Owch: 11,799 Prius in August

Cash for clunkers made a difference in Prius sales. Looking at year to date it is not that bad. Gas is too cheap. Once Chindia growth soaks up the oil supply, things will look different.

 

How does this compare with the sales of other popular cars; the Toyota Camry, the Nissan Altima, and the Ford Fusion, for example?

 

looks to me like people are buying big again! big cars and trucks. current gas prices adjusted for inflation are probably cheaper than the 30 cents i was paying in 1972.

 

We got to buy into the GM dept so we can pay ourselves off... hmm.

 

One of the effects of C4C and the oil price spike was a shift to smaller cars. I would not take the purchasing of bigger cars right now as a signal that the country is moving there now, it is likely just a shifting of demand that needs to be averaged over time. The prius sales may not fully recover though with the mix of new fuel efficient vehicles coming on line, there will be much more choice. To really capture those new efficient buyers a plug is necessary, lets see what happens in 2012 when more plug ins and ev's are available.

 

or waiting for the Leaf/Volt/CT200h

 

Sales are lousy - but prices (from Toyota) haven't come down. It seems like Toyota is just shipping fewer cars to the dealers. I guess that makes more sense than Toyota losing money on every sale (i.e., they're not going to make it up on volume).

I wonder if Prius sales would pick up if Toyota offered a substantial discount - say $7K on a Prius III with Nav.

 

I doubt Toyota can discount the Prius as the yen is just rising compared to the dollar...

 

i could promise them one sale!

 

Yes, sales would go up with bigger discounts, that is how they made sales rise earlier in the year. These sales cleared out many buyers so the discounts need to get larger and larger just to keep volume up. With costs in japan, I would guess $7k discount on the III with nav would cause at least a $2k loss on every one they sold.

 

I'm not sure if this has any effect on Prius sales, but I have seen A LOT of Lexus HS250h hybrids over the past week. I have seen about five each day (no they are not the same ones) on my 48 mile, each way, commute to work and on my lunch breaks.

 

That's a long commute. Are you buying a hybrid soon. I would probably want a nicer drivers seat than a prius if I was in the car that much.

But no the link had a 7k drop in prius sales in the month last year and only a small blip up to 593 lexus hs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...es-plunge-as-clunkers-ends-economy-slows.html

Is that good news that prius fell the least of the top 3 selling toyota cars? Got to find a little bit of good spin.

 

Yep on all of the above, also auto sales are just generally bad compared to pre-recession levels. From Weak auto sales are latest sign of sluggish U.S. economy - Sep. 1, 2010

What really sucks is per August Auto Sales Weak Amid Economic Worries : NPR

Here's a C4C related story: A year ago, cash-for-clunkers spurred sales, but did it work? - USATODAY.com.

Don't know yet but Hybrid Market Dashboard | Hybrid Cars should have info soon on August 2010.

If one wants to see US sales broken down by automaker, see http://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/01/by-the-numbers-august-2010-the-c4c-hangover-continues/.

 

And I can promise them another one!

This is just an aftershock of a recessive economy that is taking time to ramp up. Remember that depression brings out the nationalist fervor in full colors, and on top, American car companies have just made a positive splash, and are aggressively pushing advertisements that trump up the patriotism combined with "reformed" car models. (Those Chevy ads with that all-American swanky man (machismo appeal)... or the cutesy Ford ads with a couple (middle class urban appeal))

Compared to last year, a variance of -1.5% is certainly not bad, but you really cannot say anything beyond that. If last year was bad, then Toyota certainly needs to worry a bit - a little incentive, and ads with human touch would go a long way in maintaining sales. In tough times, people usually need to be appreciated and helped; not in a patronizing manner, but in an helpful empathetic way.

As I see it -- any company that does not use this recession to loosen it up a little is wasting a huge opportunity. Any largess now will go a long way in getting customers, who will remember how they were treated when they were down and will repay back multi-fold to the company in good times.

This is ideal time for Toyota to think about ad campaigns with human appeal, integrate Prius into that. Sales are bound to zoom - because the car has value!

 

Ford, GM and Chrysler announced they're cutting production for the fourth quarter due to falling sales. The economy still sucks, so all the auto companies are hurting! No summer gas spike, so the cars that are selling tend to be the beloved behemoths! Gas will lunge as soon as a recovery sets in, then Fred and Ethel can sit in their brand new whales and whine about how someone should really do something about these gas prices!

 

exactly. same ol' same ol'.

 

Despite the oft made claims in this forum that the Prius is the best car in the world it remains a niche vehicle that is seen by most people as a car they might buy if the price of gas goes high enough. Right now gas prices are fairly low and falling so Americans, with their short memories and belief that conditions now will be conditions forever, are moving back to the larger vehicles they traditionally prefer.

 

Good point about the yen continuing its long-term rise against the dollar, but Toyota can avoid most of that by paying assembly costs in dollars. How to do that? Just start using the new plant Toyota built in Mississippi to assemble the Priuses for sale in America.

 

From figures from other articles it seems that luxury cars and SUVs gained while all cars declined most significant declines were in the lower costing cars, so corolas and fits fell much more than priuses. Other interesting items were that Lexus was the only luxury brand to have declining sales compared to the same month last year. Ford and Hyundai had the biggest increases in market share of the major companies while both had sales volume declines of 11%.

That would be nice. Toyota has instead decided to move corrolas to that plant to save money over manufacturing with union labor in California. They are increasing prius production in low cost thailand. Ford will be building their world car version of the focus, focus hybrid, focus phev, and focus ev. Nissan will move manufacturing of the leaf to the US in 2012.