Toyota Owners Jump Ship to Tesla

But some of us still want a hybrid for the convenience of traditional fuel and distance to travel. Tesla has only 1% market share at this time. That's one week of sales for GM or Toyota.

 

3 million plus Prii sold is poor marketing?!

 

The point of all this here was to shake out that very point. Well said.

People need perspective. Yes, it is easy to claim & confirm marketing issues, but that requires cherry picking. There's simply no way to look at the big picture and not see the very limited scope of market penetration so far. There are major barriers to address still that have nothing to do with the engineering focus here. Distractions only make that worse.

Plug in your car at a very busy public location while smiling at people walking by. Say "hello" with an inviting tone. The feedback you'll get from those individuals is priceless. The couldn't care less about TCO or FCV. In fact, they don't have any clue what those mean. It comes down to basics. How do I equip my garage with the ability to high-speed recharge? How much will that cost? How much benefit will that provide? What about just sticking with an ordinary 120-volt household outlet?
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All you here can argue until the cows come home. It won't matter to the 99%. Convenience. Distance. Price. Things like that are what compel people to take a closer look.

 

If you go to their website to select a CAR from their menu, yes. Most people buy cars not hybrids.

 

Yesterday I overheard a Leaf owner and prospective Model 3 owner describe hybrids as combining the worst aspects of conventional and electric vehicles.

 

(I don’t think there’s been a gen-2 Bolt yet, but anyway...)

From what I can tell, the Bolt has been about as popular as most would expected. That is, people aren’t “beating down the doors to get one,” but it has definitely been well-received. All in all, most reviewers say that it’s a well-thought-out car.

 

And Toyota is definitely the go-to company for hybrids. For some of us though, hybrid is “old news.”

For me, the P.Prime is “pretty good”: Toyota quality and enough range to get me 95ish% EV operation. However, if it had the gen-2 Volt’s 50-mile range though, then I could go to work *and back* on a single charge. Ironically perhaps, for me, would mean that I’d charge at work to go home and back home, rather than charging at home to go to work and back, because I get quasi-free charging at work.

The Bolt, however, is actually pretty impressive though: 238-mile EV range will take me to any destination I travel even through the Holidays, lots of front and rear passenger space, visibility is exceptional, the displays are clear and easy to read, etc.

 

If I had the financial resources, I'd be a Tesla owner. Marketing, market share, be damned.
But it all comes down to affordability, and I'm just not in the Tesla financial market demographic. I'm one series of unfortunate events from enjoying the range anxiety of how far I can pedal a bicycle, or how many zones my bus ticket may cover.

For me?
I feel lucky, I can talk about owning a "car" period.
After I win the lottery, I'll change my profile to "Tesla Owner".

 

Reviewers liked the Spark EV too. If changes to CAFE rules had gone the way GM was betting, we'd have that BEV available in 50 states now.

Ford isn't getting out of car making. They are getting out of selling subcompact cars and sedans in the US, and then the Fusion might be an exception to that statement. They are still making cars for other markets. Europe gets something like five forms of the Focus.

Ford is making a big shift to hybrids and electrics. A PHEV Escape is suppose to arrive next year. Europe is getting a PHEV Transit(the big van). That's just 2 of 40 electric vehicles planned; 16 of which will be BEVs.

Toyota is getting their hydrogen from Australian brown coal.

There is potential ways of making it renewably, but there are already ways of making methane and diesel renewably.

The issue with using hydrogen goes beyond of where do you get it. The real hurdle is getting it to the vehicles, and carrying enough of it for a usable range. The physical properties of hydrogen exclude simply repurposing any existing infrastructure, like natural gas, and those properties mean any pipelines will cost more to be built and maintain than natural gas lines. On site production at refueling stations is possible, but not as efficient, and limits on number of cars serviced might be an issue.

A plug in FCEV would help by not requiring as much hydrogen, but the tanks are really bulky. The Clarity FCEV, not a plug in, has a smaller trunk than the Clarity PHEV.

That doesn't mean fuel cells don't have a future in cars. They can if a liquid fuel is used. Nissan's uses ethanol with an onboard reformer. Smaller compounds, like methane and methanol could potentially be reformed right in the fuel cell itself.

 

The Prius brand is so strongly linked to hybrid that I think Toyota would do best by marketing any future BEV as... something other than a Prius.

And to be forward-looking about it, they should avoid marketing them as a separate category. They should just be Toyota cars with Toyota names.

If you want to really normalize electric cars in society, you need to stop highlighting the distinctions and just refer to them as "cars."

 

Ironically, that's the benefit of Prius being associated with hybrid. It's neither a traditional vehicle, nor something bleeding edge. It's well established... just a normal car at this point.

Keep in mind how important the reputation of Prius for value & reliability has become. It's a proven launch vehicle for next-step tech.

 

Well said. We never intended to buy a hybrid- we just set out to get the best small car we could find, and it happened to be a Prius C hybrid.

It still felt a little harsh paying a ~25% premium vs. a similar gas-only car, but with fuel prices on the rise there is now at least the possibility of earning back the price difference over the years.

 

Might fall under nit-picking, but for over 20 years every Toyota Prius has included two major elements: a gasoline engine and an electric traction system. I agree with your statement that it is a great way to launch new technology, but it has consistently been new hybrid technology. I say let the all-electrics develop their own identity. I don't think I'm anywhere near alone in believing that "Prius" will always mean a clever way to burn gas.

The Prius reputation was very much on my mind when I signed the papers less than 2 weeks ago- first time I ever bought a new car, and first Toyota as well. We are expecting a lot from this little car and I don't think we are exposed to much risk. Very optimistic, honestly.

 

I don’t claim to be an expert on the Mirai, but it sounds like it uses just plain high-pressure hydrogen: H35 (low-pressure) and H70 (high pressure).

Dang, I hope FCEV guys aren’t making the problem of infrastructure deployment even-less-likely-to-succeed still by not standardizing the nature of the hydrogen fuel!

 

Yep, so does the Clarity. Honda and Toyota use PEM fuel cells. These require pure hydrogen. Nissan is using a solid oxide fuel cell. It's less picky on fuel type, there are some that use carbon monoxide for fuel. They do run screaming hot; up to 600C. Which can be an issue, but Nissan is using the waste heat to power the reformer.

Well, Japan is moving to even higher pressure(12k psi) hydrogen. The Mirai might already be able to use it.

Going to another fuel besides hydrogen is less of an issue. The standards for CNG are already well established. While better than hydrogen, i think it is less than ideal because of packaging the fuel tank in a personal car with the rest of the equipment. Nissan did a long term test of their fuel cell in one a e-NV200 down in Brazil. There E100 is already available at gas stations. Short term, it can be shipped for far less cost than hydrogen while cheaper pipelines are built.

A Volvo group has a small fuel, sized to be a generator on a sleeper truck or boat, that has a reformer to allow it to run on diesel.

 

Too late. Prius Prime already delivers a full EV drive experience. A mid-cycle update could bring an increase to power & range.
The "all-electric" could be perceived as a takeaway.

Mainstream consumers aren't the logic thinkers you would hope them to be...

 

Wow! Last I noticed, it was still in the $2.60ish range here in Austin. Then again, I only take my P.Prime to the gas station once every 2-3 months, and only put in a couple gallons each time.

 

I'll admit I haven't studied the prime; it was never on our radar... are you saying there is an all-electric version of it, or is this just a case of owners pretending they don't have engines and constraining the car to a specific mode of operation? I've got a buddy who does that with his Fusion, and briefly that's how it got nicknamed Delusion.

I can't argue with that.

 

no all electric version, yes delusional.