Featured Here’s Why The 2021 Toyota Prius Has Become An Undesirable Electrified Car

Yeah, seems like gov has a hand in the Prius demise.

 

oddly - Toyota/Lexus does. That's how they can say, by year 'x' their Fleet will be 'X' % electrified' in their ads. Whether they are pushing a hydrogen car, a plug-in, or regular old hybrid - Toyota tries to push them all as an electric. Some countries have banned these misleading ads


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Yeah, I know what Toyota says or does. But do any Green Car buyers consider a regular hybrid to be in the same class of electrified car as Tesla? Don't think so.

 

Two reasons...

Popular tastes switched away from sedans/hatches.

There was a readily available "in crowd" option available that wasn't a 10 year old label.

I was at my dealer's today to get one of my two hybrids serviced. There were no Prius cars on the lot. Same type of drive-train in a Rav4 or HiHy, but not a Prius counting style.

Either they didn't order them or they sold them all. I suspect the former as this isn't an urban green leaning area.

 

This was regarding containerized batteries. Flood and moisture are nothing compared to a truck sized load of lithium ion batteries that have overheated and caught fire.

 

And, of course, all those hybrids charge their batteries as you drive!!!

Mike

 

Not sure if this is still the case, but I’ve read some of the factors driving that popularity were:

1. Lower crash safety
2. Lower mpg requirements

This allowed manufacturers to cut their costs, offer “more” car, cheaper. Soft-pedal the above two factors, play up their “rugged, go anywhere” image, and it’s a fait accompli.

 

I've probably dragged this topic off course a few too many times, it should have been branched off into it's own sub topic ... the answer would just drag it way off topic, so if you really want to know the answer, best to start another sub topic

T1 Terry

 

It's always feels odd to hear that the Prius has become undesirable. I think the problem is simply that they hardly ever promote them. I almost never see a Toyota commercial that touts the benefits of the Prime models. It's not that there is no market for them either.

I just got back from a 15 mile round trip drive. Half was city streets and half was freeway. At one point, I found myself in a pack of Prius Primes. We were 4 abreast as rode down the highway. We counted 11 primes in that 20 minute drive.

I will readily admit that the people here are more likely to drive cars that are not mainstream. We even saw TWO Miari FC cars.

Imagine how many there would be if they actively advertised them?

 

Toyota only wants to sell enough Primes and Mirai to meet their ZEV quota.

 

Unlikely advertising has much to do with it. Another auto manufacturer has no advertising department and sells as many as they can produce despite upscaling production as fast as they can and several price increases in recent months.

 

you're in silicon valley. there are more tesla's around here than primes, and less prius than there used to be.
most people want large land barges. 3 dollar gas is not a deterrent, and no amount of advertising will overcome that.
but you're right, their advertising has always been lacking and/or lacluster. but i don't think they've ever been able to figure out how to market something that no one wants, and their dealers are reluctant to push. it's different if you have a popular product with a lot of competition like coke and pepsi.

 

I may have seen a total of four Prius Primes in my travels. Teslas are everywhere. Spotted a powder blue Taycan last week.

 

I just happened to see a Prime today, with NYC Gov't plates.

 

there HAVE been Toyota Mirai ads on occasion. But very very few want to spend so much more than they have to, on a car that requires fueling at an equivalent of $12 to $15 a gallon ....... even if the manufacturer pays for the first few years of fuel, & even if the state & feds give you a huge amount of rebates & incentives on a car that you really can't even drive much out of state. Say that in your advertisement upfront? And no one's even going to go down to the car lot. If sales critters don't disclose the Mirai limitations in the advertisement, that's more advantageous. The dealer can then try to sell buyer a practical car, after the buyer realizes how impractical hydrogen is - not to mention how much hydrogen gets reformed out of fossil fuels.
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You sure about that? I've seen a few articles now about the rise in fuel efficient vehicle sales ( including the Prius ). I even saw an article saying that 'truck drivers' are buying the Prius, etc...to mitigate their trucks fuel usage. However, because that is such a foeign concept to me, I couldn't tell if it was serious or satire. Personally, we have seen quite a few 'smaller' vehicles in our area now that fuel prices are on the rise.

 

That would be a nice trend.
Do you have any links to the articles?

 

Here at work, prior to the pandemic, there had to conservatively be 50 vanpools coming in from other counties. Now, all these X-vanpool people are driving into work solo, in their pickups & other land barges. Low mileage + long drives + high gas prices .... $50/day in some cases - just to get to work & back home.
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I only mentioned the Mirai to give a sense of the types of car owners we have here. I've seen more Mirai commercials than I have for the Prius Prime.

I'll use PIP for the first gen (2012-2016) model. Now that I think about it, I don't recall an ad campaign for the PIP back in 2012. I was commuting to Silicon Valley back then and saw very few of them on the road. Oddly, I've seen more of the PIP still on the road up in Oregon than I have around here.

All I heard about the PIP at the time was trash talk, so I did not even consider looking into it. It would have fit my lifestyle rather well from 2012 to 2019.