2014 Prius Plugin price drops - $2k and $4.6k, no reduction of features.

Manufacturers have done crazier things...

Mitsubishi is currently offering a $10,000 rebate on the i-miev.

Sales are down 30%+ and gas in some areas is below $3. They have to move metal.

Nobody thought they would put the current incentives on them that they did...

 

How about NY?

 

Totally different deal. And I think they may have even stopped production of them.

Yes they do crazy things...but not on one of the best selling cars in the world. Just not smart business.

Pure market/ecomonic common sense says they will always sell for just a bit more than a comparably equipped regular Prius.

 

Of course. Maybe they'll drop the price on the regular ones too!

 

Same boat as Mass...CARB state but no PiP tax credit. In the Northeast we are left with MD and PA with tax credits for PiP (NJ good for BEV's). WV had the best but they stopped it. Check out "ChargeNY.com" which I believe is Prius Chat member Electric Charge website for NY plug-ins...he lists some of the mini-incentives such as green EZpass etc. LIPO customers also were getting $500 off for plugins. Not too shabby!!

 

Why would they do that when they are one of the best selling cars in the world? That wouldn't make much sense financially.

 

Ford F series and chevy silverado are the best selling. Prius fluctuates from a low of about 16th place to a recent high of 9th place. Gas prices and incentives are responsible for that.

The plug in is a great idea, and I'm glad it got a market adjustment. Had it been around, and selling at this price when I was in the market I might have taken the jump and went with it.

 

Yep, but it will reduce dealer rip offs, and get the price more in line with value which will reduce sticker shock.

 

Yen exchange has reduced toyota's cost in dollar terms. If they want to make up for lower liftback sales in japan versus 2012, they now can profitably drop the us price. That is a risky strategy though, as next year the yen may strengthen.

 

It's just my opinion but I gotta feeling that most here would agree. Rather than a $4k price reduction I would much rather have an extra 4kWh battery size increase - if I were given a choice between the two. I think that eventually a bigger battery will come - and this is merely Toyotas' short term solution for prospective owners who may fear EV range inadequacy.
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Where on earth are they gonna put another 4kWh battery in the current Prius?

 

Middle rear seat maybe?

 

I would expect the bigger battery to wait for the redesign. With low volume and little time left on the current design, we would only expect lower prices. In the next gen, probably coming in 2015, it should be fairly straightforward to add at least 2 more kwh of battery power.

 

That is what I would expect, too.

 

Yes, but chemistries of batteries allow drops in cost of 5%-8% a year.

If we take the typical lately 7% would be half the cost of a battery after 11 years. This is much slower than chips, but really this is fast enough for a big switch of technology.

If a 20 kwh battery should cost $4000 more than a 1.3kwh battery (size in the current prius) then it becomes a matter of packaging not cost to put a large battery in a phev. That price is quite likely in the next 10 years, and some have speculated that tesla's cost may be down to $200/kwh as early as 2017.

 

Regardless of how small/cheap the energy storage portion of a car gets...the propulsion side has had and will have very few gains. Today (very roughly) the average car is $30K...maybe $25K for the car and $5K for the engine and gas tank. Make an equivalent EV car (somewhere in between a Leaf and a Tesla) and it is $25K for the car and $20K - $30K for the battery and motors. The 7% improvement is only being applied to (most of) the portion that is far above the gas-equivalent portion. Whereas, in computers (and other digital devices), Moore's Law applied to the CPU and dozens of other chips that mostly got integrated in the CPU and memory chips. These were all the most expensive parts ~30 years ago. Disk drives showed similar improvements (based on different physics) but are also being replaced by flash memory for many devices.

The bottom line being that for most digital devices, the entire product (or mostly) can be cost/performance improved by doing more and more with smaller and smaller devices (transistors) moving fewer and fewer electrons. Cars still need to move people.

Mike

 

A leaf is built on a versa platform. That is a $13,000 car. Build it up as a leaf and it gets a much better and refined power train, and nissan sells the base version for what, $29,000 before tax breaks. Think 11 years out, if the leaf has twice the range, and accelerates to 60 in less than 7 seconds, but still gets a stripped version out for $29,000? What will gas cost then? If gas is $6/gallon and electricity $0.20/kwh? Then that versa will use about $15,000 more in gas over 150,000 miles. The 48kwh leaf will look like a bargain in tco compared to a versa (or yaris or fit) as long as range is far enough. If its not, a plug in hybrid will be gaining from better batteries, heat pumps, inverters, and motors.

At $200/kwh, why would a phev have less than 10kwh of batteries? $2000, bumped to $3000 with profit, seems like a logical lower limit. With batteries more today, but coming down in price 4.4kwh seems very small indeed. The next one has to be bigger.

You are acting as if 7% a year is bad. Porsche and bmw are already designing phevs that have much better performance because of batteries and motors. The entire cell phone revolution has a lot to do with battery improvements. Can you imagine a smart phone with the batteries from 15 years ago.

Look at the bmw i3, it can seat 4 in quite a small package because of smaller packaging of phevs, and materials. cfrp also may drop in price rather quickly allowing for less battery for the same distance. Cars move much slower than electronics, but that may be because car companies have not adapted to the high tech life cycle. Really how many people need more of a car than a tesla S and a zip car? The question then is really price. The price could be low enough in 5 years for a revolution, or 22 years may be the ticket. The first cars to be replaced will be those initial adopter performance cars. Replacing a corola with plug-ins will take high gas prices or a lot of old people to die.

 

You are missing my point. 7% is great. I'm all for EVs and PHEVs.
We aren't going to get gains anything like electronic devices for all the previous reasons given.

Mike

 

I don't think anyone expected cars to get tech improvements at anything like the speed of computers. Improved battery technology has been key drivers for the current revolution of tablets and smart phones. These devices were envisioned long ago but were waiting on the batteries to improve, well that and development of wireless internet infrastructure. This parallels possibilities here, and really if we get 7% a year for the next 25 years, and gasoline costs go up, I see no reason that we don't transition similarly from ice only to plug-in as we have from land line to smart phones. I cut off my home phone 3 years ago, many will keep them, but use cell phones more.