Prius Sales Up 20.7% in November

This is yr to yr increase. Actual 10 Prius sale is down from October.

 

when did C4C end?? cause if it covered any of October, a decline from that month to this one would mean nothing

 

C4C ended late Aug, as I recall.

 

looks like it ended in Aug?? ...

http://www.cars.gov/

says program was extended to end Nov 1 or "when money runs out"

but also says program ran fewer than 30 days. so ended last aug sometimes

 

Considering gas is cheaper and its been stable, Prius sales are amazing. It is becoming a true family car alternative. I threw the Prius in my sales list below and it does quite well. Mind you while its small in size, the price is more expensive than most of these vehicles.


Mainstream Family
Camry- 27,385
Accord-17,239
Altima-15,490
Fusion-13,774
Malibu-11,113
Sonata-8,178
Jetta-7,957
G6-5,852
Avenger-3,571
Sebring- 3,044
Mazda6-2,297
Optima-1,644

Small Family
Corolla-21,899
Civic-13,652
Focus- 10,196
Prius-9,607
Elantra-6,127
Mazda3-5,923
Sentra-5,210
Cobalt-5,112
Forte-4,044
Impreza- 2,555

Subcompacts
Versa-5,554
Accent-3,831
Fit-3,570
Yaris- 3,557
Rio-3,496
Soul-2,505
Aveo-2,212
Cube-1,565
xB-1,392
SX4-1087
xD-822

 

Amazingly the Lexus HS outsold the much cheaper Insight.

Prius-9,607
HS 250h-1,407
Insight-1,403
450h-1,210
Civic hybrid-243
Ford hybrid models include the Ford Fusion, Ford Escape, Mercury Milan and Mercury Mariner. Sales of Ford hybrid vehicles totaled 2,361

 

Year to year changes are the industry standard for tracking auto sales changes. Month to month IMHO is meaningless as there's a lot of variation month to month for the industry as a whole and I believe it always follows a specific pattern.

 

What happened to Civic hybrid? Are they going to kill it?

 

I received my verification on August 19 and remember that the government ran out of money and announced the end of the program the next week.

 

Probably - Insight sales have completely cannibalized HCH sales.

Honda needs to either make it cheaper, or ditch it. They also should produce a real Accord Hybrid to complete with the Camry/Fusion Hybrids - but I wouldn't be surprised to see another lightweight hybrid (like the rumored CRZ) first since the IMA is better suited to lighter vehicles given it's electrical torque/hp limits.

 

This is actually huge news, because Nov.2008 was right after the fuel crisis.

The Insight outsold the Civic hybrid? Wow. Here in Southern California, we see significantly more Civic hybrids than Insights. I guess the rest of the world likes the Insight better. Interesting. I would have never guess, but hey statistics is statistics.

I sure hope Honda doesn't kill the Civic hybrid. They need it. Half of all hybrids I see on the road are dedicated hybrid models and half are models shared with traditional engines. It is obvious that half of society wants a hybrid but doesn't want "a spaceship looking thing."

 

That didn't go as planned. Honda now has to make a hard decision. They can't drop the price of the Insight because that will make the Civic hybrid even less attractive.

They need to drop the price of both....

 

You are comparing 6 years of HCH sales to about 9 months of Insight sales.

There's going to be a LOT more Civics on the road than Insights.

The Insight has been outselling the HCH by a large margin ever since it was introduced.

 

I think the 9,609 Prius number is too small than their target.

Toyota's initial target was 20k/month in NA, 10k in EU and 10k in JP.
However, there is a huge demand in Japan, still 6 months wait, then they increased the production to 50k/month and are delivering more than 25k/month for JP.

The 1,403 Insight number is also too small.

Honda's initial target was 8k+/month in NA, 2k+ in EU and 5k in JP.
Only in JP, they exceeds the target delivering 8k/month.

The best Prius selling was 24k in May 2007 when gasoline price was $4/gallon.
Is the gasoline price is still cheap in the US?

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~US$2.49 for 87 octane gasoline (regular grade) in southern Arizona.

Went to one of the local Toyota dealers in Tucson (Precision Toyota) today to buy a 12V battery for my HiHy. I saw around a dozen 2010 Prius on the lot and their website says they have 21 in inventory.

 

I agree even though being up 20.7% sounds better than October 2009 up by 14.3%. I had considered year ago, late 2008 sales to be 'inventory clearance' combined with the first hits of the economic slow-down that started in September 2008. It fully hit home in October and November 2008 (where did that year go?)

The outstanding question is how much inventory is on the lot. In one respect, the sample could be "delivery" and it may be that tracking ship arrivals, we could come up with a 'days since ship came in.' But it might be easier to sample 10-15 online Toyota dealerships and sample their 'inventory'.

My take is:

• Congratulations Japan - your growing population of Prius and other fuel efficient vehicles will serve well when fuel prices go up again.
• Uh Oh, USA - part of sales is available inventory but it doesn't make sense to park inventory, unsold, in dealer lots.
• 15k EU and Pacific (?) - these other non-Japanese markets should start looking a lot like markets of equal size to the USA.

Traditionally, fuel costs start back up in December in the USA. Starting from $2.50/gal does not bode well for prices in the Spring.

Bob Wilson

 

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5	Column 6	Column 7	Column 8	Column 9	Column 10	Column 11	Column 12	Column 13	Column 14	Column 15
0	Automaker	Nov. 2009	Nov. 2008	Pct. chng.	11 month 2009	11 month 2008	Pct. Chng	YTD status	Nov trend
1	TOTAL	747	086	747	051	0%	9	401	432	12	350	612	-24%	avg	avg
2	General Motors****	150	676	153	404	-2%	1	864	211	2	734	789	-32%	bad	bad
3	Toyota‡‡	133	700	130	307	3%	1	582	287	2	075	711	-24%	avg	GOOD
4	Ford Motor Co.***	122	846	122	723	0%	1	493	533	1	863	954	-20%	GOOD	avg
5	Chrysler Group LLC	63	560	85	260	-25%	844	879	1	363	309	-38%	bad	bad
6	Honda (American)â€	74	003	76	233	-3%	1	043	641	1	342	680	-22%	GOOD	bad
7	Nissan‡	56	288	46	605	21%	696	699	889	249	-22%	GOOD	GOOD
8	Hyundai Group†â€	46	002	34	403	34%	680	282	636	458	7%	GOOD	GOOD
9	VW‡‡‡	23	191	21	290	9%	267	955	288	139	-7%	GOOD	GOOD
10	BMW Group*	18	302	19	799	-8%	218	440	281	971	-23%	avg	bad
11	Mazda	14	255	14	134	1%	189	512	245	984	-23%	avg	GOOD
12	Daimler AG**	17	461	16	009	9%	184	299	228	885	-19%	GOOD	GOOD
13	Subaru	16	988	13	706	24%	193	578	170	412	14%	GOOD	GOOD
14	Mitsubishi	2	925	5	096	-43%	49	631	92	687	-46%	bad	bad
15	Suzuki	1	540	3	216	-52%	36	810	81	215	-55%	bad	bad
16	Porsche	1	626	1	378	18%	17	585	23	881	-26%	bad	GOOD
17	Jaguar Land Rover††â€	3	319	2	755	20%	33	420	19	597	71%	GOOD	GOOD
18	Other (estimate)	304	444	-32%	3	347	4	877	-31%	bad	bad
19	Isuzu	–	130	-100%	165	4	570	-96%	bad	bad
20	Maserati	100	159	-37%	1	158	2	244	-48%	bad	bad

Source: http://www.autonews.com/article/20091201/RETAIL/311309908/1078/FRONTPAGE

I'd made a mistake in the first table but it looks OK now. Notables:

• Chrysler - what a fall, Honda has overtaken them
• Hyundai - exceptional performance, worth watching

Just looking at the businesses including those making hybrids. I was hoping hybrids would be Toyota's growth generator but it looks like is has been a shield to help bring along others.

Bob Wilson

 

Thank you!

FYI, following is the stat of sales ranking, sale number and Y2Y ratio in Japan.
(no Y2Y ratio for Insight-II because of new)

Insight-II went on sale in Feb. and 2010 Prius in May.
(Nov stat will be announced on Dec 4th)
(edit: Nov stat added on Dec 4th)

	month	Prius rank	Prius number	Y2Y ratio	Insight rank	Insight number
1	Feb	12th	4	524	77.8%	10th	4	906
2	Mar	13th	5	997	78.1%	21st	4	088
3	Apr	21st	1	952	35.8%	1st	10	481
4	May	1st	10	915	214.9%	3rd	8	859
5	Jun	1st	22	292	357.8%	4th	8	782
6	Jul	1st	27	712	392.6%	4th	10	210
7	Aug	1st	21	669	460.3%	4th	7	900
8	Sep	1st	31	758	441.5%	5th	10	289
9	Oct	1st	26	918	424.5%	9th	7	047
10	Nov	1st	26	815	428.7%	5th	9	413

Source: Japanese passenger vehicle sales ranking

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Minor note , Under Mazda year change you have it at 14% instead of -14%