Featured Plug-in Hybrid outsells the RAV4 Prime

Slightly different formatting:

• 2022 Wrangler - 21 mi, 17 kWh
• 2022 RAV4 - 42 mi, 18 kWh
• 2014 BMW i3-REx - 70 mi, 18.1 kWh (recent measurements after +70,000 mi.)

Bob Wilson

 

What's behind your compulsion to try to make the poorly designed BMW the center of all your posts?

It's rather pathetic to go to a Prius web site to crow about how wonderful your car is while you actually gave it away and are driving a Tesla that you almost never mention.

Getting back on thread... It's kind of hard to equate car popularity on the basis of numbers sold in recent years. The supply shortages have put a real kink in the sales campaigns. There's nothing meaningful in saying that X number were sold if they only had enough parts to sell X. It might be much more enlightening to find that GM built 40,000 units and only managed to sell 19,000 of them.

It's sad to see that the Jeep efficiency while traveling on gas was so poor. Even the average commercial airliner is more efficient, Per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Operations

Further down that article notes: The most fuel-efficient airline was Norwegian Air Shuttle with 44 pax-km/L (2.27 L/100 km [104 mpg‑US] per passenger), thanks to its fuel-efficient Boeing 787-8, a high 85% passenger load factor

 

i don't think making plug ins is a top priority for toyota

 

GM doesn't own Jeep. I don't think GM has a PHEV available or planned for North America.

The 4xe system is a series hybrid added onto the Wrangler's 2L turbo drive train with mechanical 4WD. Doesn't look like any changes were made to the engine to take advantage of the electric side, like using Atkinsonation. In fact, the 4xe hybrid fuel economy is rated worse than that of the 2L turbo's, which has the eTorque mild hybrid system to begin with.

People buying the 4xe are likely doing so for the 100hp it adds.

Jeep is putting in charge stations at popular off road sites.

For the OP article, "According to Ivan Drury of Edmunds.com, the RAV4 Prime is selling at a rate of 13 days on the lot on average. The Jeep Wrangler 4xe is selling at a rate of 20 days on the lot on average."

So the Rav4 Prime could possibly outsell the the Wrangler 4xe, if not for the parts shortage. Toyota though, wasn't exactly making many Rav4P's before the supply disruptions. They didn't line up supplies to meet demand before going into production. With future battery production already spoken for, Toyota will probably have difficultly getting that supply for some time.

 

Totally irrational to compare a mass produced Plugin Jeep to a minimally produced Rav4 Prime... I've helped buyers try to find a Rav4 Prime to purchase and what I've learned is that Toyota is deliberately not selling these cars at scale even though they'd be the #1 top seller in the market if they did.

It's almost like the fossil fool industry made a deal with Toyota to ensure an average amount of miles per gallon of all vehicles sold is is to be kept as low as possible, so any vehicle that gets great gas mileages has severe production limits and any Toyota that gets awful MPG gets no limit. No wonder Toyota is so against US restrictions on bad MPG vehicles.

 

+1

The reason jeep sells more is that they make more. Toyota could have easily invested early and been making enough rav4 primes to satisfy the market, but instead wasted time pushing hydrogen and trying to stop plug-in adoption.

I think they are trying to change now, but the ship turns slowly. They won't have enough battery capacity this year or next.

 

The main point isn't really about the Jeep doing better, it is about Toyota not lining up the parts supplies for what should have been a sales hit. It isn't like Stellantis or Jeep are immune the current issues in the supply chain.

The other SUV PHEVs available are probably also doing better, but the Jeep is so far from what most PHEV buyers want makes it better at highlighting how badly Toyota has done.

 

That Jeep is excuse the French, nice person.

It’s what a hillybilly in a basement makes, very unfortunate Stellantis doesn’t make a real PHEV and instead makes a bolt in jallopy

 

I suspect it has more to do with profit margin than anything else. Toyota can pack on the high-margin accessory packages in the low mileage vehicles because efficiency is not a concern for those buyers whereas every extra pound extracts a mileage penalty for the hybrid crowd.

 

They make the Pacifica (P)Hybrid.

The Jeep is a 'real' truck, and like other 'real' truck hybrids(F-150, Sequoia, Tundra) is using a parallel hybrid system. I suspect the added weight of the battery has pushed the 2.5L turbo into using more boost than the non-hybrid models.

In these times of low supply, every car maker is making more of their higher margin models and trims. Jeep is probably selling every 4xe they make.

In the case of the Rav4 Prime, Toyota didn't have battery supplies lined up from the beginning, and production was low before the pandemic.

 

This can't be true if you were to take a look at actual data. Toyota has one of the the cleanest fleets in Europe. Full blog.

 

Toyota sells a different model line up in Europe. Doubt they get the FSP's Toyota sells in the US.

 

Toyota is in the lower half in the USA. Which is an improvement as a few years ago they were a few notches lower.
Highlights of the Automotive Trends Report | US EPA

 

Not surprising. They hadn't rolled out Dynamic Force engines yet in 2015. Which they wouldn't have done if they were in bed with oil industry.

 

Which is why their numbers did improve, but were, and still are in some models, still selling old tech, port injected V6's and V8's in 2020.

They aren't in bed with oil, but they do drag out technology life cycles to maximize profits. Part of the reason they have a better rating in Europe is because they introduce new technologies there before America; sometimes by years.

 

Toyota has outright said the RAV4 Prime debuted their new marketing strategy of curbing supply as a marketing strategy. This car "shortage" isn't going away anytime soon. They have record profits now. Why would they want that to end just to boast of higher sales volume?

I have real-world experience with that car, and any consideration I had given to it as an alternative to a hybrid Sienna evaporated the first day I drove it. I rented a Pacifica Hybrid that only that 6,000 miles on it and it broke down at speed on the freeway, and I mean as if someone had slammed on the brakes. While waiting for roadside assistance I took the opportunity to remind my family this is why I don't buy American cars.

 

I don't recall any such statements from Toyota during the model's release. Any recent ones can just be spin over their current and past supply situation, or a change in plans.

I believe @hill owns one.

I only mention it to counter the statement of Stellantis not making a real PHEV. It's 30mpg combined minivan that arrived years before the Sienna in the US. There was a recall early on.

If driving a bZ4X, you could have had a wheel come off. No one is immune to issues. Those can be more common in a Chrysler, but the brand has a high owner satisfaction rating with CR.

 

Can't imagine a more broken sense of successful marketing than one that intentionally fails to sell very much.