Toyota Plans For Prius To Dominate US Sales

Hybrids are mainstream for Toyota. As you said the Prius makes up 12% of Toyota's car sales and hybrids make up 11% of Toyota's total vehicle sales in the US. Toyota has targeted a niche and is attempting to make it mainstream.

However Toyota sells 80% of all hybrids in the US and the Prius alone makes up 50% of total hybrid sales. For the industry as a whole hybrids are still a small niche. Honda is the 2nd largest seller of hybrids but hybrids only make up 2% of their total sales.

Likewise other companies have targeted niches:

• Subaru targets AWD and 100% of their vehicles are AWD.
• VW is targeting diesels and 20% of their total vehicle sales are diesels.

 

"The new Prius has been designed to elbow its way into the upper ranks of the U.S. passenger car market"

That's not a suprising statement at all coming from Toyota management. Remember at the introduction of The 3rd Generation of The Prius at The Detroit Auto Show it was described as being Toyota's "Halo Vehicle".

All Automakers are going to slap their mule on the rump and call it a racehorse. Not that The Prius is a mule.

What IS suprising to me, is Toyota on one level continues to say they want and expect to mainstream The Prius. However, in my opinion their current advertising for The New Prius is so focused on the already in place current Prius/Hybrid crowd. I've harped on it a lot, but it isn't IMO a mainstreaming advertising approach. So I'm not sure everyone at Toyota is exactly on the same page.

Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men...the best "advertising" or wave of momentum as far as selling a lot of Prius would unfortunately for most, be gas getting back up into the $4.00 a gallon range.

Don't need a lot of subtlety or debate about advertising approach if that happens. Basicly all Toyota would have to do to reach a lot of 1st time Hybrid Prius consumers is show the EPA ratings. My feeling is in the US, if gas reaches $4.00 plus a gallon and you haven't at least thought about a Hybrid, then you probably are unreachable as a potential buyer.

If gas stays at less than $3.00 for most of the summer? Toyota needs to ditch the singing nature sprites.

To me The Prius isn't a automobile that can "elbow" it's way to any market share. If it's going to expand it's base it's going to because it makes sense to buyers and deserves it. I don't want to step on fellow Prius lovers toes, but selling the Prius mainstream based on "mainstream" appeal is difficult. As well as it is designed, outside of Hybrid technology and class leading gas mileage and emissions, which are HUGE considerations The Prius is to the non-hybrid crowd, simply a comfortable hatchback.

So there is the catch-22, sell the Prius mainstream based on it's "real" car attributes and suddenly it's competing against regular automobiles that without the mechanics of Hybrid Synergy Drive, can probably offer more comfort, space and ammenities, (as well as probably better acceleration, speed) for less price. So you come full circle, to sell more Prius you need to make owning one more attractive to those that have never owned or considered owning one, and the one thing that would make that happen. Prohibitively high gas prices. So Toyota must simultaneously design a Hybrid that drives as much as possible like a standard automobile, while banking that the attributes of it being a hybrid will become more attractive to everyone. If that happens it will be because fuel has become more expensive, not because a lot of people have decided having a solar roof that turns on and powers a fan is a "must have" extra. Toyota's current advertising campaign tries to sell the Prius based on an idealistic approach. Harmony between Man, Nature and Machine. Well unfortunately, that isn't going to reach a lot of people that haven't already bought a Prius. I hate to say it, but the next evolution of reachable consumers of The Prius will be those seeking harmony between Themselves, Their Bank Accounts and The Ability to drive as much as they use to drive even as Gas continues to become more and more expensive.

 

From looking at http://www.gm.com/corporate/investor_information/docs/sales_prod/08_12/deliveries_0812.pdf, your 2008 GM full-sized SUV sales #s look about right. It tells me one thing: many Americans still were/are still foolishly buying monstrosity class SUVs, many of which they don't need and they don't give a crap about dependence on foreign oil, being a larger part of the oil demand problem, safety of other drivers, nor CO2 emissions.

Something needs to be done be it $4/gallon (or higher) gas price floors, allowing the gas guzzler tax to apply to "light trucks", huge penalties/taxes for buying such beasts, mandatory lower speed limits for such vehicles (due to their high curb weight, poor handling and poor braking), other disincentives to buy them, etc.

 

Sorry, to post again...

But I love the picture on the front page. Dr. Evil is perfect. I now have the mental imagery of Dr. Evil telling GM and Ford that if he doesn't receive One Million Dollars, he is going to produce and mass market an Automobile that get's 50 miles to the gallon!

 

Won't be long. Gas is already back over $3/gallon around here and OPEC has reported that they won't be increasing supply until a barrel of oil reaches $100.

I would really prefer a gas tax as then that money would stay here in the US, but no one has the balls to push that sort of legislation through.

Maybe California with it's current budget crisis could do it, but the 2/3rds majority requirement to get anything through legislation kills any chance of that happening.

 

gas just went to $2.72 here... considering it was only around $2.55 or so on memorial day..

 

Which auto company was given $20B to meet cash flow this past quarter ?

 

Note that 2007 was used as a comparison. That was a different world ... and hopefully the new GM management will no longer try to remain there. Toyota doesn't live in it, neither do more & more folks. Not many folks have taken a 'peak-oil' reality check. This may be a big reason Toyota is elbow'ing hybrids into markets not yet seen. Right now, hybrids are still 'strange'. Each time gas spikes, more & more people move into the new world. In So Cal btw, many areas are back above $3 gallon ... so that 'new reality' is striking out into new markets, again. Example: One of my gearhead co-workers today just mentioned the new Toyota ads (weird, imo). "HEY, those flowers & streams & clouds are PEOPLE! ... neet!" I had to do a double take. It blew me away, that people of that ilk would be intrigued w/ the Toyota hybrid marketing. I can't imagine those ads reaching out though ... marketing isn't my greatest strength apparently.

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there was a survey, Consumption |

that asked what people did to be green. nearly everyone changed lightbulbs, but only 14 % bought a hybrid. being here sometimes gives the impression that hybrids are very common in the general population. add that to the fact that i live in an area that has a much higher percentage of hybrid owners than most of the US and its hard to imagine that hybrids are not more popular than they are.

but i spent 3 days in Detroit courtesy of Toyota for the 2010 intro and only saw one Prius (Wayne's Pri... a fellow PC'er) and i was looking for them. granted spent a lot of time in the hotel, but did do a 20 mile drive to the airport going and coming in broad daylight...

it was weird. around here, you cant go more than one minute without seeing at least one Pri let alone other makes of hybrids out and about

 

Your lack of knowledge about the auto industry is astounding.

I can see the Prius inventory levels for the the entire East Coast. There are almost ZERO 2009s left on the ground. There are ZERO 2009 Prius' at various ports. The ones there are the 2010's which just arrived.

It appears that you have no knowledge at all about how things work at Toyota. You are amazingly dumb for someone who allegedly runs a family dealership. If all you go by is what you read in tarnished reports that feed you with what you want to hear it's not surprising that your perspective is so far off kilter.

 

After reading several "comments" on other web sites I suspect that the Prius (hybrid flagship of Toyota) is considered UnAmerican in the heartland and Dixie. There are lots of comments about ricers, WW2, Japs, unsupported "American Car Companies," and unemployed U.S. workers. Many people seem to think it's unpatriotic to buy any auto that's not labelled by the "big" three...even if they didn't make its parts etc. GM's Chinese auto venture may tell us a lot.
I believe that costs of gas and autos will drive hybrid growth or lack thereof in spite of gov't nudging. Camry is not the target it once was and assembly in the U.S. has helped public perception a little.
As long as the "big" three exists Prius and Toyota will have to deal with prejudice from Joe the Plumbers and Joe the Americans.
A quality product at a fair price is the best starting place. A quality product at a "steal" would erase a lot of prejudice.

 

Thanks for posting. I find that interesting.

 

Wow! Toyota is exceeding their "a million hybrid a year by 2010" goal.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aZBM5QhRMcr0

 

Here in the bay area, the Prius is the most common model of passenger car on the road by far. It's not uncommon for mine to end up in a heard of 5 or more Gen IIs all together on the freeway. My car's even been in a heard as large as 8 all at the same time.

 

wow that is saying a lot. we have a much larger percentage of Pri's here compared to most of the US but not that much. i will say that no matter where i am at in town, i cant go more than a minute without seeing one.

a few years ago, we took a drive to Seattle taking surface streets and we decided to see how many Pri's we could spot. now this was 3-400,000 Pri's ago and we were seeing more than one a minute al the way there.

for a while we were having a contest to see would could spot them first. we stopped counting when the score was like 100 to 80 (i was driving so i was losing the game but at least we didnt hit anything!)

 

My 5 year old daughter plays the Prii counting game. She did it before we even owned one so it's not like she was familiar with it already.

 

It may seem like that, and there's a lot around here, but I'd bet Camrys and Corollas are still more common in numbers (they've been produced longer so that helps).

Far as Prius dominating US sales, what is meant? Sales of hybrids, Toyotas line, ???

Given the Gen2's success and the fact the 3rd Gen is improved in key areas of power, space, seats, looks, fuel economy and lower entry price (remember, a 2008 pack2 was ~ $24.5k MSRP ....

now Prius II w/CF is $22,950 and is 'good enough' for those just coming on board ... that's over $1,500 savings.) ....

to me, it's a no brainer that the 3rd gen will become much more common, mainstream than the gen2 car.

 

I'd love to see the density of sales by state. Around here, I see many more Esclades and Hummers than Prii. For example, yesterday afternoon, we went to the DiamondBacks game which is about 60 miles round trip. I saw no more than 5 Prii of any generation. And I'm looking for them.

 

Actually, I think that those elements will be even more threatened by the increased of success of Japanese auto makers.
Therefore, I believe that Toyota management should refrain from using words such as "dominate". Maybe in the Japanese culture that is acceptable business terminology, but to others it is very threatening and devisive. It just serves to add fuel to the fire.