San Jose Mercury News - small blurb about 2003 auto sales

The wait time for the Prius, I suspect, is the reason the number of new orders is dropping off. It takes a lot of 'want' to be willing to put a deposit down for a car that won't arrive 'til half a year later.

Also, it would seem that once availability of the Prius can match demand, Toyota might even start advertising this car again.

 

Looking at the numbers (below), I'm not at all convinced Toyota (U.S.) could actually give a good freakin' hoot how many of these things they're actually selling as they appear to be doing quite well overall. I mean, their domestic truck sales number for February is close to the number of 2004 Prius they're going to sell for the 2004 model year!

.............................Feb 2004........Feb 2003......% Change
All Vehicles............146,783.........124,683..........17.7%
Domestic Car..........52,234...........46,427..........12.5%
Domestic Truck.......41,552...........27,227..........52.6%
Import Car.............23,635...........22,938............3.0%
Import Truck..........29,362...........28,091.................%

 

"Sales of hybrid cars fell in California, despite the arrival of a new model from Toyota. That company's Prius grew from a compact to a mid-size sedan for its 2004 model-year changeover, but sales fell 9 percent to 5,919."

If I had to guess, I'd say that the earlier Priuses were much more heavily marketed in California than nationally, because of the emissions requirements.

With the 2004 Prius, Toyota went national, so they allocated fewer overall cars to California. Given that they're selling them faster than they're making them, it's almost impossible to estimate whether or not demand is really "down" in a particular region...

I'll just make these numbers up to illustrate:

2003: ..... CA: 6500 sold ..... Rest of country: 6500 sold
2004: ..... CA: 5900 sold ..... Rest of country: 30000 sold