Prius Prime Death Spiral?

Although I don't think the P.Prime is on any sort of death spiral, I think it probably is fair to say that Toyota doesn't expect or plan it to be a really-huge seller. Nowhere near as much as a Corolla or Camry, and probably not even as much as the regular Prius.

Plus, Toyota still has this thing going with hydrogen fuel cells; they've long been kinda iffy about battery-electric vehicles, historically speaking. I personally think FCEV is what's iffy, since it requires a huge support infrastructure to be built for it. Also, fuel cells aren't all that much more efficient than the Prius' ICE, and generate quite a lot of heat - far more than battery-electric power trains.

So, I don't think the Prime is on its way out, but I do think Toyota perceives it to be a bit of a niche-market, compliance car. I think if they were to really promote it, they'd get a lot more sales than they expected. Also, a while back, I saw a YouTube video mentioning personnel changes at Toyota that suggest that Toyota might be starting to see the value of battery-electric vehicles. I don't remember the details right off.


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With second generation Toyota is hoping to produce 1 milion Primes in life cycle, usually that is 5-6 years, so they must ramp up production to 200,000 units per year worldwide.

It's a high aim, but US, EU and Japan could take 4,000 units per month each. It's just the question of pricing.

 

China!


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China is a problem when production is not domestic, for China Toyota is preparing Corolla and Levin plug-ins that will be locally build, word is around 2018.

 

Interestingly, the first time I heard the in-cabin backup beeper, made oh-so-infamous in the US by the Prius, was in China on a Tianjin-built equivalent of what in the US is called the Echo.

In case any of you are not familiar with it, Tianjin (天津) is a heavily-industrial city southeast of Beijing. It was one of China's original "Special Economic Zones" where they first experimented with capitalism.

Anyway, that might be where the Chinese-market equivalent of the P.Prime will be made someday.


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There are 21 Primes in stock for immediate sale over at "Koons Toyota Annapolis dhat kom" over in Maryland...

 

Worst mistake I ever made was buying a "first model year" Honda Civic Hybrid. Not sure if the problems were due to Honda's complete lack of experience or the fact it was their first hybrid or if they hired all the "reject" employees from Toyota ... but buying a "first model year" of ANY Hybrid scares me. Worried.

 

Which "gen" Civic Hybrid? Second, which started in 06 model year, or first. Our 06 is still on the road, but yeah...

 

It may be the first Honda hybrid that you're aware of, but the Civic hybrid was not Honda's first hybrid. That would go to the Insight, which was in production 2 years before the Civic hybrid. From what I've read, most of the issues with the Civic hybrid were due to poor battery management leading to premature failure. I had a first-generation one as a rental for a while - woefully underpowered (passing on the highway was stressful) but hard to call horrible. That said, I was not a long-term owner like you so you probably have more experience with the car.