The Secret Prius Prime

Toyota is doing saturation TV advertising for the "year end" sales here in the Boston area, but as you note, there as been not a single mention of Prius or Prius Prime in any of them.

Having been lured to Toyota by the Prime (which I only learned about by my wife's online research), I assumed that the Prius line must be a positioned to be distinct from Toyota, kind of like Lexus. Of course, there are prominent Toyota logos on the Prius and not on the Lexus.

 

Well, Toyota has decided that Hybrids are distinct from cars, trucks, & SUVs. Most people go to a car dealer looking for a car, truck or SUV, not a hybrid.

 

The first time I saw that, it raised one of my eyebrows in a Spock-like fashion. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was weird.

 

A Toyota Camry is a car. A Toyota Camry Hybrid is not a car.

Apparently a Hybrid has more in common with the range-limited FCV.

 

I guess I am lucky to live in Salem, Oregon. My local Toyota dealership has at least two charging stations beside the entrance to the showroom with Primes parked in front of them. They have one used Prime that I think is the demonstrator and 14 others in their inventory. I think that 9 are on the lot and 5 are on order.

 

I'm not sure I even see "Jan" in anymore Toyota commercials.

 

Looking at where availability is and where the deepest incentives are, it seems that the Prime is mostly a compliance vehicle in the U.S. for now. Global sales tell a better story. There is also that thing of not cannibalizing the already anemic lift back sales.

 

She is still on the brochures for ToyotaCare that they mail out.

https://www.toyota.com/content/ebrochure/toyotacare.pdf

 

Yup... I guess hybrids have always been in a class by themselves . . . like this 2002 Ford "Sport Trac" which was among a number of combination car/truck vehicles which Detroit advertising once called hybrids:



While many automotive words such as phaeton, brougham, sedan and coupé have been adopted from terms used in the Victorian carriage industry, hybrid appears to have migrated from agriculture.

 

So, last winter parked in our carport were a BMW X1 and a Ram 1500 Ecodiesel (the 16 Prius was in the garage with the Kubota), the front of the two of them is very similar, very Phallc. On the other hand the 17 prime I now have looks very much like a vagina, really, so, sexuality seems to be a marketing trend and damn if the prime isn't what I prefer to look at......

 

There are a lot of Prime/PHVs in Japan however I too noticed that adverts are far and slim. Not sure how they manage to sell since electric vehicles are not hot sellers given the price of electricity here. I've seen ads for the Prime/PHV at airports and rarely on TV. Since every other car on the street is a hybrid, perhaps Toyota just wants to focus on the Prius and Aqua as their money makers.

 

She's still in the commercials for the Toyotathon we just had.

 

Damn, am I back in sex ed classes?

 

She ran off with that guy who does the Chevy commercials.

 

I see them all the time in my FaceBook Feed

 

Toyota is moving Corolla production from Ontario Canada to Alabama and converting he Canadian plant to RAV4 production.
I wonder how that will impact Canadian sales and marketing.