New Prius v Sales Already Clobbered Volt

it was kind of obvious it would. btw the prius v sales in all of 2011 were about the same as the sales of f series pickup trucks in the last 4 days of the year. Nothing suprising there either. Does this mean if the prius v was bigger and more powerful it would have sold more? Seems like a faulty line of reasoning here and at insideline.

 

I've never seen a Volt. In the last month I've spotted a half dozen different V's in the wild. They're coming out of the woodwork here.

 

I don't find this surprising. The V is a competitive car based on its features and cost, the Volt isn't; only those looking to use cutting edge technology/in love with electric will buy a Volt. It, like the Leaf, is a very tiny niche product that never had a hope at its price range of catering to the masses and that will absolutely not change unless they can pull at least $8k off the price.

The V really is not a competitor to the Volt, though. I imagine the Volt has outsold a particular line of Rolls Royce, for example.

 

The Prius V, and its brethren, will outsell the volt. As AustinGreen point ed the Ford F series or Chevy Silverado will outsell the Prius. Does not make the trucks better as a car. The Prius family did not even make the top 20 cars sold and are #3 in the Toyota lineup. Guess that makes Prius a Failure even for Toyota?


New technology, especially at a high price, takes a while to catch on.
In comparison here are the hybrids that the Leaf/Volt outsold in 2011, despite not being on sale in limited regions and a slow roll out. So yes the may not have displaced the market leader.. but then its a new car in a niche market and Both Leaf and Volt already doing better than many established models -- overall. The Leaf was the #9 most sold Hyrbid/EV, the Volt #11.

Here are the cars the number sold for the Leaf and below.

2011 Hybrid/EV sales
# Name
9674 Nissan LEAF #9
9241 Toyota Camry Hybrid #10
7671 Chevrolet Volt #11
5739 Linc. MKZ #12
4549 Toy. Highlander
3236 Altima
2864 Lexus HS 250h
1571 Porsche Caynne

1001 Chevy Silverado
819 Cad. Escalade
598 GMC Yukon
519 Chevy Tahoe
390 VW Touareg Hybrid
388 Smart ED EV
378 Infiniti M35h
338 BMW Hybrid
309 Mercedes S400HV
484 Mazda Tribute
282 Lexus GS450h
164 GMC Sierra
123 Buick Regal
84 Lexus LS600hL
80 Mitsubishi i MEV
52 Porsche Panamera S
43 BMW X6 3
24 Chevy Malibu Hybrid

Data from http://www.hybridcars.com/news/december-2011-dashboard-sales-still-climbing-35093.html

 

Volt is an failure by any criteria.

 

My bad on the Lexus RX, thanks for correcting me.. (I'll go back to edit and add it. It was not intentional, I probably lost it in sorting/editing the data. )

Yes the Malibu was killed as of the 2010 model year. (http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/gm-drops-the-2010-chevy-malibu-hybrid/) But once a car is declared on death row, the Carcases take a while to sell so they still has some in 2011.

 

Hill, the RX came out with 10,723 sales ahead of the leaf, so it should not be on the list. With the end of the escape hybrid, the RX should be the best selling hybrid SUV by far in 2012. I do expect the volt, leaf and prius phv to outsell the RX hybrid this year.

 

Wow - hate much?

And was there really a need to quote a large post just to subtract 2 cents from the discussion?

Like others, I don't see that there is any reason to compare the P-v and the Volt. The only Toyota that can be compared to the Volt is the PiP. Seems that GM has over a year's head-start on sales - will Toyota catch up before GM updates the Volt to address it's current shortcomings?

 

Austin is correct, the 10723 is yearly sales for the RX400 and 450h combined. I just presumed I had made an error. Now I see that the 1233that Hill saw was just the december sales. So I re-re-edited the post again to delete it.

Looking at just the December sales (the 2nd month when volts were available nation wide), it was the 4th highest selling hybrid/Ev, combing in behind the Prius Family, Lexus CT200h, Hyndai Sonata and Toyota Camery hybrid. And inhead of the RX400/450h

 

Unfortunately... I would still stick with my current choice on the Prius v. I took a look at some of the volt stuff, and same with my problem with the Prius plug-in at the moment, while ideally it would be nice, at the same time, not many options for plugin in the current area I am in. Although having a better battery pack and a less governed electric motor would be nice.

Perhaps the opportunity to conversion will present itself in the next couple of years for existing hybrids that could support a battery pack change and a governor change... That would be the minimalistic hardware change I can think of, unless the battery pack is in a very difficult spot to require a full on tear out.

 

Catching up to what? by putting a bigger battery in a plug-in car?
Catching up to an EV not even clean enough for HOV lanes?

https://www.dot.ny.gov/programs/clean-pass

 

Catching up in sales, its pretty simple.

The volts currently being made qualify for HOV access the same as the prius.

 

yes

 

It qualifies for HOV access in CA.. Sergiospl was talking about NY HOV.

 

It is as if you did not read the post or look at the link.

 

Read your post, not the link. You made it sound as if it was emissions, which are currently to NY standards in production not delivery, SULEV. Read the regs, and it appears that NYS gives no credit for electric miles and is behind the times, so it will continue to not get a clean sticker because it does not get 45mpg in CS. NY needs to look at their regulations, and figure out what they should be. They appeared to remove vehicles because epa changed mpg tests.

So yes I was wrong, NY will continue to not include the volt because it does not achieve 45mpg in CS mode.

 

For California, I found it here:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm#vehicles

The Volt qualifies for HOV, but must fall under specific VIN types as stated here:

The Prius are no longer viable for the HOV with the exception of the Prius Plug-in for California. The Yellow sticker is no longer considered 'viable' and the Toyota Prius cars with the exception of the Plug-in are Yellow only. Green/White seems to focus on Fuel Cell or Electric.

 

if having sales between 2x and 3x lower of publicized goals, despite big federal tax breaks, is "catching up", then awesome, GM is on the roll.

:cheer2: