Today I saw 12 new Priuses on the local dealer lot (here in So Cal.) Is the drought over? I thought people were still having a hard time finding them.
I think the shortage is pretty much over. Just 3 months ago, not a single Prius was to be had in any of the dealerships here in my area too, but now they got loads of them on the dealer lots. I think it's an effect of the current credit crunch-- People just aren't buying cars, either because they can't afford it or because they can't get a car loan. You know something is really wrong when even Toyota's sales dropped 30% in the space of just one month.
No dealers have waiting lists and you can pretty much write your ticket on one. You can easily get them for under invoice. With people paying a $1.70 / gallon in some parts of the country and the credit crunch making it difficult to get loans, dealers are *desperate* to sell anything including Prii.
People only see as far as the price on the pump. A buddy of mine works at a stealership, and he said SUV and truck sales have jumped through the roof. How narrow minded and short sighted are people?
>>>How narrow minded and short sighted are people? You could make the same argument for people who were paying more than MSRP to quickly buy a Prius thinking that they were going to actually save money by buying a Prius. Hmmm... Perhaps that's an example of simply poor math skills rather than the limited long-term memory problem that you are suggesting. I guess all those people congratulating themselves on buying a car that somehow appreciates have lost a few thousand dollars in paper money over the last 6 weeks. Oooops...
Another possibility is that some buyers a few months ago weren't in the market for a new car. So, they might be doing their calculations now using current data, rather than looking at a longer-term picture.
Not only do Americans have very poor short term memory, they also have very poor long term memory. In the last couple of days I've noticed a number of new of SUV's (with paper license plates) in my neighborhood. At the local Toyota dealers here in northern California, there appears to be plenty of new Prius automobiles. The Prius market is rapidly shifting from a seller's market to a buyer's market. Keith
Keep in mind nobody could predict with absolute certainty what the price of oil was going to be. During the height of Prius shortages three months ago, oil was trading at $147 a barrel. Even "market insiders" like Goldman Sachs analysts at that time were predicting that oil was going to go to $200 a barrel by the end of 2008. If you purchased a Prius at MSRP back then to anticipate increasing fuel prices, that was certainly defensible. If gas was going to $5 a gallon (and in July it looked like it very well might), it would make financial sense to buy a Prius over a comparable midsize normal car. Your guess is as good as mine where oil is going to go in the next 6 months. It can go back up to $147 or more, or it can go even lower to less than $50. All the math skills in the world isn't going to give you an absolutely accurate long-term prediction (>6 months).
Was at the dealership today and they had 2 driftwood, 1 grey and a black prius sitting there waiting to find a home. There was a silver pine mica there last Friday when we picked up our mini-van but I guess someone bought it over the weekend. I think the wait lists are over for now if buyers are flexible on color/options. Once the price of gas starts to climb, the wait lists will be back. Americans have a very short memory.
Wasn't there a OPEC talk a week or so ago where they were thinking about cutting production of oil by 1.5 million barrels a day? If so...what impact will this play on fuel costs in next few months? **Opec is to meet in Vienna on November 18 to discuss a reduction in supply after a significant fall in the price of oil.
Indeed I am one of the "narrow-minded short sighted people with no math skills" that purchased a Prius in August. And I got D+ in high school math but here's my reasoning. At the time I was driving a ten year old GMC Yukon that did 14mpg at best and was falling apart. Fixing it cost more than what I could sell it for so I donated it. I needed to buy a new car, any car without trying to figure out what the cost of gas was going to be in the future. So I paid $600 over MSRP for mine. I now get 45 to 47 mpg without trying. In that way I am ahead and that's my math. Dealers are just that. They don't care about anything but making money. When there's a shortage they jack up the price. Now they have to beg you to buy their cars. Its their turn to be drop-kicked and suffer. Shin
So in the end they get to drive the most technologically sophisticated car produced today and who doesn't judge a 4 to 10 year investment based on the first 6 weeks. Do you feel well fed now?
We bought the Prius in June (started looking in April) because of gas prices going up. We would not have looked at any other car, even with good mpg, because we wanted to have the best mpg we could find for the purchase price. We still enjoy driving the Prius, and we don't think we are not getting best value just because prices have fallen by more than a dollar a gallon. We are happy to be be paying that much less ($16-$20 fillups vs. $35-$40). What's not to like about that -- except not paying $8-$12 a fillup? $2 premium happened around here only three years ago.
You've got to be kidding. Tesla, Volt etc etc etc.... The point of my argument was that stupidity went both ways with the oil spike and its subsequent collapse. There was a lot of smugness on this board about what geniuses Prius owners were - but really - it fell down to dumb luck and buying at the right time - and bad luck - not selling it to make a nice profit. People tend to give themselves far too much credit. For example, I made 10 grand on exchange rates by not moving US$ to Canada 6 months ago. Brilliant? Or was I just too lazy to get around to it. I tend to lean on the former.
Here in CT as of last week there was still waits - I was told several months. A friend of mine is waiting for any (any model, any packages, any color) and has been waiting 45 days and still doesn't have a date.
Volt? What Volt. As far as the Tesla, it's an electric only vehicle which makes it one of the simplest and lowest tech cars on the planet. The battery just about 6500 standard LiIon batteries each encased in a capsule to prevent explosions. It's very heavy because of this. Now when LiIon technology matures to the point that the batteries can be kept light, you might be looking at some sophistication in addtion to significant cost savings. The other piece is the software that manages the torque. But other than that, that's it. Not real high tech. Very similar to the electric cars at the beginning of the 20th century and a lot simpler than ICE only based cars.
In round numbers my Prius burns half the gas compared to my Intigue. Regardless of the price I still save half. Yup, I still feel good whether it takes $20 or $40 to fill the tank.
