Well, it's been a week since Pre-Order began

I bought mine on Tuesday. Order number was 2700 ish.

 

^^^ That's what I did. Saved $500 and worked with a far more professional dealer.

 

It's easy to imagine people uncomfortable signing up online for a long delivery wait and it's quite normal for them to want to information from actual owners first.

What's a reasonable expectation?

I'm expecting steady delivery & sales starting in the spring... without any particular tie to the order process itself. The 16k to 17k planned for this market should be easy enough to see taking shape a few months after we've been driving them.
.

 

And once people figure out that they REALLy will get a carpool sticker in California (once the Feds approve it), I see them flying out the doors here.....

Compared to other EV's the price is cheaper (see spreadsheet by EVnow at
http://priuschat.com/forums/toyota-prius-plug-in/100051-all-evs-phevs-specs-dimensions-compared.html
) and you get a lot more car from a more dependable company (than bankruptcy Chevy...)....

 

Well, how fast the first 5K get sold only shows the interest among the earliest adopters. That doesn't make or break a product.

The whole idea behind PIP is to make an incremental improvement over Prius - rather than a radical departure (like Volt & Leaf). So I guess it will get bought when they show up at the dealer lots.

 

Offering the plug as a package option is brilliant. People will indeed jump on the opportunity when it's just a matter of picking it from current inventory.

And of course, that's where the test-drive experience becomes such a big deal. Hopefully, dealer's will attempt to keep the pack topped off.
.

 

I ordered one - than canceled the order. I did not realize you could not pick out the interior colors. Also wanted the advanced model and at 40K YOU BET I want to choose colors.
Also started thinking about what the Volt and Leaf offered. Than wondered where would be the best place to spend my 40K.
Sill thinking about this - will be test driving a Volt this coming week and than on to a Leaf Test Drive.

 

i don't think it will be an easy choice for most people as the offerings continue to increase.

 

Volt and Leaf won't work in my situation with a 30 mile commute in both directions, In the "worst case" scenarios - heat, traffic, highway speeds of 65-75mph, ect. neither car would get me all the way home. The Volt gets worse ICE mileage than the Prius, and the Leaf has no ICE.

With the PiP, I'll continue to get fuel economy that's similar to my current mileage (about 48.4mpg) and the option on weekends to fly around in golf cart mode.

The only drawback to the Prius is that it's still a wimpymobile when it comes to perception. But in most urban traffic situations these days, most performance dreams come to a screeching halt when the average speed on freeways around here is 25-35 mph.

I'm not spending any more on gasoline than I did 20 years ago, even though the price per gallon has tripled during that time. AND I actually use less gasoline than I ever did before.

I could be forced to drive another car if I can get my current Prius sold over the next few months.

 

Leaf will do 60 miles without problems in CA. There are a lot of people doing longer commutes in Leaf now.

It may have a problem @ 75 mph in Chicago winter, though.

 

The obvious thing to suggest would be that outside of California, where the HOV lane sticker is king, neither existing Prius owners nor non-Prius owners will be rushing to get one.

That doesn't mean it'll fail to sell, just that it's not going cause an Appletard rush.

 

Over $100 Million in pre-sales is hardly a "flop." You won't see Apple Computer log $100 Million in pre-orders for an unseen product six months in advance.

 

Looking at the data, I am a bit disappointed. Toyota has not actually sold 3000 units so far. It has 3000 people who have registered... some proportion will never complete the transaction (either to the confirmation level or even at the time of taking delivery).

The pre-order window closes on December 15th. My projections show that by then we will have slightly less than 5000 registrants; and I am going to guess that will result in 3000 to 4000 units being sold from the pre-order initiative.

 

And then there is the competition - Toyota doesn't have the first mover advantage here. Also as everyone noted - the price was on the higher side.

I think a plugin Prius v will sell a lot better. A lot of us want a BEV + a larger PHEV. Unfortunately the only such announced vehicle is Ford Energi.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking. I honestly think that if I can get 5 people together in my area, Sacramento, I can probably negotiate the price down to close to invoice. Now that the supposed hype died down and we know there are plenty of preorder cars to go around.

 

How much time do you that would push back your delivery (if, say you moved from #200 to #3000)?

 

Comparing a consumer electronic device to a car is a bit unfair. The car has a far longer development cycle & generally is not mired in huge amounts of secrecy. When Apple announces a product, it is typically available for purchase within a month or less.

Now, $100 million in pre-orders for a car that won't be delivered for 4 or 5 months isn't bad. On the other hand, it's only 2700 or so units. Not a huge amount of volume in the car business.