Late last year (November), Prius is officially available in Thailand for the first time. As far as I can tell, the public respond very positively about the car. But I can't help but notice when people talk about the Prius they have to explicitly mention that is a hybrid. Some people still don't know the Prius is a hybrid and have to ask around to confirm. That really confuses me...don't they know that Prius is a hybrid? I really find this hard to believe. I don't think anyone here have a similar story to share. Let's hope not.
lol Just in case our butts fall asleep when struck in traffic for hours. Or when the weather is not hot enough for you. They really thought of everything!
When I was in Bangkok last summer, it took us two hours to get to our hotel from the airport. I hope there will be less colorful Corolla taxis around too!
While many in the states know that the Prius is a hybrid, I bet very few could actually explain what a hybrid is what is actually hybrid about it. Lots of americans think the prius runs only on batteries for X miles, then on gas. Some think you have to manually change over from gas to battery power depending on your trip, like there is some plugin generator. The ignorance is amusing. I feel it is similar to how people "know" about many scientific happenings. The know of it, but couldnt tell you what it is or what it does or how it does what it does. Just that it is.
Sorry about the bad traffic. The taxis in Bangkok come in a lots of different colors because different companies own the taxis. So a taxi in green/yellow would be owned by one company while a red/blue taxi is owned by another company...and so on and so on...
Although there is some buzz in Thailand about the Prius, sales has not been high. As it's priced above a fully loaded Altis and the same price as the low-end Camry, the competition is fierce. Prius may have some buzz in some circles but with most prospective buyers, if asked to choose between the Prius and the Camry, they would buy the Camry.
I just figured something out. In the US, Lots of Hollywood big names drive the Prius and this gets the attention of the media and the tabloids. So the car got a lot of free publicity from all the hype. In Thailand, no such thing yet. Thoughts?
Good point with some relevance to the Thai market. If local celebs drove the Prius, no doubt sales would be impacted. Right now the Prius is new to the market and as a result sales are slow. It will pick up. That's the same situation with the Camry Hybrid when it went on sale here. Very slow at first and now the sales are brisk.
And the Thai version of the Prius has a heads up display (HUD), a feature lacking on the US model. Hard to believe that.
So an ordinary but educated and well-informed citizen like myself won't change anything? lol I drove my aunt just the other day when she asked how far can it go on a liter. So I checked the real-time consumption and told her it was around 4 liter/100Km (~58.8 MPG) and she didn't believe me! Then she worked it out in her head and said she might buy one if it can really get that mileage. Maybe people just have to see what it can really do before they can decide for themselves.
People will make up their own minds. And of course people from all walks of life. However, celebs (and marketing campaigns) do raise awareness.
I have seen quite a few Camry hybrids while in BKK. I think people just need to be educated. But, glad to see hybrids have invaded the Thailand market. I saw the television ads and billboards advertising the Prius while there.
Yes, education is needed. But I think it has to go beyond TV and billboards ads. People should be informed about the environmental and energy issues related to using vehicles. To me the 'Green' movement in Thailand is mostly practiced as a small grassroots movements in small rural communities. I don't see it going 'mainstream' yet.
