Toyota Prius plug-in needs more sizzle

Toyota Prius plug-in family needs more sizzle ...

 

I think the question is "Do you make a car that serves it's owners? Or do you make a car that appeals to non owners to become owners?" The PHV seems to serve it's owners well.

 

So does the Prius, but the competion is increasing, and in some ways better.

 

There appears to be potential phv buyers moving to other cars from prius because to them it doesn't appear to be "electric enough".

From the OP article it doesn't look that it appeals to people not already desiring a prius

Which seems rather harsh. There seem to be some owners that are extremely happy, if the goal was to kill the phev kits for the prius it seems to have done that.

From the leaks on the gen IV, and many seem to be "official" the next phv will have more sizzle. Toyota is not happy with how the prius phv is doing, and the aqua/prius c is doing much better than expected.

 

I love my PiP. It is the best Prius and has been delivering the best efficiency in the most practical package.

There are other plugin alternatives with better driving experience but for someone looking for the best effiiency and lowest emission with the largest cargo space (flat floor), PiP is the best choice.

 

There has always been a "not enough" impression with Prius that owners end up chiming in about afterward about their assumptions being misplaced. The plug-in model faces similar obstacles to overcome.

That's quite vague. Sure, they'd like the initial rollout markets to have caught on sooner. But that has nothing to do with the next phase of rollout. The benefits of having waited are already revealing themselves too.

 

Really John, you thought I was too vague, when you typically put out non-sensical things like

Too little too late? Isn't that what you say.

Well that is one way to look at the phv. It seems to be what you would say, but not what I am saying.

I didn't mean to be cryptic, there has been much written. We will start with the Japanese projections that made toyota target a japansese market for a short distance plug-in, that no one now thinks exist. 40K cars a year was the Japanese goal, and less than 15,000/year materialized. The US market was also a disappointment, and dealers now are discounting the vehicles to levels that are much lower than projected, but sales each month are still lower than they were a year ago. If the car were going well why wouldn't there be a further roll out to at least some other states, instead of excuses from Toyota corporate.

I ,unlike you, don't think its too little too late. Its simply too little. Toyota has plenty of time to improve the next generation. The worst thing they could do is look at the poor sales, and say the car is great, its just the uninformed customers that are the problem.

Now is where you can be constructive John. Toyota seemed to have decided not to roll out this car very fast. What do you think they need to do to sell more on the redesign?

 

why do they compare pip to fusion instead of cmax? each potential owner must weigh electric driving to hybrid driving when battery runs out. fusion is in another league with camry and accord.

 

No, it isn't. That wasn't what the task-force raised concern about either.

This is yet another example of people claiming to understand the market not recognizing the disconnect.

Watch how it plays out. Note what changes actually took place.

 

I am quite sure you have said too little too late. That it is this generation that needs to sell at a profit. Well poor yardstick, but it isn't selling well at a discount. Part of product marketing is understanding the product and the market

I said initial adopter car, that did not hit the initial adopters right, they can improve in the next generation.

What is this task force you speak of?

My perception is toyota has slowed the roll out to texas. It was going to be the best states, and my state from any measure is in the top 3 or 4 when it comes to plug-in sales. Then it decided carb states. I have no idea what your task force thinks of that, but to me it likely means they didn't want the heat or high speeds. Fine it was going to be 2013. Now I am not even sure if they will roll it out this year in texas. That is how I am thinking it will play out. With more leafs, volts, and teslas on the roads by me, I can't see how being slow is going to help. I know some government agencies that would have bought prius plug ins, but when you decide not to offer the cars in their best market, put in a battery smaller than many of the kits, you may need to rethink your strategy.

I can think of 2 possibilities, either they don't think it will sell well, so don't want to waste the money, or two they are incompetent. I don't think they are incompetent. There is a third possibility, that some in the company want to say plug-ins will never sell. These are the folks that are pushing the fuel cells. To me they are less than competent.

 

Insight to that came from the particular business classes I actually enjoyed taking. They opened up my eyes to the large array of possibilities in that seemingly simple situation. I too thought the choices were very limited. They most definitely are not. Far more factors are at play than what's being recognized. There are many different scenarios we could get into here if you'd like....

 

Well if you can think of scenarios that I did not mention, please bring them up.

You accused me of being vague. I acutally was very direct and straightforward, but did not feel the need to bring up previous discussions. Please if you have insight, let us know what toyota's strategy in on increasing sales of the current prius phv, and why it hasn't at least been rolled out to Texas and Florida by now. If you see a large arrays of possibilities on why that is the right strategy to sell the car, please bring us a couple of examples.

 

Since I already did and we've been through this several times on other threads, the ball is in your court. Can this be constructive this time? Let's try...

Toyota has given competitors opportunity in the past to establish; we've seen it with their hybrid rollouts intermixed with both Honda & Ford throughout the years. They stand back to allow them to get some attention first, then move in. It's a relationship of good will that has proven successful... and also precautionary, since the competitor rollouts don't always go smoothly... which is exactly what we're seeing now with Volt. The current inventory supply of roughly 7,500 does not put GM in a good position, especially with 2014 model production starting. There's a double-whammy for demand and not exactly good consumer impression of plug-ins. Toyota choice to wait that out makes sense. Why not avoid that by simply focusing on current markets in the meantime?

 

Why, I think GM is in an excellent position to sell a lot volts. They built inventory before the plant shut down for the model year change over. They have cut costs because of their experience and are passing it along to customers in the form of discounts. They appear that they are waiting to see how the official bmw i3 announcement goes before deciding how much to cut MSRP. What did they sell, 2600 volts last month, not bad in a competitive environment when the promotion wasn't even going the entire month. I would think that would be a better position than selling around 600 last month.

Certainly if toyota is just waiting for the change over to sell in texas and florida, that isn't a bad thing right now, but I have to question why they didn't roll out to better plug-in states in the past. Do you think we will see a cut in MSRP, predicated by a weaker yen and competition, and a roll out to texas and florida soon? When I asked my dealer he had no idea when toyota would sell in my state. Not that I want a phv, but I'd want a dealer at least trained for electrics, if I might import a rav 4 bev into the area.

 

Wow! That's new. This discussion has taken on an entirely different angle.

9,000 unsold was well beyond any inventory that was needed. That represented a 6-month supply! Volt was only selling at a rate of about 1,500 per month.

As for "cut costs", where in the world did you hear that? The rest of us have been told it was a price-slash (profit loss) to clear out the 2012 & 2013 in stock prior to the new model year arriving (and the original leases expiring).

 

You probably need to include the last 50 days of sales to decide the rate. In June GM instituted a price cut, and sales greatly increased. I good source for this is good car bad car. You can see month to month
Chevrolet Volt Sales Figures - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

Month​

Chevrolet Volt​

U.S. Sales 2010​

Chevrolet Volt​

U.S. Sales 2011​

Chevrolet Volt​

U.S. Sales 2012​

Chevrolet Volt​

U.S. Sales 2013​

Chevrolet Volt​

U.S. Sales 2014​

January​

-----​

321​

603​

1140​

​

February​

-----​

281​

1023​

1626​

​

March ​

-----​

608​

2289​

1478​

​

April ​

-----​

493​

1462​

1306​

​

May ​

-----​

481​

1680​

1607​

​

June​

-----​

561​

1760​

2698​

​

July ​

-----​

125​

1849​

​

​

August ​

-----​

302​

2831​

​

​

September​

-----​

723​

2851​

​

​

October​

-----​

1108​

2961​

​

​

November​

-----​

1139​

1519​

​

​

December​

326​

1529​

2633​

​

​

Where did you get that there are 9000 unsold volts today? Did you forget that GM was discounting, or that there is seasonality involved? Did you substract the number of volts that have been sold in June and July?

Why I heard from Bloomberg that the cost of major parts like lithium batteries had dropped substantially. It was covered in the 2013 update. I assume that nissan's anouncements of lowered battery costs, also mean that compact power likely is lowering their pricing. With over 30,000 volt and amperas sold/being sold in the 2013 my year (over 30,000 in the calander year) costs are much lower than in 2011.

There is ofcourse more competition than in 2012 with the ford energis, the price drop of the leaf, and the upcoming bmw i3. It should be a fun ride, and battery prices should continue to decline. The big winner from the lower battery prices is of course tesla, which is the only one of these companies covering their R&D costs with margin. GM lowered projections to 35,000-40,000/year - 13 months ago for ampera/volt sales. I think they will miss by about 20% for my 2013, but with price cuts 2014 should be there. We should know mid august what the 2014 price cut is, and whether July sales were as good as June.

June 2013 Dashboard - HybridCars.com

Volt has lost market share but, its sales are up 11.8% in the first 6 months of 2013, yoy. The plug-in market is up 132%, which is rapid growth by any measure. Lowered costs and more competition is fueling rapid growth from a pretty dismal 2011 as a base.

 

CARS.COM had listed both new & used inventory for ages. It has served as a decent gauge for availability. Currently, there are 7,500 new. That's a lot. And there is no way of knowing that the demand increase in June was sustainable. We know some people were waiting for a bargain. How many still remain?

As for the price of lithium dropping, that should happen as some point. But every automaker will benefit. So, there's no particular favor with any, since all will see a cost reduction. The catch is, that won't make each vehicle profitable or eliminate the dependency on tax-credits.

The point is, GM has saturated the nationwide market for Volt. They need to do something else to stir new interest. Toyota hasn't even tapped 35 of the states yet. They are working to dig deeper into the 15 states already established, to build up a better knowledge-base before taking the next step. See the difference?

 

we should know July numbers soon, why be so sure in your pessimism. I'll make you a deal. If it takes 6 months to go through the 2013 inventory as you claim, I'll do a mea culpa. Cars.com is not a reliable source for inventory. I would never claim that they had any idea since cars get double listed and not listed at all. gm talked about over 7000 cars in june, which is a little high, but people have been waiting for the discounts. At least 3000 of those are now sold. GM stuck its foot in its mouth and said they were coming, but even without that people expected them.

Tax credits go for 200,000 cars, for the first automakers. That gives gm and tesla plenty of time to birng out their next lower cost cars. As I said tesla is the biggest benefactor of dropping battery prices, they have the biggest batteries. 123% growth year over year is nothing to sneaze at. It is a big growth area. I fully expect we will see at least an average 40% growth a year for at least 5 years. Now gm is competeing with itself with the spark EV, bmw has the i3 coming next year, tesla the X at the end of next year. THere will be winners and losers, but this is the place where the action is. Don't believe the bad press that the market is saturated, its growting fast, and the new cafe rules and california rules are going to accelerate it.

I thought you said when prius phv sales started gm sales would stop. The volt kept chugging along. The ford energis and lower leaf pricing has definitely slowed the growth, but if gm does the right thing and lowers the msrp to less than $37,000 for 2014 my it should keep chugging along. Again the volt sold over 4x more than the prius phv last month, I expect it to sell at least 2x every month for the rest of the year. The volt is growing sales just less than the leaf and tesla S. There is no saturation.

Again, I will welcome toyota when it does something. I am still wondering when its going to release the cars in florida and texas. You have told me about its great strategy for years now, and I see projections for them to sell cars at a lower rate in america this year than last with the phv. What knowledge do they need? Are they redesigning the car before the launch. It doesn't look like it's selling well on the east coast even when priced with no premium over the liftback, like the dealers aren't even trying to sell it. When should I see the results of toyota's great strategy. Is it the fuel cell car they are talking so much about?

 

How much has toyota got? Do you think they will reach there sales goal of 12,000-13,000 in the US this year? When will they ship to texas and florida?