Gen 5 Prius Prime will charge almost twice slower than Gen 4 Prius Prime

yeah, deceiving honda website. when you click on honda accord hybrid, it shows 27,300 with asterisk.

that's non hybrid

 

The Accord is a full size sedan; it's bigger than the Avalon.

The new Prius PHV starts at 4.6 million yen, which is around $35k. That might include a VAT, but then there is shipping in getting it to the US, and currency differences. Let's look at the Prius. It is 2.75 million yen. Direct conversion is under $21k. It starts at $27,450 in the US.

A starting price for the new Prime of $35k would likely be the lowest possible.

 

PURIUSU would be the Roma-ji spelling of the Prius. But, pronunciation is more like "pliəs" since no Japanese make the English "r" sound.

To me, the second pronunciation for the Japanese on this page is often heard pronunciation, but since the word Prius has no Japanese etymology, there are several variations that are all acceptable.
Toyota Prius pronunciation: How to pronounce Toyota Prius in English, Japanese, Italian, French

 

Where are you getting this from? Is this your estimation? If you're claiming this is going to be the US official price, what's your source? Because I haven't heard of Toyota USA releasing that info yet.

BTW, a $30,440 price tag for a 2023 SE would only be $575 more than a 2022 Prius Prime LE base price. That doesn't seem very realistic.

Kirk Kreifels is predicting:
SE $36,800
XSE $41,300
XSE+ $46,400

I'm a little more optimistic and predicting:
SE $35,400
XSE $38,900
XSE+ $42,400

(all prices rounded to hundreds and including destination fees)

 

If you can hear the sound of a Japanese saying "ra ri ru re ro" with English "R" sound, then you are more like a native Japanese. For them, there is no difference in the sound ra-la, ri-li, ru-lu, re-le, ro-lo. In Japanese, there are neither R or L sounds of the English phonetic R and L. The Japanese sound is more of a cross between the English R and L. But I think the tapping sound in Japanese "R" with the tip of the tongue touching the top front of the palate when pronouncing is closer to the English L sound than the rolled tongue of the English R.

Here is a vocal lesson you can listen.

 

Here is an even better Youtube video explaining the difference between English R and Japanese R. RI is the letter in PURIUSU.

 

Second the question on where you heard this.

That would be a smaller difference between the 2023 hybrid and PHEV that there was in the 2022 models.

The top trim Prius AWD in Japan is around $30k. If comparable to the US Limited, it's about a $5000 increase to import here will all the considerations.

 

I think you're going to be disappointed. I think your major flaw is comparing the Japanese G grade to the US LE trim instead of the XLE. Kreifel makes a similar mistake the other way by comparing the Japanese PHEV Z grade to the Prime XSE instead of the XSE+. In your case, I think you're so focused on the difference in engines that you don't see that the Japanese X grade(fleet sales) is actually the proper comparison for the LE.

If nothing else, why aren't you starting by comparing the FWD & AWD Z-grade HEVs to the FWD & AWD Limiteds since those are apples to apples and then working from there? You'd see that the FWD is a $7500 markup and the AWD is a $7200 markup.


My method:

I looked at the 6 non-subscription Japanese Prius HEV trims(X,G,Z plus FWD/AWD) and compared those to the six US trims(LE,XLE,LTD plus FWD/AWD). I converted the Japanese prices from yen to USD and compared them to the US prices including destination fees. I found a pretty consistent pattern of a $7500 markup +/- $200. So we take the PHEV Z price of 4.6M yen, convert to $34,900, and add $7500 to get us roughly $42,400 for the XSE+.

Then I looked at the price differences between the three US grades(LE/XLE/LTD) and there's roughly a $3,500 difference between each grade. So $35,400 for the SE and $38,900 for the XSE.



I guess we'll see who's closer to correct in a few weeks whenever Toyota USA finally decides to release their prices.

 

Dammit. All that number crunching I just did pretty much confirms for me to not wait for a Prime; the cost differential is just going to make it not worth it. My out the door prices are looking something like this:
FWD: $41,200 (+$7300 to get Prime)
AWD: $42,700 (+$5800 to get Prime)
Prime: $48,500
(That's all fees, options, desired accessories, and taxes, but no unwanted accessories or dealer markups. Yes, I want pretty much everything on the car and have reasons for it.)

I hope I'm wrong with my estimates and the differential gets below $4k, but that hope is at almost zero. Basically $6k or $7.5k is way too much to pay for 25 extra horsepower and some small gas savings that won't mean much in my climate(5 months of the average daily high temp being below 40F). Guess I just need to decide between FWD and AWD and give up on my Prime hopes. <sigh>

 

I think your point is valid in some instances but not universally applicable. Try to have a Japanese native speaker read the word スプリング("supuringu" in Roma-ji). Most will pronounce it as if it is spelled "spling". Similarly, the Japanese word "フリー” (furī) would mean both free and flea and is pronounced exactly the same as in the case of freelance フリーランス(furīransu) and flea marketフリーマーケット(furīmāketto) both of which are often used Japanse words nowadays.

While the English alphabet R and L can be used in a word and pronounced differently depending on the word containing them, the Japanese has no alphabet that is equal to R or L. The letter リ which is written in Roma-ji as "ri" is a single letter and single syllable and has only one way to pronounce it no matter where this letter is located within a word.

English speakers would pronounce the word Prius in two syllables Pri-us, while Japanese speakers would pronounce プリウス(puriusu) in 4 syllables pu/ri/u/su. The second letter リ（ri ）is pronounced the same way whether it is in the middle of a word or in front of the word. But again, since this word has no Japanese etymology, many people change the way it is pronounced. And that is completely acceptable. Have you ever heard how a native Japanese speaker pronounces the Corolla or カローラ(karōra)? You quickly realize that the English speakers have been pronouncing this car name totally wrong. LOL

 

@Salamander_King @Gokhan @Trollbait - kindly take your personal discussions offline. I've just lost 15 minutes I won't get back reading your recent posts that have nothing to do with the OP.

 

Sorry to have you waste your time. But I must say that you can simply unfollow the thread or use ignore function if you don't want to read others chatting on off-topic subjects. Topic diversion is a very common thing on PC, and I have learned that it is largely allowed here, especially in the case of OP-initiated diversion. Please report the case to the moderator and let him take care of it. I am fine with all of my off-topic comments being removed from the thread. But, if the topic diversion and casual chatting are going to be disallowed on PC, then I will probably leave this forum since I no longer own Prius.