Featured Toyota Prius Prime now most unaffordable mainstream car in America

Also unobtainable, at least off the lot. Local-to-me dealership current has 5 Tacomas and a Supra. Can't imagine the sales stats are going to be great: it's all "take a number" these days.

 

Meanwhile in the Seattle area all the radio ads the Toyota Stealerships have been buying the past half year is inviting customers to come in and "learn" more about EVs... As in they want you to drive in because you're like the majority of buyers looking for an elctric car and they want you to drive out buying a gas guzzler because you "learned" it was better than EV and Hybrid.

How stupid do they think people are? How is this business plan going to survive the economic downturn that high interests rates and inflation are gonna create?

It makes no sense?

 

that and the new sporty design drove me to the $21,000. bolt.

 

Sure wish I could crash the next Board of Directors meeting and tell them that they're losing their loyalty and then tell them about a guy name Bisco on PriusChat with 106K comments and 48K likes is now driving an American car because they're failing so spectaculary at running what once was the most dominant auto maker in the world. I'd so enjoy telling them all the reason why they're failing to keep our loyalty and without us they'll go broke.

 

LOL - they can't make enough of them to sell at these inflated prices though! Consumers aren't the brightest. Make the Prius cost more, but be faster and look better and they're all over it.

 

The irony of course is that older Prius owners are extremely frugal... Call them cheapskates if you want. That's why they love their high MPG car that they drive way longer than Toyota would prefer before switching to a newer used one. Of course people who buy brand new cars are way richer than most Prius owners, so these days their marketing demographic for the Gen5 is wannabe poser cheapskates. Lol...

 

Just saw this invoice on Reddit... There's over 74 comments of outrage: http://www.reddit.com/r/prius/comments/17zwop8/quoted_otd_price_on_24_prius_limited/

 

Toyota Prius Prime now most unaffordable mainstream car in America

"MAINSTREAM?!"

I might see a Prine in the wild every now and then....and I'm a PC member.
That means that I would be able to differentiate a Prime from a wireless Prius........UNLIKE 99% of Americans......

 

You also live where Toyota plug-ins were late in being introduced. How many Lucids and Rivians and Porsche EVs do you see?

(I live near a tech heavy city with lots of top 5% earners and have seen one each in the last several months. I see one Kia/Hyundai EV for every two dozen Teslas. And in some ares, Teslas are 5% of the cars I see. )

 

You also live where Toyota plug-ins were late in being introduced. How many Lucids and Rivians and Porsche EVs do you see?

(I live near a tech heavy city with lots of top 5% earners and have seen one each in the last several months. I see one Kia/Hyundai EV for every two dozen Teslas. And in some ares, Teslas are 5% of the cars I see. )

How the other half live

2022 Boxster Spyder...Chalk, PDK, 1200 miles, 10 over 130
2023 Boxster Spyder...Blue, PDK, 400 miles, 5 over 130
2024 Boxster Spyder RS...PTS Blue, New, 80 over 219
2024 Bosxter Spyder RS...changeable build...80 over.
2023 GT4RS,,,PTS Orange, Weissach, 12k miles, 33 over 198
2023 GT4RS...PTS Grey, Weissach, 1k miles, 55 over 216
2024 GT4RS...White, Weissach, New, 55 over 212
2024 GT4RS...changeable build...55 over
2022 GT3...Wing, White, PDK, 5k miles, 45 over 203
2022 GT3...Wing, Blue, Manual, 3k miles, 45 over 196
2022 GT3...Wing, Blue, PDK, 5k miles, 50 over 201
2023 GT3...Wing, Chalk, PDK, 2k miles, 49 over 206
2024 GT3...Wing, Ruby Star, Manual, 200 miles, 48 over 231
2024 GT3...Wing, changeable build...80 over
2022 GT3 Touring...White, PDK, 2k miles, 57 over 205
2022 GT3 Touring...Blue, PDK, 1k miles, 55 over 207
2022 GT3 Touring...PTS, Manual, 3k miles, 55 over 231
2024 GT3 Touring...changeable build, 85 over
2024 911 Dakar...White, New, 125 over 250
2024 911 GT3RS...changeable build...140 over
2024 911 GT3RS...Grey, New, 160 over 319
2024 911 S/T...changeable build...245 over
2023 911 Sport Classic...Black, 1200 miles, 180 over 285

Over means that much over MSRP. And we complain about 5 and 10k markups.

 

That's sort of what I meant by 'mainstream.'.....

 

Toyota dealer had 6 month old bz4x with 3k miles for 32. Whatever they can turn fast and for gain they do. Just lika you an me. We make our money from whatever, then give how we please to charity. I no longer fault them for charging more for the Gen5, used to. Why would they save the car for someone who wants to pay less?

 

Supply is tiny - so either unaffordable or you have to wait extremely long. Its not so different in Europe and Japan.

Europ -> Very expensive but ~6month (custom order)
Japan -> Cheap but ~24month waiting (custom order?)

I mean cheap and available doesnt really work when demand is too high?

 

is demand too high, or is toyota not committed?

 

Ford is having a similar issue. Dealers inflated prices by a huge amount.
People haven’t forgotten and now Ford can’t sell stuff on the lot.

Dealers are a cartel. Now that people are finally getting some options other than stealerships, they are taking advantage of those options.

 

gm dealers are doing the same thing right now with the new blazer ev, 10k over msrp. then the dealers tell the mfg's they can't sell them and cut back orders, then the mfg's say ev's aren't selling and cut back investment and r&d

 

The demand is too high for what is produced thats clear.

Regarding committment - I guess they have ressource constrainst regarding batteries. Additionally there is no point in setting up alot of factory lines if the demand will go down soon anyway. And every new line for a new prime takes space another model would take OR they have to invest in new factories.
But so far the P5 seems more like a gamble/experiment anyway... results perhaps in 1-2 years.

 

Japan is only getting it in the top Z trim. So MSRP may not be cheap. The initial announcement was only 450 a month there. Numbers for the hybrid were at least over 2000.

Pretty sure the Prime is made on the same line as the hybrid. The differences don't look big enough to warrant a separate line. It's likely the battery supply. That was the issue with the Rav4 Prime, and battery demand has grown since then. Unless the margins are lower on the Prime, and they want to make hybrids instead.

 

The car company that seems to be taking over NJ is Tesla.