Production has already restarted, that's why i know the local shortage will last about three weeks, plus the time to meet any left over demand from that 3 week period. Have you been to Japan yourself to check? If not, i assume you're wathcing stories on mainstream media. These don't truly reflect what's going on on the ground.
Thanks for chatting with me, Flan.. I guess we'll see over the next month or so who was / is right... I stand by my prediction...
Fair enough. My company sits on the end of long electronics supply chain so i am basing my expectations on that. In all honesty a shortage of cars will help their public image, and will probably generate a lot of press and sales.
On this, we can both agree BTW my local dealer is now down to just 4 units of Prius.. from about 15 a few weeks ago...
On the flip side, Toyota's March sales dropped by half in Japan so inventory's higher than normal there.
From CNN.com- Parts shortages, power outages and plunging demand have prompted Toyota to shut down, at least temporarily, 16 of its 18 factories. I stand by my prediction....
In Japan, dealers do not have inventory. They do BTO type system, therefore they make Prius for an individual user. Ken@Japan
The whole "inventory" thing is weird, i don't understand it at all. Seems like a good way to screw over consumers for no reason. When i bought a brand new car i ordered what i wanted, and six weeks later it arrived. No one test-drove it, it didn't sit "on the lot" for months and i got the exact spec i wanted.
I might have to upgrade (sidegrade) to one of these. I found out GA power has 1.2c kwh rates from 11pm to 7am for electric car owners. This makes the car very cost effective at 3.6c per 13 miles. I work 9 miles from home so I could go 1 way on 3.6c and the remaining 5 on gas. So in 10 days I would use 1 gallon of 3.50 gas and 36 cents of electricity. Every 2 weeks work would cost me 3.86 at the current rates.
I can relate to this post totally. Toward the end of next year I will be working about 4 miles away.. so it is entirely possible I may be able to go for a very long time on EV mode exclusively!!! So if my transportation can cost me cents instead of dollars... I'm IN