Prius sales in US plunge by 25% in first half of 2016

I doubt much of anyone is considering a truck, or anything but a small SUV/CUV to a Prius.

With the low gas prices, those considering a Prius are probably cross shopping with other sedans and hatchbacks. Camry, Accord, etc.
Those that were formerly looking at mid size sedans or small CUVs are more apt to look into the larger vehicles.

Short sightedness unfortunately. However, this lull in gas prices is likely to last another year or two before heading back up significantly. That will lull more and more people into a false sense of comfort.

 

I appreciate the thread title says "sales in US", anyway:

I've seen one 2016 Prius in Vancouver (BC, Canada), out front at a local dealership. I don't believe they're were eager to sell it either, not sure if they were even allowed to. It seemed to be serving as an ambassador, testing the waters. About two months later when picking up some oil change supplies, I noticed it was still there, but 'round the back.

@Tideland Prius 's got one, and at least one other Vancouver member, but did the volume fizzle after the first few?

 

no way to find ca sales?

 

@Tideland Prius likely knows.

 

another way to look at sales, the 75% are mostly new buyers, and the 25% are current buyers who can't stand the new 'stylin'.

 

It's a terrible time. Prius "veterans" struggling to hit 50 mpg, hypermiling their guts out. And young whippersnappers in the new Pokémon mobiles, cruising along with the AC blasting, making 60+ mpg.

 

I think that it's a combination of the higher price point (2015's were going for $20,000) and the difference in styling.

I'm not in the market for a car right now, but if a Pokemon player turns me into a new car shopper (and not an organ donor) I would have to get a replacement vehicle.

It would not be a G4!
-sorry.

 

Ummm...... Yes.

The top three cars I was considering were Subaru Forester XT, Ford Taurus SHO and in a very very very far distant third a Toyota Prius.

A Forester XT would have been more fun and gotten me more places, sort of a lesser Jeep but better on the street. I have concerns about the new 2.0 turbo these cars have as there are reports of burning a quart or more of oil in 3,000 miles. There was recall for certain VINs, but those and others still seem to be reporting the issue. Realisticaly it's probably fine for a car you keep three years but I'm hoping to keep this car for 15 years. One local dealer was working with me right up until I needed them to take off their stupid hand painted pin stripe. They wouldn't and it looked ugly. The next dealer would hit the price I wanted ($2k under the truecar value) but in finance they were trying to stick me with a 3% APR. So I walked.

A Taurus SHO is such a nice car, it's fast-ish, it handles decently well, and it's so big and so comfy. It's a great car. Unfortunately they seem to like to blow up their AWD system and frankly, I looked at some used ones and was shocked at how badly they aged and how much value they lost. The reason I was buying another chrysler product was because of some quality issues I had and I wanted to get away from that.

For the Prius I wandered in, learned that they redesigned it so it's not so ugly, got well below the truecar value, got a good price on my trade, got 0% APR AND a $1,500 rebate (which apparently wasn't supposed to happen but it was in writing and the dealer didn't want the car back), so I was satisfied. The gas price here has gone down again, it's now below my break even point which annoys me. Hopefully gas prices go up soon so I can get back to saving money and maybe reduce the rate of deprecation.

 

This makes no sense. How does gas prices going up save you money?

 

Similar story in Europe, strong hybrid sales:

Hybrid sales rose 44% versus the same period last year, representing 31% of sales, with Yaris Hybrid sales up by 23%, Auris Hybrid up by 33% and Prius sales more than doubling
Toyota achieves strong first-half sales growth in the West on the back of rapid hybrid growth and Lexus, and increased share in the East

 

It doesn't. it's just my stupid justification for having a prius.

My Charger is paid for and gets about 15 mpg. I had a certain payment on the Jeep Commander I traded in and it also go about 15 mpg. The payment on the prius is about equal to the jeep's payment plus the difference in fuel cost between the charger and prius at $2.15/gal. When gas is less than $2.15 / gal it would have been cheaper per month to keep the Commander. Or, as my wife likes to point out, sell the commander and drive the charger.

 

Interesting the in news-release from Toyota Europe looking at the data table at the bottom of the article:

• they actually sold/leased 29 Mirai's
• half of the Auris are Hybrid
• the top seller is the Aygo, clearly EU is crowded and there is not so much space if they made an hybrid version of that one... (the gas version they sell is ok, but amazingly a Prius achieves better fuel economy; the price delta and the size justifies the Aygo, but not from an environmental point of view
• most sold Toyota's area actually made in Europe (those written in bold)
• about a third of the RAV4's are Hybrid
• they managed to sell 4500 CT200h, half the volume of the Prius Gen4...how?
• the Prius plug-in Gen3 clearly not selling much - no wonder with that price...maybe the Prime manages to change that a bit?
• a third of what they sell is hybrid - this shows again the fact that Prius is very important to Toyota, regardless of absolute sale in a period of very low gas prices, as it represents the future with the new TNGA and the new HSD tech, the future of essentially the whole Toyota line up, hybrid (HSD) or not (TNGA) - with the Hybrid part of sales increasing like a rocket...

All in all, they are selling really well, and ever more hybrid. It doesn't matter if it is a Prius or not. Could they do better, surely. Are they doing bad? I don't really think so.

 

FORD Motors stock was down 8% yesterday due to slower sales in 2016.
So we need to avoid condemning Gen4 Prius sales as a Toyota issue, unless there is some evidence what is happening is due to Toyota "mistakes" of some kind. As far as I know, it is just low gaso cost consumer behavior coupled with the overall down-turn in auto sales.

Meanwhile I am not big on stock investments, but I wonder if the dip in FORD stock price is an opportunity? 5% dividend looks like gold right now.

 

but i read that gm is having a banner year. is it ford overall, or their high mpg cars? how total car sales doing?

 

I have to read up, but perhaps Brexit is behind the FORD issues.

 

they did mention brexit was killing ford, but why not gm?

 

Great post. Very well thought out and good explanation. You are quite right.

 

GM is more EU than UK, Ford is the opposite.