Orimulsion is made from bitumen, but Chavez fired the chief proponents during a strike. I think they only sell it to China now, and no longer sell it to Florida . Very political substance. With the high price of Oil, companies now mix the Venezuelan bitumen with oil and sell it that way. The stuff could be burned in either oil or coal power plants, I don't know what happened when Venezuela changed its policy. At least one of the old oil plants will probably convert to natural gas. Florida utility wants to convert oil-fired power plant to natural gas | Arcticgas.gov Last year florida used 42,000 barrels of oil for electric generation, it used 1,026,000 in 2010. I assume they have transitioned to only use it for expensive peak power, and have added a large amount of cc natural gas to handle more of the base, freeing other gas power plants for peaking.
Encouranging probably does not do too much, though having GE charging stations at work with free power might help It has been reported that over the next 3 years years GE Medical will buy 12,000 Volt and 13000 other EVs. (GE to buy 25,000 electric cars -- 12,000 of them Chevrolet Volts) So that will help a little as its about 4K added sales per year. Don't know anything about the rate they are doing it at. Probably none until after the battery fix was in.. maybe waiting for 013models (maybe a lower price?) or could be some of the current sales.
Thanks.. actually it was interesting to visually see the correlation to drop in prius sales (from tsuanmi supply constraints I presume) and the pickup in Leaf sales and then the corresponding drop. Maybe the combination of low gas prices and the efficiency of the Prius make the Leaf a harder sell in the US right now (EV fuel cost differential is much higher in EU and other places).
Hey I don't follow sales numbers that much, is that the prius family? Or just the sedans? Or some other subset? I am honestly curious.
...well re: "encouraging" I was being slightly diplomatic as some web references say GE is "forcing" purchase.
The only Toyota number I've seen includes all of them - If you have a lower number, some might be broken out. Anyway you cut it, that is a much better number than we have seen in a long time, and a huge improvement from january.:rockon:
Thanks for putting this into perspective. In deference to our Volt loving friends, would it be possible to post a similar chart using months from launch as opposed to absolute dates on the x axis? That would be a better yet far from perfect comparison. Gas prices need to be factored in here as well.
Can you explain a little more? Don't quite follow your months from launch. Looks like Prius sales in the U.S.A for the 1st four years were: Toyota Prius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 2000 5.6k 2001 15.6k 2002 20.1k 2003 24.6k
Is there a valid reason you are quoting US sales rather than sold production ? Of course if you really wanted to, you could compare Volt sales in the US to Prius sales in Japan. Or Prius sales in the US and Volt sales in Japan. We can only guess how Volt sales would have been in 2000, although presumably then GM would not have launched a smear campaign against hybrid tech.
Because people asked, Gen 0 and 1 prius domestic japan sales in (1000s). Gen II was introduced in 2003 1997 0.3 1998 17.7 1999 15.2 2000 12.5 2001 11.0 2002 6.7 People use US figures for the prius because they look better until Gen III and the new Japanese incentives. No one expects US cars to sell in Japan, there are huge trade barriers. Toyota stuck with the gen 0 and created the gen 1 with sales that were not high. The big break through was the gen II. World wide sales in 2002 were just 28K the last full year of the Gen I, in 2004 the first full year of gen II they climbed to 126K. No real lessons here, just some perspective. You don't need to sell 50K cars in the first year of an innovative car. I don't expect the volt to have the success of the prius, but the sales figures are not bad.
Prius family. In February there were about 16,500 Prius liftback sales and 4,000 Prius v sales. The "family" total was the 4th best (best since April 2008). That liftback total was the 10th best, and the best since March 2011. You could say it was the best "real" month since April 2008 as the only months that beat it after that are March 2011 (gas+quake surge), and July and August 2009 (Gen 3 was new and CARS was running at the same time).
It's not the first year anymore. Only 1,023 in the second year is bad. As for perspective, people see things differently when they look back afterward, especially when it comes to remembering detail. Let's not forget that gas was less than $1 per gallon back then and basically no one cared about emissions. It was a very different time and there was no rush whatsoever to accelerate development. It was a good steady pace. There wasn't a tax-credit available either. The lesson is that there's been a ton of expectation downplay since rollout began, when reality immediately fell well short of the hype. Lastly, try to keep in mind that we were encouraged to guzzle back then. They told the spending would be "good for the economy". Many were also lead to believe that the really big vehicles were much safer. Now, we have different priorities. Yet, Volt sales in the second year are barely crawling along. Why? .
The whole perspective should be read taking in account the oil prices... average annual price (per bbl) 1997 - 18.97$ 1998 - 11.91$ 1999 - 16.55$ 2000 - 27.40$ 2001 - 23.00$ 2002 - 22.81$ 2003 - 27.69$ 2004 - 37.41$ 2005 - 49.81$ 2006 - 58.30$ 2007 - 64.20$ 2008 - 91.48$ 2009 - 53.48$ 2010 - 71.21$ 2011 - 87.48$ HISTORY OF CRUDE OIL PRICES Selling a new technology car, that saved gallons at the pump, was much more difficult when oil prices were low... Volt does not show any significant breakthrough technology, as Prius was back then. PHEV Prius conversions since 2004 show that is possible to "make a Volt out of a Prius"... 10k-15k a year now (120$/bbl) is a low sale total.
1K in a month in the second year. OMG. I gave you the detail. We all don't look back to how many volts were promised by the voices, and say their are not enough. volt in the second year, that is full year looks like it will outsell the prius in the second year. Not a big deal. But certainly no reason to tear our cloths and mourn the death of the volt as the greatest American failure. Give things time. Sales are bellow expectations, but are not bad. Where is your death of the leaf thread, expectations for that were much higher, and sales are lower. I remember people not wanting to buy gas from the terrorists in 2002. You are commenting on details of japanese domestic, which were heavily incentive's, both by miti and toyota. John, we all know you hate the volt. I don't see how this is in anyway responding to the thread. I posted figures that say it would be stupid to kill the volt, and put it in perspective. You may have been getting a different message from your neighbors in Minnesota, than we were getting down here. We were encouraged to find ways to import less foreign oil from the people that funded the terrorists. I guess we may have different memories, but do you have a clip from someone saying to use more gasoline other than a car company trying to sell you an SUV. That guzzle message came out in the 90s. You may want to look back at my figures and yours 1998 $11.91 cheap oil, 17.7K prii sold 2002 $22.81 still cheap oil, but much more, only 6.7K prii sold in japan. The big boom in sales was after the gen II redesign. Once the prius was established it followed gas prices, not when it was introduced to the initial adopters.
I thought I read that February sales figure for the Prius v too. But now, after looking, I can't find the source. Can you post a link?
This is US sales only. The big spike at the end is due to Gen2 Prius launch. The graph ends at Dec 2003. The tax deduction of $2,000 started in 2005. If average person's income tax rate is 25%, the deduction would come out to about $500. In 2006, Prius qualified for $3,150 full tax credit. Volt and Leaf qualify for $7,500 full tax credit from the start. Source
+1 Nice graph. IMHO US only sales are most appropriate. WW would need to start in 1997 and look worse on the prius. I think most are interested in how this thing compares selling in america. Yep the Japanese government subsidized their hybrids during incubation, the american tax payer did not help until it already looked like the prius would be a success. The lesson though should probably be subsidies helped get the prius going, not that we should hope MITI will incubate the new technologies. I'm not sure if the tax credit is too much, but a helping hand can get these plug ins established.
Not liking the current configuration is no secret, because it's clearly not targeted at the mainstream, doesn't equate to hate. It's your spin, repeatedly saying "kill" and "death" in response to my posts even though I never actually said that has confused matters. Volt fell well short of price, range, mpg expectations and now the "be patient" sales downplay is becoming a problem because it's falling too. What is realistic for sales at this point? .
