Prius PHV to end production this month of June 2015?

Don't think so. Mirai has two design languages in one car. The front is air and rear is water. Bi-lingual design confuses many people and results in not liking it.

I doubt PiP would adopt to the same design as it was solely for FCV (air intake with water emission).

 

The same thing happened with the original model back in 2000.

Different markets have different production schedules, suppliers, and resellers.

 

Do we know how US/Japan/ROW sales numbers of PiP compare?

 

Except for the Sci-Fi "The Fifth Element," could you perhaps explain "The front is air and rear is water"?

Bob Wilson

 

Yes, most are sold in the US now.

We only have partial data for world wide sales but from january to september 2014
US 11,842 (71%)
Japan 3,675
ROW 1,130

Toyota initially targeted the car for japan estimating most cars would be sold there. Sales in US october 2014-april 2014 is only 3,141as the toyota corporate seems to have given up on the model. I suspect a similar drop was felt in Japan.

Lots of cars, and I look at nissan and now dead pontiac as the leaders in bad design language, seem to get uglified because corporate thinks this will sell.

Someone in toyota seems to have told to the people designing the sheet metal for the mirai that the car should look like air turning to water. Most reviewers simply think it looks bad. Does it matter? Toyota only plans to lease a tiny number of this generation of cars, and it has enough friends that they will go in government or corporate fleets if individuals don't snap up the very limited production.

2016 Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle first drive | Autoweek

I can see where they made the air intake kind of look like lungs and the rear half sorta kinda like flowing water. IMHO its a total conceptional and visual fail, but it just doesn't matter.

In its run toyota probably hopes they can lease 20,000 world wide, then they have an opportunity to redesign. The prius phv has to look similar to the prius liftback and they hope to sell over a million of those. With all the negative feedback on the mirai's looks, they aren't going to make the prius phv look anything like it. Besides the prius needs to be aerodynamic, they aren't going to give it uglifying visual effects that hurt efficiency. I expect the next gen prius will at worst get 0.25 cd, and am expecting a 0.24.

 

Ahhh! That will make spotting the 'fool-cell' drivers much easier. At last an 'ugly Betty' car to make our Prius look nice.

Bob Wilson

 

The 17" wheels in many opinions make the car look better. I know the after market ones I have and the tires on them, give me a lot better traction in rain (which happens a lot here) than the stock. The hit is probably 0.02 cd or less in aerodynamics, its more on rolling resistance. They are an option only and stock is still 15" wheels here.

That is quite different than adding 0.04 to cd for the purpose of looking like the future as toyota has done in the mirai. Do you think it looks better than the prius? Do you think it is worth the aerodynamic hit? The aqua (prius c) takes an aerodynamic hit for the traditional hatchback design of 0.3. That seems like a much better trade off than trying to look like the future, but not having the sense that you have simply made it look ugly. Nissan has admitted this mistake on the leaf, and will change the looks in the next generation.

 

That's the greenwash being spread. Please don't contribute to it.

In reality, they have stopped investment in the current generation. Seeing the market struggle the other plug-in vehicles were having, it just plain did not make any sense pushing forward yet.

Waiting until the next generation is far more sensible of a business choice. Knowing the battery tech will be better is reason enough. But we are also all well aware of adoption effect. KISS.

Remember how well that worked for Prius in the past? It took years before people finally learned how it actually worked.

The PHV model has the same thing going for it. That approach requires nothing but a basic understanding and a simple 120-volt connection. Cost will be realistically competitive with traditional vehicles too.

In other words, there's a big difference between giving up and waiting.

 

Please reread the full thing above, and stop this silliness of taking my words out of context, then pretending I am the one "greenwashing". I have no idea what that means in the context of my answer to wjtracy.

Clearly I am talking about the current gen prius phv. I do hope toyota does much better on the next generation.

The explanation on why us sales dropped so much after starting last year so well is toyota was rumored to have given up on the current prius phv. They didn't properely stock dealers. It was only a rumor until this announcement of ending production. They will still sell after production ends. But toyota did not refresh the plug-in. I don't buy the argument that toyota did this because the market is bad. The market for plug-ins was 320,000 last year. We do know the current prius phv did not meet their expectations, and that toyota dealers didn't like it. They have been putting a much larger effort into the mirai which they don't expect will sell close to prius phv numbers. Our toyota marketing team has said this is not the reason.

You can read what ever you want into toyota's actions. It does however mean low sales in the US, the prius phv's top market in 2015 and 2016. I hope for a national roll out of an improved next generation phv, but no one can tell us about that car other than it is planned for the end of next year.

 

What worked well for the Prius in the past was for Toyota to come out with one of the first hybrids and to continually work to improve it.
While "hybrid" was new, they pushed the Prius out to all states, to expose people to how many advantages their were.
With familiarity due to availability, people learned and Toyota captured, and maintained the majority of the hybrid market.

That seemed to work pretty darn well if you ask me.
Why the change, in your opinion?

 

Being able to react to the market, rather than being trapped by it is an advantage Toyota enjoys.

 

Reacting to the market didn't seem to work too well for GM in 2008.

 

Yep, you have to build what people are buying, 76,332 Corollas & Camrys in March 2015!

2015 April year to date U.S.
All Vehicles = 5,411,707
BEV/PHEV = 32,433; Monthly Plug-In Sales Scorecard

U.S. Toyota Hybrid sales for April 2015..Total = 21,774
U.S. Toyota Prius sales for April 2015...Total = 9,250 (Liftback+428 PIP)
U.S. BEV/PHEV sales for April 2015 ......Total = 9,094 (including 428 PIP)

Corolla U.S. Sales 2015
January - 27,357
February - 27,839
March - 35,532
April - 31,990

Camry U.S. Sales 2015
January - 26,763
February - 32,942
March - 40,800
April - 34,066"

 

Toyota's strength is the Toyota manufacturing system, that makes it move a little slower than other car manufacturers. Under wantanabe it seemed to lose part of this focus. I do think under akio toyoda toyota can resume their fast follower tradition, but there were a lot of bad ideas advanced under the last ceo. Let's face it, watanabe only led toyota to a loss and quality questions not the bankruptcy that rick wagoner caused.

The guy that seems to be calling the shots on plug-ins and fuel cell vehicles is the chairman of the board, Uchiyamada . We can either refer to him as the "father of the prius" or as Ogiso says "Don Quixote" for ignoring practicality for idealism. Now success has many fathers and failure is an orphan, Wada and Ogiso also seem to have part of that claim, and certainly mr. chairman did not embrace the idea if this version of history is to be believed.
FORTUNE: The Birth of the Toyota Prius - Feb. 21, 2006

Why the trip down memory lane? We don't know if its delayed the gen IV prius and next gen prius phv, but Ogiso's work on the mirai has definitely taken time away from him working on the prius. Maybe that changes soon and he can concentrate on prii again. We learn that although Uchiyamada managed the prius project brilliantly, it was not his idea, and he didn't think toyota could pull it off. What does this mean to Toyota and plug-in development?

Mr. Toyoda, already didn't seem happy with the old ideas of fuel cells and plug-ins of his predecessor. He developed a highly profitable relationship with tesla, so that toyota could play catch up in plug-in technology, and killed the internal EQ project, which focused on small battery packs. As much as Uchiyamada and Toyota USA's bob carter seem to bad mouth plug-ins, I believe this relationship is still in place, and toyota may resurrect it once the gigafactory is producing enough batteries. It is also fairly clear to toyota's stock holders that the fuel cell hype is not going to bring profits anytime soon. I think the current president isn't going to let engineering fall that far behind. After all he has a war chest of $60B and a tesla roadster. Abe the prime minister of japan was seen with Mr. Musk last week driving a model S. I bet he had more fun doing that than test driving the mirai.

 

Under the heading of "IT HAD TO HAPPEN":
Li-ion battery technology appears to be on the brink of a manufacturing breakthrough. A Michigan based group headed by a professor has formed a company that will use the efficiencies of flat screen TV production in battery production.

"Supposably" (as Joey, of 'Friends' says) this new manufacturing technology will make Li-ion batteries cost about 1/4 as much as they do now.
And hopefully this production efficiency can translate to other types of batteries, current and future.

QUESTION: Will the huge manufacturing ship known as Toyota be able to change course quickly enough to utilize this new production tech? (under license, of course)

 

I did and will continue my request for you to be explicit. The vague references are what contribute to the misleadings/misunderstandings/assumptions.

Notice how a few posts back you quote me, then include several other quotes? They imply I also made them. I didn't. The actual source is not part of the quote itself. It explains how I get misquoted from time to time. Adding the who prevents that. Please do.

Then there's the diverting of attention to fuel-cells, which have absolutely nothing to do with the current or next-generation plug-in market... and you yourself confirmed that in a following post. So, no need to bring that up anymore in an unrelated thread. Product offerings are not mutually exclusive. We want diversity for better business.

It's the vague & off-topic content that will continue to be called out. You're well informed and a frequent poster, so being held to a higher standard is to be expected. Lead others by showing them how to avoid that.

 

Which post of Austingreen's was that? I haven't found any of his quotations here confusing, and none of his posts have been editted since your post here.

That's rich. How many threads on the Volt's technical aspects and user experience did you bring up questions of GM's marketing strategy?

 

I included the full quote which clearly was talking numbers for the current model prius phv. The reply was to wjtracy who asked about the numbers, and I also included this

I don't know how much more explicit I can be. Yet you throw out a vague "greenwashing" charge against me. Again re-read it all and tell me what is unclear. If it was a misunderstanding that I caused tell me how. But I in no way see how acknoliging that toyota is giving up by ending production on the current prius phv model by me is not factually correct or why you are saying it is greenwashing. That is as explicit as I can be. Please explain how in context I am greenwashing or being anti-toyota plug-in in anything in this thread. Numbers are what they are.

The moderators of this site combined my posts. They clearly show who I am quoting in each one. I did not "divert attention to fuel cells", they were already in the discussion, and I was responding. I think the mirai design is definitely pertinent to the discussion of the prius phv, and other toyota plug-ins. Toyota has moved many of the people responsible for the prius phv to the mirai project. If mirai is what toyota calls the future, It definitely seems in play when discussing car design as talked about in this thread. It is also pertinent in the delay of the next generation prius phv, given the personnel the project used.

 

I was looking for a recent comment about the wish that Toyota had made the mid-cycle upgrade of Prime to deliver more EV mile, so I could point out the importance of looking forward... seeing the bigger picture. I couldn't find it, but did stumble across this look forward from the past... which never lost sight of the bigger picture.

For example, there have been quite a number of complaints related to Toyota's use of the "self charging" label in their hybrid advertisements. Anyone notice how not a single one of those posts mentioned Toyota quest to phase out traditional vehicles? Having established that "self charging" identifier makes the identifier of "plug in" so unambiguous, there's no uncertainty what the difference is.

Look forward, not backward... as my own quote above did from 4 years ago. Notice how I nailed the expectation for Prime long before anyone else had any idea why Toyota would do such a thing? Back then, there was quite a stir that Toyota was giving up plug-in support entirely as a result of PHV production ending. Those were the words of some spinning their own narrative. Don't listen. Pay attention by looking forward.

In this case, I'd like point out an important reason why the capacity for Prime wasn't increased mid-cycle. It's quite simple. Toyota places a very high value on the used market. They go out of their way to appeal to the early-adopters, making the upgrade so compelling some trade-in for the newer model. They provides inventory for the used market. An important aspect of that used market is support. Changing capacity would have resulted in a loss of value in 2 regards. One is obviously less EV miles. The other is simply replacement coverage. If you want a vehicle to last a freakishly long time, don't make it's parts so unique they become difficult & expense to replace.

That leads us to the next look forward. Would it be cost-effective to have the engineers restack the cells to make them fit better? Resulting increase in cargo area without any change to operational specs would be a benefit to both new & used sales. Doesn't that seem a worthy goal for mid-cycle?