What I don't like about the Prius Prime

toyota is not committed to ev range like tesla and volt. they are looking to efficiency and versatility. if 20 miles isn't enough for you, so be it. you can't please the whole market with one vehicle.
volt can't, and tesla can't.

 

Since my post above each of you have made good points. True, the Ioniq and the Tesla are not available, but neither is the Prime.

Part of my "research" is reading what writers on PC have to say. I learned all sort of things about "dual clutch" transmissions, and "direct injection." I diid not know much about induction charging until I read about it on PC. But a manufacturer needs to reveal some of their intentions so there can be qualified discussion about the merits. For me, the test drive is only the very last, confirming act I take before purchasing a car. I will have already read all I can, and studied the comparisons. I know not everyone does that.

I am not currently in the market, so waiting is not a problem.

 

Not sure what you mean by plenty of cargo room in the Tesla. If you are talking about the the model 3 then you are talking about a sedan, not a hatchback. You might have more room if you add the trunk and frunk but it would not be contiguous like in a hatchback. And they have to fix the prototype model 3 because initial testers found the trunk wouldn't open up enough to fit a suitcase. But if you are talking about the model S, well you can probably buy a Prime and a Rav4 Hybrid (for those times when you need extra cargo and people hauling) and have enough left over money to put towards the insurance and registration as well as gas.

 

everything you need to know about prime is found in lift back, with 22 mile plug in battery.

but your point is well taken for boards like this. it's just that toyota knows the general buying public could care less.

 

that was confusing to me as well, but i think he meant that the volt had similar hatch space and 50 miles of ev.
but that makes it sound as if nothing else matters besides those two attributes.

 

I feel that Chevy got close to the ideal size of battery because the Volt just qualifies for the maximum federal tax rebate. Prius should have done the same, although some have made the excellent point that building a car just to get the maximum rebate doesn't necessarily achieve the long term goal of making a profitable product long after the rebates run out.

 

The Volt was targeting the average commute. The fell a bit short with the first gen, and have gone a bit over with the second based on feedback and battery improvements.

 

what distance is the average commute?

 

Agreed. Perhaps not a good choice of words on my part when I said they work "for" the company, however that is how it appears to the consumer.

My point was, if someone is going to stand there and tell people about a product, I would hope their knowledge level would at least be at the level of what you can read on the corporate public website. But that is clearly very optimistic.

 

Apologies, I should not have said "commute".
I should have said average daily travel.

The average distance traveled by car in a day is 37 miles.
Americans drive twice as much, spend twice as much time in traffic than they did in 1980.

If looking solely at commute distances...
51% of people have a 20 mile or less (round trip) commute. 30 miles covers 68% and 40 covers 78%.
Commuter Driving Statistics – Statistic Brain

 

i guess the buyer has to decide if they need 50 miles all at once, or if 20 will get them where they need to go between charges. then they can look at all the other attributes of competing models.

agreed. i took a test drive of a gen 3 when they had one of those local rodeo's or whatever they call them. the people were clueless. the guy that went on my test drive drove a pickup truck, and had never been in a prius.
i guess toyota thinks the cars will sell themselves, no questions need be answered. same way it works at the dealership.

 

That's the problem with cars that, at launch, actually do sell themselves - the executives get complacent, especially if it happens for a few years, and then they don't know how to market the product once it stops selling itself.

With the Prius, Gen 2 launched right into an oil crisis, combined with environmental concerns taking front stage. Not only that, but it had a lack of competition in the US market - under the EPA standards of the time, the only vehicles that hit at least 50 MPG EPA highway for model year 2004 were the Insight (much smaller), Prius, and Civic Hybrid (less versatile, and not conspicuously a hybrid). It was kinda a perfect storm for the Prius here, especially once celebrities decided that they had to be seen driving in one.

A similar problem happened with the Miata - Mazda launched it into an American market that still had demand for roadsters, but was down to one, incredibly outdated model. It sold like crazy the first few years, with waiting lists and people paying over MSRP... and then Mazda had no idea how to sell a Miata without it selling itself, to the point that nobody's sure if a NE Miata will happen, even though the current ND (which launched for model year 2016) is expected to last at least through model year 2025.

 

For some buyers, that is all that matters. To others, having a middle rear seat for their child is important.

GM's political clout got the federal tax credit to cover up to the planned battery size,16kWh, for the first Volt. Toyota's might have gotten the low end down far enough for the PiP.

Building for just maximum rebate isn't a long term plan for success, but there is no evidence that is GM's plan. The gen2 Volt starts at a price nearly $7000 less than the gen1 did on release, and its battery pack is now 2kWh over the rebate max. Not exactly the best move if they wanted to milk the rebate for profit. With the gen receiving price cuts during its run, the same should be expected for the gen2 when GM's rebates run out.

 

I think its possible Prime has better hatch space than we are thinking...volume maybe volume is built into the hatchback door.

I'd be surprised if Model S has 26-ft3 space by EU VDA test, but cannot find any data on that.

 

to others, it may be mpg's when charge is gone.

 

An important clarification here - the article notes "drivers log an average of 13,476 miles per year" but then incorrectly suggests that they drive "37 miles a day". Technically, this is statistically correct as an average, but certainly not the mean nor typical of a driving day.

There may be some data somewhere which shows the distribution of non-commuting car travel distance on the same day of a work commute. But, it is not typical to see commuters driving 17 additional miles on the days they work. Instead, we should suspect that a very large part of the additional "average" 17 miles driven beyond the average 20 mile commute round-trip are due to long road trips on days the driver is not actually committing such as on weekends and vacation days and other errands done on non-work days.

In this respect the Prius Prime has a electric range which is well suited for many US driving patterns.

 

it's all good. lots of choices coming for many different types of driving. not sure why some people fell one car will sell much better than another, just because the other doesn't appeal to them.

 

Very good point that the 37 miles is simply the annual mileage divided by the number of days.
Without additional data though, your 'long road trip' hypothesis has no more support than the daily driving being more than 37 miles because there are some days where the car is not driven as much, if at all.

In either event, the Prime has a perfect electric range for many people, just as the Volt does for others.
The questions will be if Toyota sells the Prime nationwide and if they will build enough of them.