Prius Family Sales - November 2012

Thanks for the breakdowns.

PiP outsold C-Max Energi (1,259), Volt (1,519) and Leaf (1,539). They all are pretty close but the rollout of PiP and Energi are still in the launch states.

C-Max hybrid is doing great with 4,848.

 

a lot of that 80% is also not because new models, but because hybrids have had significant shortages last year due to lack of components (tsunami, floods).

Another point is that with addition of very good Camry Hybrid, Avalon Hybrid, ES300h hybrid there is certainly some competition within a brand.

Personally, few years ago I would get Prius for sure (within Toyota brand)... Today, Avalon and Camry Hybrid are very, very good competitors as well as CT200h.

Toyota might appeal to more people with Prius redesign and gas prices might get more people to buy hybrids in general, but overall I dont think Prius will enjoy % of overall pie in US as it did before. Actual numbers may go up but % it wont be the same.

 

This is why I'm more interested in the Dashboard report. Hybrid sales as a percentage of total vehicle sales had been running between 2.5-3.0%. Of these sales, the Prius hatchback had been running 66% of all hybrids but the options were limited:

• Honda - good performance, mid-40s, but small
• Ford - Ok performance, low-40s, more North American style

So the Prius family has expanded to cover both ends of the hatchback price-performance. The 'prius c' covers smaller, a Honda challenge and the 'prius v' the Ford side. That the hatchback continues to be 2x each end just shows brilliance of the 1.8L Prius design in our market. But as we used to say, 'this is just shifting the rubble.'

Hybrids need to become a more significant part of the car market and not just in California. We need to see hybrids becoming +5% of the market and that is the real challenge. I am of course using 'hybrids = fuel-efficient' but only because that has been the case for the past decade.

So I'm more interested in seeing fuel efficient vehicles becoming a significant part of new car sales. When I see significant numbers of high 20s and low 30s MPG cars still selling well, I'm not reassured. Given the average 11 year age of today's fleet, these 'gas burners' are going to stay on the roads for over a decade . . . a cruel financial drain on kids and young families in the future.

Bob Wilson

 

I'm not sure if you're referring to combined, city, highway or highest mpg number, but if that's combined mpg, you'll have a bunch of anti-hybrid folks touting their "40 mpg" (highway) or near "40 mpg" (highway) cars as having "great" mileage, when they're in the low 30s for combined mpg.

I don't expect the November '12 equivalent of Average Fuel Economy for New Cars Sold Stay Flat For Third Straight Month at 23.2 MPG in October 2012 According to TrueCar.com’s TrueMPG to be much different.

Still too many sub-20 mpg combined land barges are selling. From looking at the chart at Toyota | November 2012 Sales Chart and http://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/gmcom/investor/2012/Deliveries_Nov%202012.pdf (from General Motors | Investors - Sales & Production | GM.com), it looks like GM monstrosity class (curb weight of 5200+ lbs) SUVs in total for the month outsold the Prius family. That doesn't count their monstrosity class pickup trucks.

It always blows my mind the insane % of battering ram of death class SUVs I see running around in my area, almost always being driven solo or w/minimal cargo and passengers. And, when I see very new ones, I just can't help but shake my head and feel disgusted.

 

Does anyone actually get 40 MPG in those 40+ highway cars? We turned over half of our fleet of cars at work this year, new ford focus, 40mpg highway car. Every car you get in is averaging 25mpg. I don't think it's right how car companies advertise 40mpg on commercials and people lap it up. Infuriating to think we could've bought a bunch of Prius instead. I'm starting to see our main competitor driving around in Prius V's.

 

LOL!

Our PriusChat community sure posts a bunch about Fords and Hyundai cars not meeting their EPA rating while the '40 MPG highway' fraud continues. Makes you want to walk away shaking your head in wonder.

Bob Wilson

 

I call BS on those near 40 mpg claims as well. Those owners claim they don't need the hybrid cost to get good mileage...but they really drive their cars in the city 90% of the time and really get 22 mpg. We get 50. We use almost half the gas.

 

I wouldn't necessarily call the practice of advertising only the highest EPA number fraud, but it is sure damned annoying and misleading. As cycledrum and I have harped on in the past, it ought to be illegal. It should be either:
- advertise ALL 3 numbers (city/highway/combined) in equal prominence OR
- if only advertising one number, ONLY combined is allowed

If it's an audio only ad, same thing goes: all 3 or just combined.

I seem to sometime recall hearing ads where they'll just say "up to xx mpg" w/o even qualifying it is as highway, city or combined.

The worst part is the fanboys of their "high" (highway) mpg non-hybrids is that they'll be fixated on EPA highway mileage ratings only and have a mistaken belief that those numbers are applicable to most drivers. Not everyone lives and works on a highway and is able to complete most of their commute at highway speeds. I point this out and get slammed by those fanboys. They'll also make ridiculous comments along the lines of "oh yeah, your hybrid helps you so much when you have to stop for a single traffic light". Ummm... there are times when I hae to stop for almost every light and sometimes am waiting many minutes at a light.

I've posted this elsewhere before (which also relates to EPA test cycles):
Per http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf (from NHTS Publications) on page 54, the average commute speed in a private vehicle in 09 was 28.87 mph. Also for private vehicles, the average commute travel trip length was 12.09 miles and average commute travel time was 22.85 minutes.

You'd obviously be starting off w/a cold engine so that makes the city cycle especially relevant (Detailed Test Information) as it and the cold temp cycle are the only two that start w/cold engines and both are 31.2 minutes long. The city test's average speed is 21.2 mph and simulated distance is 11 miles.

The highway and other cycles all start w/warm engines.

Also look at page 32 of the above PDF (Figure 6. Average Time Spent In Vehicles and Miles Traveled 2001 and 2009 NHTS). Notice in 2009 miles, the # of miles traveled is ~30-40 while the time spent is ~60-65 minutes? It's clear they're not doing highway speeds but are instead going ~30 to 35 mph.

 

First hybrids are doing really well this year, as are smaller more fuel efficient cars. That's a good thing. November may be down for the prius family, but its had a very good year, and I expect hv, phev, and bev as a whole to do better next year as long as congress doesn't send us over a fiscal cliff.

As to mpg claims YMMV and many of us including the car magazines don't get as good as the epa claims on hybrids or any other car.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/mileage-moment-of-truth-we-put-40-mpg-claims-to-the-test-6651300

The Truth About EPA City / Highway MPG Estimates - Feature - Car and Driver

Note the car mags did much better with the prius liftback than with the prius c or c-max. That doesn't mean Toyota cheated on the test with the prius c, or that some drivers, especially on a website won't claim much better milage. Check out a VW website and how high disel goes, and how the prius lies in its ratings. The epa test is not how we drive. But yes there is false advertising. I pass a big bilboard that has the camry hybrifd on it, but it shows only the higher city mpg in big type, I don't think you can even read the small print about other figures is you are traveling at the 65 mph speed limit.

 

Hi everybody. Pretty disappointing numbers for the liftback considering it's been well over 12k/mo many times. Could it be the new C-Max hybrid is chewing straight into the liftback numbers? 180 something HP in C-Max. But, yeah, apparently 38.5 MPG, ugh.

I'm averaging about 50.5 MPG over 8,500 miles, SF Bay Area, temps from 40F winter lows to 80F summer highs, mixed driving, but I don't take the car to the store 1 mile away much, use another car for that.

I'm hoping the 4th gen liftback Prius coming in '15 gets ...

* Make it more robust, mfr. ours in US to lower the price. Little painful to see liftback priced at $3k more than Camry and $7k more than Corolla everyday in newspaper.

* More net horsepower, maybe 150 HP, but hold the average fuel economy
* Bit wider to really hold 3 adults in backseat. Increase load capacity to about 900 lbs (five 180 lb average adults w/o cargo).
* More robust feel making it a better highway and mountain touring car. Limit the curb weight increase to about 100 lbs, a 3,142 lb car.

* Lose the floating bridge console, more steering wheel adjustability please!
* Change body style slightly to make it more appealing, but keep it a liftback. No trunk. Already have Camry.
* Improve voice recognition, doesn't work great now.

Note - Make Bluetooth standard in all new cars, with voice recognition so people aren't texting while driving 10 years from now!

 

Hybrids Sales At All-Time High For Toyota Canada | Hybrid Cars

 

there is no doubt that Prius driver averages 48-50 MPG on average on all measurement sites while these "40 MPG" cars do 28-32 MPG, same as 4AT Corolla thats 34 MPG highway.

It is very much the same story as with C-Max hybrid, except the problem there is that people buy it due to MPG and Prius drivers buy it thinking they might get 3-4 MPG less but end up in nicer car with more hp.

Media does not help, I have read 100 articles that questioned point of hybrid if there is 40 MPG cheap car out there...

Problem with these 40 MPG highway claims is not that you cant get that number, but that nobody lives on the highway and has empty road that they can drive stead 60 MPG on. By the time you pull out of your driveway, into the highway, slow down and accelerate few times, you are 30 MPG and you wonder why in the world you didnt get 50 MPG hybrid.

Another thing that i noticed is that Manuals are still very superior in mpg in real life to AT... these days, you dont see ratings bigger for manuals, but many manuals are able to reach a lot more despite the ratings... for instance, Yaris AT would be 33 MPG but manual 39... same goes for other cars.

So these "false" MPG ratings are influencing consumer purchase and hence they are bad... it has to be said that by now most people know that these "40 MPG" cars wont get 40 MPG in real life, so it is not as big problem as when it just came out.

 

Why don't we check fuelly on my car the 2010 gen III prius
2010 Toyota Prius MPG Reports | Fuelly

- No, quite the spread averaging 41-54. mean is 47.7 but lots of cars on fuelly do worse. We know there is variance. This is opposed to say a good gasoline car like the honda fit, which gets 2 mpg higher on fuelly than epa. Hybrids do good on the test

That seems like quite a variance. You know YMMV. Cold/hot/short trips hills/acceleration

I"m not quite sure what you mean. Do you think the guy that got 22 mpg really know how to drive the car, that is if they actually own one
mystery (Ford C-Max) | Fuelly

I really don't know the spread, its early. We do know that some prius drivers want more hp and better handling. But we can hope cars like the c-max bring in people that would not buy the prius. That is where the fuel savings happen. There is significant fuel savings if someone buys a c-max versus a rav4, crv, escape, or a crossover. If you are going 75mph we know the c-max won't do as well as a more aerodynamic car. If I have the numbers right drag is about 35% higher than a prius. The fusion should only have about 15% more drag than a prius, so it should do better at those 75-80 mph speeds some people and car mags drive.

I live by the park, and I can get on the highway before my car warms up. Its the fastest way dt for me. YMMV. The prius doesn't like freeway short trips. The epa test is not really real life. People need to get over it.

One problem is the car mags are good at reporting that they don't get anywhere close to epa in hybrids. They are proud of it. They don't mention that the way they drive they don't get close to epa in other high milage low power cars.

 

If you have access to the raw data, drop the top and bottom 10%, roughly 20% of all samples, and recompute. In the past, if I have 3 samples within spittin' range, I use them. But if one is out of the set, take two more samples and drop the top and bottom. With very rare exception, you'll have a credible number.

Bob Wilson

 

Japan November 2012 & (Year-to-Date)– Top 5 best-selling models:
1 Toyota Aqua 26,346 (246,170)
2 Toyota Prius 22,039 (301,102)
3 Nissan Note 10,361 (75,502)
4 Honda Fit 9,320 (200,896)
5 Toyota Corolla 6,121 (75,701)
Best Selling Cars – Matt's blog » Japan November 2012: Aqua #1, Subaru Forester at best-ever #15

 

Impressive without any gov incentive.

 

I'm pretty sure there still government incentives for hybrids in Japan.
Yep, there was one for at least half the year.
Japan's car makers face gloomy outlook - MarketWatch

These incentives were partially blamed for the low PHV sales in Japan.

 

The big government incentives have run out, there are still some smaller ones. It is interesting that without the incentives the aqua (prius c) is the best selling car in Japan. The prius (alpha, liftback, phv) sales dropped 35% when the big incentives expired. The big drop in the prius has been made up by other cars like the aqua.

 

I had an 07 Ford Focus before I got my PC2 and using fuelly.com I was tracking around 25mpg. These companies scam people with their estimated mpg ratings. On the other side, my PC2 is always getting over the estimated 50 combined. Gotta love Toyota