Dealer Sales Tactics - Hit'em in the Balls Ed.

Lol... Those numbers are embarrassing... Back in the early 2000's and early 2010's they peaked at selling 25K Prius a month in the US and they sustained those numbers for years and years. They have fallen so incredibly far at this point!

 

Lock downs have consequences.

 

i'm thinking more of a supply than demand problem. toyota just doesn't seem to be interested.
they're making plenty of land yachts.

 

Lock downs has to do with what in this instance?

Truth is designers at Toyota made changes in Prius design that got worse and worse rather than better from 2010 to 2022. Gen3 was a disaster in design, especially engine lifespan and appearance kept getting more and more ugly until they finally fixed it with Gen5, which requires being on a waiting list for months or years to buy.

What's more they intentionally limited rather than expanded the plugin hybrid supply numbers at a time when consumer demand for EVs was peaking.

Toyota has only themselves to blame for turning one of the most successful cars they ever built into an over-priced dud no one wants to buy anymore even though it finally looks beautiful again.

These losers can't even compete with the price of lowest price Tesla Model 3 anymore even though that's what Gen5 looks like these days. Why have a pretend model 3 Tesla with really bad buggy software when you can pay less and have the real thing?

 

Prius sales were trending down years before the lock down. With the drop in gas prices and increase in other hybrid options, people simply lost interest in the Prius. The gen4 Prime is the likely reason the model wasn't simply cancelled in the US.

 

I was all stoked on the eve of 4th gen release. Out it comes, and dismay set in. No offense, but that thing looked some kinda pagoda on wheels. Maybe for the best.

 

The Prime looked better, but then a look was taken inside.

 

i suspect looks don't matter to prius sales. it's all about mpg's, and no one seems to care much these days, or at $35,000., the breakeven is too far out.

 

When gas was super expensive in 2022 people wanted more hybrids at the very least.

It's honestly more likely that offering hybrid options for established car models with even longer histories than the Prius were the reason Prius sold less. Other than the prime, with the wonky gen 4 body design... Why get a prius instead of a corolla hybrid if you want a base car. Or a Camry Hybrid if you want a larger sedan. Or a RAV4 hybrid if you want a small SUV/Crossover? They all looked better, were still hybrids etc.

Early COVID gas was rock bottom and no one driving much with nowhere to go too. So why choose Prius then?

The identity of the market segment Prius was lost.

The new higher power gen 5, and it's new looks make it fill a new place in the lineup. Better than a corolla across the board in terms of finish and features plus efficiency and looks now - especially if you're a hatchback fan. It's a bump up without being Camry sized car, and it's a more powerful more sleek car than the corolla cross. If you don't want an SUV and want something compact and efficient I think that's the prius - especially the prime now.

This is before we get into the possible bottleneck of having all those japan made models increasing in numbers too.

 

Limit supply, raise retail prices 50%. No impact on sales numbers?? hahaha

 

In the 2022 model year, which came out in August 2021, they had a supply problem because of the pandemic.

However, the supply problems in the 2023 and 2024 model years are artificial. Toyota is deliberately keeping the supply low to eliminate the dealer incentives and discounts and factory rebates.

On top of that, the used-car prices came down.

As a result, I am not trading in my 2021 Prius Prime Limited for a Gen 5 Prius Prime. It would be a bad financial decision for me that would grossly benefit Toyota and the dealer.

Moreover, Toyota still couldn't figure out how to make cheaper PHEVs and BEVs.

Last but not least, 7,557 Prius Primes sold in the US is a joke. They probably sell more Ferraris. Prius Prime is supposed to be one of the most popular cars in the US with the high gas prices and strong public interest in PHEVs.

 

Pagoda on wheels! That's funny!

 

When Prius was the only Toyota hybrid they easily sold all they could ship from Japan. As soon as Rav4 had a hybrid, the v was discontinued in the US but remained popular elsewhere for years.

2019 brought a dual injected Rav4 which became the Toyota hybrid most wanted. They added a Prime version commanding $10k markups and the Rav4 became the Kansas City Chiefs of the hybrid world.

 

~7600 sounds a lot when you compare it to Germany with ~330 registered primes in 2023. Not even sure if that includes showroom cars. Thats not much more than the Toyota Mirai with 166 registrations - and that's an overpriced tech at the moment with no real road capability for the end consumer

EDIT: Fixed numbers - source is here: Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt - Homepage - Neuzulassungen von Personenkraftwagen nach Marken und Modellreihen im Dezember 2023 (FZ 10)

 

Nope.
Not even close.
As my President would say: "Not a joke."

Again.....
Not even close.
Of the top 25 vehicles in the US, the RAV4 was the only one in the top 5 that you might consider as a 'PHEV' if you count the 1/150(?) that were sold in that flavor.
One in a hundred-fifty doesn't sound particularly 'popular' as I understand the meaning of that word.

Toyo sold about 435,000 of these in 2023 so I will let the studio audience do the math.
PHEVs WOULD BE popular if they were affordable, and if 1/100 people in the US understood what PHEV stood for.

The 25th most popular car sold in the US last year was a Ford (Escape) which sold something like 140,000 units. The other 24 sold more, with the Blue Oval's F-series being most popular followed by GM and Dodge.
Toyo's CUV (Rav-4) mentioned above was......4th and Tesla was fifth?
The numbers above might be incorrect and I invite and encourage a debate - but the top 3-4 seem to be pretty solid.

Priuses are and always have been a niche car and the Primes are a subset of those.

After a 35 year boycott I tried REALLY hard to buy a Toyota.
Since I live where gas is usually below $3 a gallon it doesn't make sense for me to get a $35,000 eco-hatch.....so I tried to buy a Taco for less than $40,000.
Once again, Southeast Toyota Group came to my rescue and I wound up paying $5,000 under MSRP for a '23 GMC Sierra.
22 real-world mpg and 6 seatbelts AND a nearly 10,000# towing capacity.
PLUS super high WAF factor for the vastly increased real-world crash safety.

 

They could sell all they could ship to Canada. I waited over a year for mine. But the math works here. Gas costs twice what it does in the US (at least) and electricity is about the same. And the .gov gives generous point-of-sale rebates, like 6-8K. I really don't understand how Toyota doesn't meet the demand for these vehicles.

 

Yeah I think they'd be immensely more popular in Canada too. Especially in places where you have hydro electric renewable power. It's cheap and its also environmentally friendly. With a time of use policy, charging after 7pm where I live its 8.7 cents per kwh. That's 95 cents to go from no EV range to max EV range in the new prime. There's also a new "ultra low overnight" which drives the cost of overnight charging down to 2.8 cents per kwh between 11pm and 7am but that's geared to big battery L2 capable home charging for full EVs I think.

I don't think gas is 2x the price here, but it is higher. And its only going to get more expensive as carbon pricing continues and as gas prices go back to rising again. They're already approaching 2$/L in BC I think.

Not to mention that long term gas could well go up in price again to 2$ a litre or more just like it did when we had crazy fuel price inflation during the end of pandemic lockdowns here. When gas approaches 2$ a litre, then the hybrid let alone PHEV value proposition skyrockets.

Given people's penchant for SUVs though, the RAV4Prime is honestly much more likely to sell better in Canada though. People here love SUVs and dislike smaller cars in general. Availability and offsetting your gas expense into a car payment for a few years makes sense for many, I know it does for us. But we can't commit to a rav4, don't want a big car, and also don't want to wait the looooooong rav4p wait time either. So for us, the prius prime was a perfect option. Moving from a 2003 matrix, which at 2$ per litre in 2022 was almost exclusively a commuter car for my wife racking up 90$ a week in gasoline... the math made sense to put an order in on a gen 4 prime, much less the longer range gen 5. Heck we were debating the rav4p *for the 70km ideal range* and then the gen 5 came out and the price point made even more sense.

If you're in the US or somewhere that gas prices aren't as high, and where electricity isn't as cheap, then it makes sense to just grab a hybrid. And if you're budget conscious the corolla hybrid if you're a toyota die hard just makes sense. And if you want something roomier as a sedan, hybrid camry. Or if you want an SUV hybrid rav or highlander etc. Especially without any incentives.