Will $3.00 gas increase Prius sales?

+1. I too can be selfish and wish for higher gas prices because I can absorb it. How lovely it would be to see folks suffer because they can't drive their SUVs. But it also affects many other aspects of life: transport of foods and goods, inc cost of buses, air travel......etc.

 

Today in Portugal 1.45eur/litre, it is 5.49eur/USgallon.
Exchange rate 1.32dol/eur, gives as astounting 7.25dollars/Gal.

SUV sales are still doing fine here, but they are mainly diesel powered 6.1dol/Gal, and we don't see many hybrids on the road. Quite interesting, people still manage to afford expensive maintenance cars, and so much money on fuel. I call it non-sense overhelmed by status/looks.

 

the price of gas ALWAYS makes a difference. on the news last night, they are predicting $3.50 by spring. i dont know what i am going to do!!

probably just take my LEAF!@!!

 

No, I also agree with many posts here. $3.00 is the new norm and it will definitely go up. After that fiasco with before and the $4.50 I don't think that they will go up fast, but eventually will creep up until that becomes norm and then go up ect... I girlfriend paid $450 for gas last month for her ford escape. I drove twice as much and spent $125 last month. That is good enough reason for me to stick with the Prius.

 

Yes, more people will want a prius, but it will make the haters worse, because they will know they are wrong. Right before i got the prius i was paying $110 to fill up my vectra (like a malibu) and travel 400 miles....

 

Maybe it will increase sale in the US, but not in EU - today in Munich I saw the price was 1.49€/L (or 5.64€/gallon - apply your preferred € to $ x-rate and have fun; yes, 70-80% of that is tax and for a (good?) reason).

They are clearly speculating on it since the barrel price is still about 10$ lower (if I remember correctly what I read in an article a couple of days ago) than during the crisis, when it was 100+$. The current price has *nothing* to do with supply or anything like that - it is pure speculation and monopoly price setting - I see nothing else in it.

So...I don't see that many Priuses in EU already...yes - lots of diesels, lots of smaller cars, lots of people taking public transportation (when and if available), lots of people walking and taking the bike (when possible and especially in Germany and Netherlands). We also drive on average less than in the US - but it is also "your fault" of wanting always a nice house in the middle of suburbia instead of maybe living in a more practical and closer to office/shops apartment. (I know - I am oversimplifying!!! apologies)

So...3$/gallon and seeing americans (or better, those living in the US) getting all upset about it makes me laugh hard. BUT I do understand that cars are (*have been made*, would be more correct to say) a necessity and this can be a huge issue with low income families, unemployed people, etc.

Nevertheless if the average american continues to drive nonsense cars with 2.0L+ gas engines to drive 120km/h max on the highway and with bodies that are considered "space ships" compared to the rest of the world, where a Prius is considered a "small" or "compact" car (as I have read even here), there is not much to do... And you should start pretending of having shops closer to home you can walk to, and start living in apartment blocks close to shops and offices where you can walk/cycle to. A nice home with big garden and garage in the middle of suburbia with a shopping mall you cannot walk or cycle to, to even buy "a litre (sorry, a gallon ) of milk" is not really a sustainable living anymore if based on gas engine cars. Electricity might save it. But then we would need nuclear fusion to satisfy the needs, or a *lot* of renewables...

Get yourself a Prius, sure, a diesel where and if you can, or a smaller engine/sized car and tell your dealers that what they sell is bulky crap (and not just from US manufacturers - Toyota sells the Yaris in the US with a 1.5L engine that would find no customer in the EU - 1.5L on that small car!??! what for? is not even a "sports" car...max engine size in the EU is 1.3L with 101HP and 5,1L/100km-46MPG average; the US version has 106HP and consumes average 36MPG HWY - why are they not selling the 1.3L engine, not even as an option??!?!? who is Toyota US to decide if you want to consume less??? we even have a version with 1.0L with 60HP engine that many people buy - it has the same MPG but costs less, also in terms of taxes). BTW: I am already surprised that Toyota sells at all the Yaris in the US - it is a mid/small sized car here, but Toyota here sells also the iQ (really small...) and the Aygo (small - sure).

Sorry if I am a bit hard on this, but hearing that 3-4$/gallon is a lot is (almost) an offence to me and to all the people that manage every day life with 5-8$/gallon.

 

You make valid points, and I don't dispute them; my 'snips' are to save space only, not to take you out of context, so I apologize if it seems that I have done so.

I consider myself fortunate that I'm able to afford a Prius, live in a city where I can walk to a lot of things, take (admittedly lame-o) public transportation if necessary in some situations, and bike on occasion (despite the ire of drivers who do not think 'their' roads should be used for such a thing). I'd be among the first to get ecstatic if people in our country who had options, decided to drive smaller, more efficient vehicles, drove them less, etc.--but for a lot of reasons, there are some who have no choice.

In 2008 (when gas spiked to $4-$5/gal, which I know is still cheap compared to most of the rest of the world), the news was full of stories of poor people here who had jobs, but, living in rural or far-flung areas, depended on their (usually old, inefficient) private vehicles to get to them, and simply quit because their wages wouldn't pay for the commute alone, let alone feed them or their family.

I don't wish anyone ill; these people I mention above had (and still have) few, going on fewer, options. I wish our country, at least in urbanized areas, had better mass transit; I wish it was safer (from a crime as well as a traffic standpoint) to cycle more places more often. I wish we had a better 'safety net' for all. The unfortunate reality is, for lots of reasons, many Americans (USA'ns if you prefer) don't have these options or amenities. There are, unarguably, people who choose to own wasteful vehicles they don't need, but there are also a lot of folks who are stuck in a bad situation borne of decades of policy that might have seemed to make sense at the time. It is the latter group about whom I am most concerned.

 

(first post btw)

Everyone has a breaking point. For us, $3 gal. was the tipping point to trade in our beloved--but 16mpg average--V8 4Runner on our first ever Prius. The 0% financing was also a big incentive.

If gas prices continue to climb, good deals on hybrids will be few and far between and I'd rather be on the "right" side of things early then late.

The 4Runner was an extravagance we could afford at one time but now that I am trying to get my own business off the ground, the costs just weren't worth it any more. The gas savings alone each month will be huge for us as we drive 20k+ a year (semi-rural NH/VT, no public transpo)

 

You actually hit a point I did not think about - those who really feel the weight of a more expensive fuel, like as you mention those who live in rural areas, depend even more on the more expensive fuel. The "system" is so ill, that a raise of fuel price, still well below the limits of what the rest of the world is paying, no - let me correct, the EU is paying, will *deeply* affect their lives. To a point were relocating, for many a "tragic" event, could possibly be the only option in a not so far future.

The situation is so manipulated (by the car and gas lobbies that have transformed the US in a car dependent country and led people to believe that distance was just a matter of time and not of cost), that the raise of 1-2$ is, for outsiders almost "justice" paid to those who pay already huge amounts, while at the same time a *real* tragedy for those who are victim of a system that has led people to live a life completely dependent on their cars and the fuel the rely to function.

My comments were actually directed at those living in towns and their suburbs. One example - LA - urban sprawl at its best, IMHO - the population density is so low, considering the surface and everything is spread out, but at the same time so limited by growth (not a patch is free) and practically lacking any true form of usable public transportation, that even with 10 lane highways, you still have 24hrs traffic jams. On the complete other opposite (and I am not saying it is a better way to live) you have for example Tokyo, that is so dense and so pervasively served by (expensive) public transportation, that there is practically (considering the population and the size), no traffic at all. "Everybody" is on a train (and commute for hours each day). In Tokyo, therefore and change in fuel price will affect most not at all, or very lightly on a number of objects/food/services that rely on transport/production/energy. But it will not completely change their lives.

The US is victim in this respect, of its own size, of its sprawl, of its distances to the point that a change of 20-30% fuel price, but still well below EU average, means the end of a liveable life for those living in rural areas, as you mentioned, to the point to require them to abruptly change their life to something completely different, simply to go on. The prospect of this possibility, makes the question "will 3$ gas increase Prius sales?" mostly rethoric (not judging the OP - it is a legitimate question) and another question comes out instead "will 3$ gas or higher make people poor in the US?"

Enough of this, I don't want to pass as the know-it-all stuck-up EU guy that has a solution for everything and a comment always pointing to the fact that it is better in EU - we have a lot of things to fix here as well - a *lot* and we should learn a few things from other countries/continents as well. I have been lucky to travel a lot around the world and certain questions/comments strike in me a chord...

:focus:

Yes - 3$ gas will increase Prius sales most likely, for those who can afford to buy it and as long as more fuel efficient options are not being sold in the US from other manufacturers.

 

Well - this is why I said in my post above, the the 5€/gallon price we are paying today is pure speculation and a way for oil companies to compensate, likely, for lost income due to better cars out there. There is less and less correlation between oil price and fuel price at the pump, at least here in EU....

 

Thanks! Taking delivery tomorrow at 4pm. :thumb: Going to go get the Christmas tree in the 4runner beforehand.

 

Here in Beautiful sunny LA, I almost can't remember when gas was ever less than $3 a gallon. I've seen it over $3.50 several places, and the highest I've seen was up the coast for $3.75. You see lots of Prius every day here. You also see even more Stupid Utility Vehicles, and monster trucks. Go Figure. I think gas will have to go WAY over $3 for people to think about driving something more sensible.

 

Look at the price of Diesel its 30 cents a gallon more than regular gas.

Here in N/W Oregon gas is running at about $3.079 / gallon and diesel is about 3.399 / gallon.

I do not wish to see the price of gasoline rise. It only give
are enemies more money to harm us.

Let the free market determine the price of fuel. I have been
hearing for years of "Green Fuel", show me where I can buy
a gallon.

Lets face it Petroleum is here for a few more years, no getting
around it, no matter how much of "OUR" money our government pours into green fuels.

alfon

 

Yeah, no reason to wish high gas prices, no one wins if that happens including the Prius owners.

My other car is a big, lifted, Land Cruiser that I use mostly offroad. It's my toy, my automotive hobby. It only does a few thousand miles a year.

My Prius will offset, both in my mind and in my wallet, my offroad toy.

 

$3.00 gas (or rather $3.20 around here) may not get people to buy Prius cars. But, not buying Prius cars, gas will climb to $4.00+ in the one of the upcomming summers. And that will motivate people out of buying a SUV for day-in-day-out commuting, and getting a Prius.

 

Why is that??? Just put the back seats down in the brand new Prius and it will fit fine.

It is amazing what a Prius will haul. I've even carried 10ft conduit without any problem. Just don't overdo things like these (non-Prius) people did: Do It Yourself (DIY) Humor - Vastly Overloaded Car - Idiot Driver.

 

The deep hatchback of the Prius is what tipped the scales in it's favor over the sedans we were looking at. Though it's not a "real wagon" it will make hauling stuff around a bit easier. With the seats flipped down it will give the dogs some room to stretch out.

 

we can go on and on about how unfair it is that gas is getting expensive for people who cant afford to buy a Prius, but while we are at it, lets complain about the fact that unless you have computer skills, you cant get a job, or unless you have a college education its much harder to get a good paying job, or unless you were born to very wealthy parents you can no longer afford to even go to college... the list goes on and on.

or lets complain about the fact that we have so much entertainment options available to us that we no longer have sufficient free time to enjoy them all...i mean, TV, internet, game consoles....what do i do!!


lets face it. back in the old days when 20 foot cars were "mid sized" we all only had one car because the garage wasnt big enough to fit 2 cars!. but then again, housing went up, and we could no longer afford the "american dream" on one salary so the wifie had to go to work. well she got tired of the bus FAST and so we had to downsize the cars so both could fit in the garage then china bombarded us with dirt cheap products which made us think we deserved it so we bought it and the house got too small again so we moved to something bigger because we thought we needed it not realizing that it was no longer a house but a storage unit that we happened to live in and the garage was soon the "unheated" storage so now the cars sit in the drive way but still had to be smaller so both could get in and out around the the older car that the son now drives because he also did not do the bus and we as americans were too entitled to use public transportation which got a bad name due to advertising by the big 3 pushing cars who were pushed by the big 7 (which now merged into the big 3 oil) to drive as much as we wanted because of the friendly service station attendant now on every corner of milddle america while at the same time middle american jobs were now in middle asia and....