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Where are the 2019’s even at?

Definitely not on the toyota website or on dealer lots.

Who needs to sell cars when there is patience .

Well the dealer in my town just went under. Must not have known their audience well enough.

 

someone in canada saw one on the website. they bought it, and are driving it on the internet

 

Ah virtual driving.

Must be living vicariously through toyota’s Visions.

If we could only see them down here below the 49th parallel .

 

that's johns specialty. all the videos are cgi

 

That is still the norm for most manufacturers.

 

Why?

It makes no sense giving GM credit for taking risk when they don't even do that. It's bad enough calling them a leader when they don't take the risk spreading their technology to a vehicle their own loyal customers would actually buy.

No SUV choice with Voltec after how many years of waiting?

I remember a Two-Mode plug-in... the Saturn Vue SUV... being promoted for 2009.

 

Toyota works on an allocation process. Dealers do not "choose" what inventory to stock. How do I know this? Because I'm the one that preferenced vehicles on the weekly allocation from Toyota. Preferencing is nothing more than telling Toyota that you'd like that Toyota Camry LE you received on allocation to be Grey in color instead of White and with tan interior not charcoal.

I did this for well over 20 years....

Now As for the GM side of our dealership - yes, wo got to choose what we wanted. But when things were slow, GM would force us to take vehicles we did not want because they had to keep the factories open. They could do this up to a point. Afterall the dealership doesn't own those cars, the bank that the dealership does business with does. And they have credit limits too.

 

our neighbors 4 or 5 homes down have the hybrid Vue SUV. Nearly 160K miles on it last time i asked. They said they're getting mpg in the 40's. Though they are prius type hyper mile'ers. Seems a shame they killed it off. Then again, the EV1 was under the Saturn moniker too.
.

 

The EV1 was leased though certain Saturn dealers, but it was the only car that was produced as a "GM" car.

 

We all know that "choose" should be used loosely. We also know the influence dealers can have on region allocations. We also know the kind of influence they can have on their showroom shoppers. But that's all with respect to minimums. Looking at the "send me more" perspective is totally different... and it's what I was referring to.

Your point is well taken though.

 

It took Toyota 20 years to make a Rav4 hybrid, with no official word on a plug in yet.

 

That blatant attempt to change focus was rather lame. RAV4 only became a lead product recently. GM was pushing their SUV as a lead product for how long? DIVERSIFICATION was the focus. Toyota's first plug-in platform is only in its third year. We already see that a Corolla PHV is in the works. We also see that the platform for RAV4 capable of the same treatment is being rolled out this month.

This is why the topic of GM changing messages yet again about how they will pursue electrification is such a confusing mess. You can't make progress if there is no certainty about which direction to take.

 

Not really, no real harm done in killing the view. rav4 hybrid is a "better" view ;-) and it still doesn't sell all that well. The 2019 may sell better and a reviewer said it was the best model in the rav4 line. 2018 rav 4 hybrid sales were 48,124 down 5% from 2017. Still it was a better showing than for the prius liftback down 25% (partially offset by growth in the prius prime). The prius liftback only outsold the rav4 by 1400 units, which means its likely the rav4 will outsell the prius liftback this year.

The killing of the EV1 was an awful thing for gm, given forsight for many at the time, and hindsight even by the executives (wagoner and lutz) that killed it. GM had a lead to phev with the ovonics batteries and could be leading in bevs today, but ... the dealership model just weighed too much. Too many dealers and me too by in the late 1990s slowly choked gm to bankruptcy and lots of bad decisions.

GM is ahead of toyota when it comes to plug-ins but I'd really keep my eye on tesla, vw group, and bmw group, as well as chinese baic and byd. Those are the 5 leaders. Renault/Nissan sell more plug-ins than those groups but the vision there was off, and they are having trouble outside of europe and japan, while the US and china are the biggest markets.

 

Rhetoric comes from such vague claims.

What does "ahead" mean?

Toyota has far more experience with motor, controller, and software production & maintenance. Toyota also has taken the effort to diversify far further. We know they are investing heavily in battery development too.

The goal is to electrify the entire fleet quickly, phaseout of traditional vehicles is vital.

 

Hey I put them both behind 5th place ;-)

Bolt and CT6 phev, and E100 16 other plug-ins promised probably not nothing good until 2020. This is long run bev and phev, on top of their discontinued spark ev, ELR (both failures) and volt the best selling plug-in over its history in the US until the model 3, but looks like it will be discontinued in favor of the bolt and concentrating on some other phev.

Your goals seem to be at odds with toyota's as they are not electrifying quickly, in fact they are dragging there feet when it comes to plug-in vehicles. Toyota has the sucessful prime, and the failure mirai (not really electric, its a fuel cell with a battery buffer) and the still born EQ, and promises something but we aren't really sure what.

We do know toyota is behind tesla/panasonic and lg chem (choice of gm, hyundai, and renault) when it comes to phev and bev battery costs. Motors well who knows. I don't see any advantage over the competiors. Controlers, well tesla has SiC working well, and that tech is probably for sale, toyota AFAIK is in trials.

Investing more but producing less doesn't give you a lead. GM had a lead with the ev-1 they squandered it. Toyota had a lead, they could catch up but they don't seem to be trying. Tesla is currently in the lead with lowest cost reliable liquid cooled batteries, switched reluctance motors, and SiC controllers. Add on over the air software updates and charging infrastructure, there is a moat for both gm and toyota. BYD and BAIC have cost advantages and subsidies in the worlds biggest plug-in market (china). Tesla looks like they may be getting there with a chinese factory with chinese funding.

I'd like to see toyota get more in the game. It could be group think. As I mentioned on anouther thread, toyota could probably leverage there experience and put a 10 kwh phev platform together with their dynamic force engine for something like the rav4 and camry to hit those customers like you and drive down costs. IMHO the pushing of fcv may be delaying it as well as dealership pressures.

 

Like I said, rhetoric. That's not even moving goal posts, it's changing them out entirely. The GOAL has been to replace traditional vehicles with electrified choices. That means full hybrid or better. At no time was there ever a requirement by ANYONE that it must have a plug.

Ending production of traditional vehicles goes a long way toward setting the stage for plug. Embracing the idea that all their vehicles will have a battery-pack of some sort and a traction-motor of some sort is another way of stating that same goal.

 

Toyota's goal does not seem to be yours John.
By Toyota's actions, they are making as few 'alternative' vehicles as possible to get the CARB credits they need (at least, in the US).
Also, a hybrid IS a traditional vehicle IMO. How low can you lower that particular bar?

Even if you state you want to replace non-hybrid cars with hybrid versions, just how is that going?? Toyota has been working on that for 20 years, got a time table in mind?

 

It's a waste of time explaining to how important of a step Toyota is taking with their delivery of a 39 MPG hybrid. Not understanding the value of how that $28,000 offering will appeal to the common consumer obsessed with the idea owning a SUV means not understanding change. These are carefully thought out constructive stages targeting the uninformed & uninterested. So what if there is no plug yet?

I'm certainly not going to be an enabler making excuses for EV offerings that are clearly not able to compete with traditional vehicles yet. I'm going to encourage the abandonment of traditional vehicles immediately. Purchase the hybrid that fits your needs. Its ownership will make the taking the next step with a plug simple, as well as get a much cleaner vehicle on the road immediately. Plug will follow later.

There's a long wait for affordable EV choices still. Dependency on subsidies overwhelmingly confirms that. Toyota's newest hybrid platform now provides a quick & easy means of getting the transition moving in high-volume. What other legacy automaker offers side a wide array of cleaner choices already? Turning a blind-eye to why people resist change is what that "seems to be" tells me about this audience here.

You know I dealt with the vastly superior rhetoric from Volt enthusiasts from the very beginning. So when I say I recognize the same attitude in these discussions, there's no denying recognition of that pattern. It's the same "if you don't change the way I want you to, it doesn't count" nonsense. Change is difficult. Change takes time. Change will not take the path you want it to.

Don't let actions necessary to encourage change get dismissed as unimportant.