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

They don’t have enough batteries which limits what they can do in evs, primes and hybrids. Meanwhile all minivans and a lot of everything else they make needs a hybrid battery.

 

Case in point here. Two weeks ago I got interested in a 2024 Prime. A quick look at dealers and I saw up to a $10k mark up. Okay, some $5k and a few with bogus dealer installed things like $1500 for a ceramic paint protection. That was almost enough to put me off. Then, comparing the Prime to the Hybrid, its about $5k more. That is a 15 year break even for me as we do low mileage. No incentives and a wait time.

For me, there would have to be a discount or incentive of $5k for me to be interesting in the Prime.

I have started to look at the Camry Hybrid but I am also reevaluating as Japanese models do not have a fed, state or utility rebate for me (Northern California).

I would move ahead with a Tesla but my wife is adamantly against an all electric and fears the car going on fire or fire during a collision. I could argue that point but, its my wife, no point.

 

Same with Mrs B, and the fears are not completely unfounded.
if we only had one car, I wouldn’t want an ev either.

 

I recently got a new (to me, it's a 2019) Prius Prime. The choices were limited (okay there were no choices) here, so when we visited relatives in Denver (300 miles away), we also went car shopping.

My experience was this - the dealers didn't know what a Prius did, let alone a Prime. Only one of the Primes I looked at was even charged to the point where I could see what it was like to drive it in EV mode. The dealers also were clueless about the Federal tax incentives, and what it takes to qualify.

We finally found one that we liked, and fit within the tax incentive guidelines (2017-2021 for less than $25K, and the dealer worked with us to get the appropriate tax information and do their part with the IRS).

It boggles my mind how little these guys knew - when it would seem to me that it's their business. Some of these guys were downright pathetic. Even the Toyota dealers were pretty clueless.

One of the local salesmen didn't have any Prius cars, but really wanted to get us to buy what they had. They had a Venza they almost forced us to try. Me and my wife were standing there while the salesman went to get it. We got distracted talking about things, and it finally dawned on me that the guy had been "getting the car" for quite a while. I looked where he had gone, and the car was there with the hood up, and he was walking towards it with a portable jump starter. I walked out to tell him I really wasn't interested in a car that wouldn't start, but when I got there he was too busy looking for a place to hook up the jumper cables. The Venza was like an early generation Prius, so he was distracted and desperately looking for how to get the thing started. The interior lights were on, so I hopped in, made sure he was clear, then pressed on the brake pedal and the start button. Of course it fired right up.

The only Toyota dealer in town the sales manager told me "Well... I really don't know about electrics in Wyoming". I told him I had two and had put around 200K miles on them - IN WYOMING. Then left.

 

What you say is the low paid commissioned salesman was clueless. Which is almost universal across the country. Ask for the fleet sales rep and get a deal and knowledge from a guy who is not sweating paying the rent every month.

 

Here's a good calculator:

4th Gen Repair Manual - Google Drive

Gas Buddy says regular's around here is currently $1.66 CDN per liter (best price). Feeding that in the above, works out to $4.69 USD per US gallon.

 

All made in North America and available with or without their limited supply of high voltage batteries. Meanwhile Prii come from Japan, cost more to ship and are not eligible for new car electrified rebates in the US.

Otherwise your reality seems quite different than Toyota’s stated perspective where they prefer to make five hybrids rather than one plugin.

 

Five times a very small number is a slightly larger, but still small, number

 

Low-paid commissioned salesmen and their sales managers. All tolled about 40 of them.

 

I have to throw my hat in with the buyers who have never found a knowledgeable salesman at a west coast Toyota dealer.

In 2001 Toyota had a program where they had a limited number of trained experts who were allowed to talk to customers about Prius at each dealer. They did a good job of making sure that they were not spreading urban myths.

Since 2002, I've only met a single salesman (a fleet manager) who understood the good and bad points of the current (at the time) Prius line.

In 2016 the sales man could not recognize my 2002 Gen 1 Prius as a Toyota product as he stood next to it. In 2019 a different salesman responded to a question about the BSM (blind spot monitor) package by trying (in vain) to find the cameras in the side view mirror housings and in the C-pillars. He was miffed when I explained that it used Sonar and Radar, not visible light.

This year, most of the salesmen that I talked to did not know that there was a 'Charge from ICE' mode nor that there was an available solar charging package.

I suspect that the dealer pushed for up-selling to whatever more expensive car was readily available on the lot. I did not want a Crown nor an SUV. That's technically not bait and switch, but it does help their bottom line.

 

My 2020 Prime limited has limited on the back hatch, but they advertised, priced, and said it was an xle. Thank you sirs.
I think the Corvette over the top styling is my heart’s impractical desire. That where I would dump 75k if I could justify spending that much money on myself.