if you really want a hybrid without a plug you should not look at gm, not that anyone was looking at gm fo hybrids anyway.

The gm messaging today is nothing like you are pretending it to be.

Wagoner did admit that he should have invested more in hybrids a decade ago, but now it really is too late for gm to grab a slice of the hybrid maket, why not concentrate on plug-ins (phevs and bevs). Lutz bashed hybrids when they first came out, much like toyota seems to be bashing plug-ins. Its a shame. I hope toyota comes out with a great next gen phv, but they may be heading in gm's old bashing direction. It would be great if on the next anoucement of how great the fcv is, toytoa would anounce it was rolling out the phv to other states, and it supports plug-ins and will have a bigger battery in the next one. Instead I expect the same old stuff, "no one is asking us for electric cars" and the promise that they will ignore any requests as we don't know who to ask.

 

cool so there are a few ways to skin this cat. We can think sales would be 66% higher like prius if they rolled it out, or realize plug-ins are more geographically constrained. You probably only need to roll out to 5 more states, if they are the right states to increse sales about 40%. Or you could realize canceling roll out may decrease sales even in carb states because it shows a lack of commitment of toyota to the car.

You mean we are imagining that toyota canceled the nation wide roll out of the prius phv. We are imagining that toyota said ...
Toyota: 'No One Wants Us To Build Electric Cars'

back in 2012 while trying to not sell its own rav4 ev at least there was mention of the phv.
Who Killed The Electric Car? Toyota Now Tries For That Role - Forbes

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303918804579107213728805086

Please note he said toyota is commited to fuel cells becuase they think there is a market. They are doing hv (not phevs). They aren't doing bevs, but though omission and tone it sounds like they don't support phevs either, this is clear from other toyota communication. This is a change in 2013 versus 2012. It would have been so simple for him to have added the prius phv to the discussion but it seems like that is not really any commitment to phev in the plans unlike the fuel cell. When the statement came out last year, people thought it meant that toytoa would kill the rav4 ev program at end of the mandatory contract, even if it was sucessful and would not support the phv. Well Rav4 ev is now killed, and I don't see much support in pr or rollout for the phev.

 

Well you see i included that quote from 2012. And you are right pushing low ev miles does not work.

Higher percentage of electric miles seems to be importnnat for the initial adopters of the technology as does price. That means toyota's hippy dippy marketing simply is not effective, not that the car is bad. Definitely deciding not not roll it out to other states hurts sales, it doesn't help them, and I doubt it helps overall prius profitability.

Toyota was in the room when the tax incentives were written. It could have put a bigger battery in there. Instead it tryed a nuanced advertising approach that adopters want small batteries because they will use less of them. Well it simply has not been effective and whining over past choices just seems counter productive. They can sell the stuff they have, or do a redesign. They have chosen to delay the redesign, so hey I threw up the numbers that say they should sell the stuff they have. What $4000 incentive in california, $5000 incentive in texas (if they would sell it) seems like a huge amount for a puny 4.4kwh battery. How can they not make money on those numbers?

So why don't you think it will sell in other states if toyota actually tries to get their marketing right? I don't really want to hear how great the upcoming fcv will be in texas, when I know they will never sell them here, and them using it as an excuse not to sell plug-ins here, even though people are asking for and driving them. That makes no sense.

I think if they don't increase the battery size in the next generation they will have definitely be a failure. Battery costs are down. If they want to compete they need more miles that are at least mainly battery. In the mean time I am disapointed that they choose to put out PR against plug-ins instead of selling the one they have.

 

I don't know about that. I think when we have sold 1 million plug-ins the incentives will be left to expire. That means tesla, gm, and nissan are likely to get the full 200,000 with toyota fighting with ford, bmw, and everyone else for the rest of them money.

The deception of toyota's marketing is that they on one hand complain that tesla S, leaf, and volt get high incentives, while on the other hand saying the higher incentives the fuel cell vehicles par car are getting need to be higher. It is the same as koch brother's complaining about plug-in incentivs while at the same time lobbying heavily for oil subsidies. You know fcv can't stand on their own for at least 20 years if ever, and toyota may be continuing to not sell the fuel cells natural enemy a big batteried phev to try and keep the goernment money flowing.

Who in the hell will buy a 4.4kwh phev in 2018? That is my question to you. We have the polls of plug-in drivers for who wants more range when they opt for a plug in. Who do you think this market is saying we want to keep the battery small? Those that want a small battery won't buy a plug-in at all at that date.

This is really getting old. Toyota marketing have already said customers want a bigger battery. Uchiyamada already said customers are confused by small battery marketing. I am vague because toyota is vague at how much they may increase it. I would say it needs to be at least 6kwh to sell a plug-in instead of a liftback unsubsidized. Poor sales in Japan show that sizing it to a hypothetical japanese comute didn't work out well. American sales are much more on track.

With the subsidies though toyota could sell a great deal more prius phv's if they wanted to sell more. R&D costs are already spent and the car has to be profitable on a variable cost basis in the US. Why not roll it out to at least 5 more states and increase the sales? That may help them more easily sell the next generation when it comes out in a little more than 2 years.

 

I can see why you wouldn't care about rolling it out to montana, but why not let dealers say in austin sell it with a big incentive($2500 state + $2500 federal + $30/6 months public charging), and a study of chargin habits? Florida and Illonois also have good markets.

Toyota is not forced to offer a lower waranty in these states but they are allowed to do it. Lower waranty cost should mean more profit for toyota shouldn't it?

 

well many states do have buyers incentives including mine. Toyota dealers passed legislation here to block tesla from getting state incentives, but got $2500 on a prius phv if they could sell them. I hear from the dealers they want to sell them, but corporate doesn't want them too, or maybe corporate just wants tesla's sales to be lower. idk.

commenters want to handicap toyota's sales because they haven't rolled it out as promised. Well I agree that sales would be higher if they rolled it out, but you can't use it as an excuse, because its toyota's choice. Certainly many of us would like higher prius phv sales.

You can't claim toyota built the car for the mass market, then make sure it doesn't get sold to the mass market. It just makes no sense. Bisco I know you haven't made the claims but others here have. I would think they would be with me telling toyota to make the car more available and to stop bashing plug-ins.