New Prius v Sales Already Clobbered Volt

I had hoped perhaps the niche of CA HOV buyers would keep the Volt afloat, but if they shut down until the pre-AT-PZEV (or is it pre-SULEV) units are sold to someone not owning a Chevy dealership, they are missing the boat. Why not retrofit those and grab the sticker sales?

There is too much good about the Volt to celebrate its struggles, even though its price and EV range are more than I want.

 

Interesting comment from the Blind Spot article:

@Luke: ‘The regular Prius has been making money for Toyota, without subsidies, for several years now. â€

That may have been true during the good old days when the dollar bought 100 or so yen. Not anymore and def. not in the last 3 years.

“Toyota, along with all other Japanese car makers have taken a serious beating from the unusually strong yen, a problem that has been dragging on for a good part of this year already. In August, Toyota even had to revise its FY2012 financial earnings forecast made in June, when the Yen continued to drop further. Toyota Motor Co.’s Chief Financial Officer Satoshi Ozawa have mentioned before that the break even point for Toyota is 85 Japanese yen to 1 US Dollar. Today, the rate stands at 78 Japanese Yen to 1 US Dollar.â€

http://moneymorning.com/2011/06/22/...-nyse-tm-wont-be-back-on-track-any-time-soon/

Toyota has consistently lost money for the last three years in domestic operations which include domestic sales and exports. Now, Toyota wouldn’t specifically say if the Prius is profitable. For anyone not math challenged… They lose money on exports as a whole and more than 70% of all exports from Japan to US are the Prii.

 

Definitely true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/business/global/toyota-cuts-annual-profit-forecast.html

For comparison Ford made $6.2B in profit last year on much lower sales. People were disappointed that ford did not make more.

The Japanese government is putting out huge incentives to sell cars in Japan this year. That should reverse Toyota's domestic losses, and likely turn them to profits this year. They are also trying to manufacture more cars outside of high cost Japan.

I don't know if Prius makes or loses money right now, the cost increase was definitely necessary. Japanese companies will often take losses on currency to not lose market share. IF they were building them in America they would definitely be highly profitable like the Camry.

 

They are manufacturing until 3/19 and have been making the SULEV almost a month now. It is probably less expensive to discount than to retrofit the cars already manufactured.

 

aside from high yen, reason Toyota and Honda are not making more money is Tsunami and Thai floods in 2011. They will make few pennies more in 2012 so it seems .

 

That was included in the article. Honda seems hurt the most from the combination of high yet and natural disasters, nissan not nearly as much. 2012 should be a much better year for domestic japanese production because of the incentives. Europe looks to be this years weak spot with everyone but the Germans losing money from high costs. Those have at least been the forecast warnings.

 

i was replying to your own comment, where you suggested that Toyota is not as profitable as Ford, maybe because of Prius. Article doesnt mention profits at Ford at all.

In reality, while Toyota does have large Japanese production, they also have large worldwide production. They also hold >40% of Japanese market share, hence the production in Japan being so large.

For instance, Nissan that has low production in Japan, produces the same amount of volume in NA as Toyota... 68%. But we dont know the local content of Nissans... we know that for instance Toyota has a lot of local content in their NA cars, I just read an article that Avalon has highest local content of any car made in NA, with 85%, while Elantra has... 34%.

 

chillax bro. Don't get so offended by facts. Ford profits wer included by me so you could see a yard stick. Clearly stated that japanese profits were hurt from Japanese exports. They just are too expensive. I left out the natural disasters because. Duh, everyone knows about them, and we should not expect them again. The heavy Japanese production is a continuing problem. The japanese government is bailing them out this year with even bigger subsidies, which means profits should be up on japanese production. The prius profitability is in doubt, but toyota would be less profitable with out it. Toyota says dollar/yen exchange needs to be 85 yen/dollar for them to make money on exports to american. Its 81. That probably means if you are buying a base prius, toyota is selling it to you bellow cost. This is a typical strategy on currency fluctuations, to eat some of the losses. It stops market share from eroding.

Yes most of the profit for toyota came from NA built cars last year. If you believe the yen will get weaker versus the dollar exporting cars from japan may still make sense. Toyota has stated as a strategy to try and address the analysts complaints and export fewer cars from japan. They seem to react most to tarrifs, which is kind of sad.

 

AGism of the day

 

That's him. He always sound like he wants Toyota to fail.

 

You're not reading me well at all. Toyota is loaded with cash and should be much more profitable this year. Its also good that toyota is taking some of the camry profits to make prii less expensive for Americans.

I do think it would be better if toyota manufactured some of the NA sold prii here. I want toyota to be successful, and sell more fuel efficient cars.

I just was trying to counter this meme that prius needs to be built in japan, and that it does great with no subsidies. The Japanese subsidize their cars a great deal. This does make some fuel efficient advances less expensive for Americans.

 

my friend, if Toyota didnt make money on Prius, it certainly wouldnt plan to make 1,000,000 of them this year .

It would do like what GM does with Volt... huff and puff about 8000 sales / year.

 

I see you do not read well. Should I pretend like you. Toyota is never going to sell 1Million prii in the united states in a year. I am talking about exported prius to the US. Don't like the last article? How about this? Try some reading comprehension this time.

Toyota Hikes Profit Forecast

Now the p&l is going to say the prii are profitable, and losses will be set in currency transactions. Toyota expects to lower costs eventually, so short term price increases would be counter productive and make it loose market share. Is that really so hard to understand? Or do you think the toyota finance people are lying when they say at current costs they need 85 yen /$ to break even on exports from japan?

Of course toyota makes money on the prii they will sell in japan

 

well if they didnt make money on Prii sold in USA, they would not be introducing new Prii versions and stocking them, right? Instead they would push Camry Hybrid and do Corolla Hybrid sooner than later.

 

Exchange rates are a risk of doing business internationally, and I'm sure Toyota's Finance folks are well aware of those risks. I don't think these fluctuations alter their long term strategies. People who buy stocks for short term profits might be affected, but those in for longer terms might still gain.

 

Yes, exactly true. Long term perspectives are much more important than short term swings. And as I said recovery in profits is already expected for Toyota this year. Risks in the Euro market are more severe for automotive this year than yen exchange.

Although since your a fellow texan, I'm not sure if you remember, but there was someone in finance at dell that instead of protecting foreign currancy transactions was gambling with them. He made money, but it was a scandal with the unethical behavior.