Unsold sea of hybrids

well. i was at local dealer on Tuesday and they had 16 Pri's on the lot ready to go. but they also had one freshly sold one sitting in pickup area waiting for its new owner

 

I'm certain the math checks out. Let's give it a shot:

Let's say that 80% of all hybrids are Toyota. That means 480,000 of the 600,000 are Toyota hybrids. If each dealer has 16 available for sale, then all we have to worry about is how many of the 30,000 dealers are going to go out of business.

Hmm. 30,000 Toyota dealers. I'll include all 50 states and D.C., but leave out Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa, and let you know that means that each county has about 10 Toyota dealers with 16 unsold hybrids.

Does that sound right to anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Oh: Toyota didn't make 600,000 hybrids this past year?

Facts, Smacts.

 

My nearest Toyota dealer has more than 300 hybrids on his lot, the majority are the Prius. 600,000 is too many but I am sure it is at least 100,000.

 

hmm... actually the number is more like approximately 20,000 Pri's per one estimate of car salesman i talked to. he had no guess as to other models... was wondering where this thread was headed

 

On Tuesday, the dozen Toyota dealers nearest me had 456 Priui, or an average 38 each (from Edmunds.com). I have no clue if that is representative of the 1445 dealerships nationwide.

 

Those numbers are much more believable. At only 100,000 unsold hybrids, with 80,000 of them Toyotas, and 300 unsold at every Toyota dealer, we only need 333 Toyota dealers nationwide to be stockpiling like this.

OK. OK. Let's say one-half of the dealers have 16 unsold and the other half have 300 unsold. . . where's that algebra book . . . then we have 510 Toyota dealers, nationwide, looking to unload those hybrids. (253 with 300 each, 256 with 16 each and one lucky dealer holding only 4!)

Whew! It's a good thing that all of the other cars are selling.

 

There are ~1,200 US Toyota dealers. Longo in El Monte, CA is the largest Toyota dealer. They've got 56 new Prius currently in their inventory.
Toyota new certified car dealer in El Monte CA. Toyota Prius new cars for sale online at Longo Toyota, a El Monte new Toyota and certified car dealer.

Rancho Santa Margarita Toyota is the closest to my home and has 12 on the lot.
http://www.toyotarsm.com/New-Invent...page=1&totalrecords=12&hyperlinkargument=page

My guess is that the average dealer probably has 20 Prius on the lot, so there might be 24,000 for sale nationwide.

600,000 hybrids is around four years worth of US Prius sales.

 

Yes car salespeople are a great source of national days supply. There are more than 20,000 sitting in long beach and los angeles harbor.

 

Which dealership is that? Longo Toyota have only 56 Prius (new and used) on their lot. If your dealership has over 300 hybrids on the lot and the majority (at least 150 therefore) are Prius I'd like to know where it is so that I may verify your statement.

 

Thanks to all for providing the data I was missing!

At 20,000 unsold Prius and 1445 dealers, I get an average of about 14 unsold per dealership.

I wonder how many Tahoes remain unclaimed? Probably fewer per dealership, anyway.

 

If you want to see a sea of unsold vehicles, drive by the Manheim facility east of Las Vegas, NV. Looks like they've got tens of thousands of cars sitting there and gathering dust.
Manheim

 

Rudy Luther in Mpls at 2 toyota stores.
160 prius
67 camry hybrids
48 highlander hybrids

275 online and there are at least 100 not listed.

 

I think it all makes sense. After all, 500,000,000 Americans are losing their jobs every month according to Nancy Palosi.

 

That dealer has ~750 vehicles at each of the two locations, so they've got around 1,200 non-hybrid Toyotas for sale. I guess all this means is that they've got lots of new Toyotas for sale, no big surprise given the economy.

 

You know it is bad when companies have to resort to renting ships to store unsold cars because all of their parking lots, dealer lots, racetracks, etc are full:

Toyota renting ships to store unsold cars - MotorAuthority - Car news, reviews, spy shots

 

having a large number of unsold Pri's at one dealership is no indication of what is available country wide. there is no doubt a glut of all cars currently being sold. but the allotment each dealership gets is dependent on how many they have sold previously. get away from each coast, and the # of Pri's sold drops off rather suddenly. major cities have a good history of volume on Pri's but there are some dealerships that have never gotten a lot of Pri's at any time.

but if you look at monthly sales figures back when Pri's were in short supply and sales figures now, even if we take the average difference over the past 5-6 months, thats adds up to nowhere near 100,000....so where did all this extra capacity come from?

 

Three months of unsold Prius in the US would be about 50,000 yes?. That's my presumed upper limit for the current extent of the sea.

 

If there truly is a sea of unsold Toyota products, what hope is there for an insolvent corporation like GM? I hate to see them go under, but I think any further assistance is just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

 

Thanks!

After checking their prices, I understand why.

Bob Wilson