Featured Should Toyota kill off the iconic Prius?

I don't think that it being a hybrid is what's keeping the sales figures low. It's a relatively expensive car with 122 HP. Slap the 2L Dynamic Force engine, latest safety/autonomous driving tech, and a few other niceties like cooled seats which competitors are starting to offer at that price point, it will sell like hotcakes.

 

What i would wish for is not specific details in a new Prius, but for management at Toyota to once again embrace the values and spirit that led them to the G21 Project in the first place.

"Development of the Prius started in autumn 1993. I was appointed to lead the project, with only two orders to guide my R&D team. One was to “create a car for the twenty-first century”; the other was to “change Toyota’s vehicle development process. We foresaw that energy and the environment must be a serious problem in the twenty-first century, but no one had come up with the answers yet, no one was doing anything about that."

from "Creating Innovation Conducive to Energy and the Environment" By Takeshi Uchiyamada, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/13781Uchiyamada.pdf

I have read some of Uchiyamada-san's recent arguments against Battery Electric Vehicles, like it takes too long to charge and they are too expensive, and I wonder, what happened to the those big dreams of 1993?

 

if you say so ... but does that mean they're driving without a drivers license?

Why are fewer young people getting driver’s licenses?

The Decline of the Driver's License - The Atlantic

Driving? The Kids Are So Over It - WSJ

Why Aren't Young People Interested in Getting Licences or Buying Cars?
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Delaying it until they actually need a car is a possible answer. Going to need a license even for a BEV after all, and the Ubers will need them.
Then culture does change over time.

I have just one issue with Sivak's research with looking at 16 year olds with licenses. We couldn't get a license at 16 in the state I grew up in, and after me and my brothers got licenses, more restrictions were being put on younger drivers. Like having at least one adult passenger when not driving alone, or no driving after sunset. While these may have reduced car crashes, they do negate some of the reasons teenages want a license.

 

Wasn't that the intention with 4th Gen? And sales tanked?

 

Toyota made the looks to polarizing. The gen2 and gen3 were different from the norm in the US, but Kammback hatchbacks aren't that rare elsewhere, and split rear windows have been on other cars. The styling was conservative, without weird lights and funky accent cues.

 

I work with a lot of kids in their 20s and they drive Hondas with splayed out wheels and fart mufflers and WRXs with things that make them noisy as all hell. I've asked a few if they would drive a Prius and the looks I've gotten would tell me "No".

 

What do they think about the Tesla cars?

Bob Wilson

 

These are all before COVID-19. Used car dealers can’t keep enough cars on hand to sell. Prices of used cars are up. It’s one of the best times to trade in your 8 year old car.

4th Gen GR or Gs models have never been released in the USA.

 

In 2019, I traded in my 2017 Prius Prime for $18.3k on our Std Rng Plus Model 3. Best deal after buying TSLA stock I've ever made.

Bob Wilson

 

Tesla down $12 today! Buy NIO.

 

Thanks, I'll have to increase my buy order threshold.

Bob Wilson

 

You like to live dangerously

 

Here is what I've done. Obviously hydrogen wins! (*)

Bob Wilson

* - I'm not sympathetic to the foolish.

 

Good for you! Obviously modesty is not your virtue.

 

Just as facts and data are not yours.

Bob Wilson

 

Easy come easy go....be careful, been down this road before.

My facts don’t meet your needs,, so they are frowned upon. Modesty has nothing to do with data or facts. It is what it is.

 

The U.S. Is Backing Hydrogen Trucks With A New $100 Million Initiative | OilPrice.com
Hydrogen news just keeps coming

 

Great!

I've often wondered about your curious, funny postings.

Bob Wilson

 

From oil to hydrogen: Saudi Arabia embraces the ‘H Factor’ | Arab News