Prime destined to be doa?

Know your audience.

Mainstream consumers will not in any way consider that easy. It's an expense with a very uncertain price (house wiring varies dramatically) and requires the effort to choose which 240-volt charger to actually purchase. That option will not interest KISS buyers. Think about how difficult just the decision of which vehicle to buy is. The last thing we want to do is add an intimidation factor by introducing plug complexity.

We have much to do to get ordinary people interested in L2 charging. It's just not realistic for the masses yet. That's the reality of the situation now. Hopefully with Gen-3 offerings, the audience would have changed. Currently, we're stuck with the idea of plugging being far too new still. Starting with 120-volt is a simplicity Toyota plans to take advantage of.

Think about how routine daily plugging in was 5 years ago. People would go days between charging their phones. Not anymore, the big screens and data services drain the battery quickly. Plugging in not only has become an ordinary thing to do each night, many people now are taking advantage of wireless pads to recharge during the day too.

Patience.

 

If the Prime starts at around the same Price as the PiP, it is a $3000 to $4000 more for the Volt. I don't see people paying more if they don't the extra range.

The Volt is not the sole competition to the Prime. The C-max Energi is $1000 to $2000 more than the PiP. It is a middle age model. Ford will take advantage in batteries since its introduction, as GM did, to increase range, lower price, or strike a balance between the two.

 

doesn't matter. it's all going to be about price. you can't put prime in pip dollars, although, if it winds up there, that will hurt. c max energy has never really caught on, so ford is going to have to do something amazing. all things being equal, every model will have it's buyers outside of price, but for people who need/want more than 22 miles, prime will have to be that much cheaper to sell them.

 

The C-max hasn't done well, but the take rate for the Energis compared to the plain hybrid have always been high.

	model	hybrid sales	PHEV sales
1	Fusion	2035	1331
2	C-max	1621	607
3	Sonata	1788	250

That's April's sales, which means no data for a Prius PHEV, but the gen3 to PiP numbers were like the Sonata's, after factoring that the PiP wasn't available nationwide.

The C-max was hurt by Ford's actions with its MPG rating. It may have also been intended as a stop gap competitor to the Prius line up from the beginning, as it was a conversion of an European ICE model. Ford is planning a dedicated hybrid model, but it is too early to say how it compares to the C-max and Prius. Since the Fusion is sticking around, it will likely be a hatch or wagon.

The Prime should be cheaper than the PiP, but the talk on being a more upscale Prius, and Toyota's apparent stance on plug ins, has me doubting that it will be.

 

That would scare away many buyers - one more thing to understand and hurt your brain thinking about - one more barrier to going for the plug-in.

 

That is why Toyota sells those people Corolla and Camry. Almost like people that will not buy a smartphone if they are scare of learning computer.

 

In all fairness, that is exactly the case when money is not a factor. When money does become a factor, it is deeply impressive how many folks start figuring out the technology.

When I first got the 2001 Prius, I got a lot of question from folks who knew what hybrids were and wanted my first hand mpg results.

When the huge gas price rises (> $4 gal) of a few years ago occurred, then I got barraged with question about all the "problems" with hybrids. The folks asking decided to find out if their favorite myths were actually true or not.

 

I became interested in owning an EV or plug-in hybrid when gas prices were high. Coupled with the fact that the majority of the electricity here is renewable and cheap, I started keeping an eye out for good deals on the standard Prius, PiP, and Leaf. I didn't find a good deal until gas prices plummeted, but I knew it was just part of a cycle, and that prices would trend upwards again.

I'm very price sensitive, which is why I learned how the EVSE, on-board charging, and household electrical works. I modified a 120v Leaf EVSE to do 240v L2 charging on the PiP for about $20 (plus $200 for a used EVSE from CL). Then I installed my own 240v, 50 A 14-50 receptacle in the garage for about $80.

Price sensitivity has caused me to learn many skills that most would leave up to a professional. It also allows me to live a much more extravagant lifestyle than others at a similar salary level.

 

all good, but it won't be the case for most prospective ev buyers.

 

So anybody up for a guess as to when the Prius Prime will be revealed as a production model and the price?

I'll take Frankfurt International Motor Show - 22 Sept to 29 Sept 2016.

 

i'll take detroit.

 

Next year?

 

is it over already? i think you should list the shows in a poll.

 

Detroit is always 1st week in Jan.

 

BTW. Here is a comment by a Toyota Big Shot making a comment about nobody wanting a 300 mile range EV as it would take 8 hrs to charge. That's where Tesla's SC network leaves the rest of the field in the dust.
Tesla fighters: GM, Toyota strategies diverge
"Having a large, expensive battery that takes eight hours to charge to give you longer range at 300 miles we don't believe is the way to go," Lentz said. "We think the better battery is a hydrogen fuel cell.

If you need to charge for 8 hrs, then the car is strictly an "around town car".

Toyota seems to have aligned all of the magnetic iron filings in the same direction: no big batteries - fuel cells only.
Lots of luck with that.

 

Notice how the article cherry-picked, making no mention of Prime?

The spin of hydrogen-only is getting old.

 

The Prime is irrelevant to the subject. They didn't mention the Prime just as they didn't mention the CMax-Energi, or the Volt.

The article is about "Tesla Fighting" vehicles, not plugin vehicles in general.

 

The article's author clearly demonstrated how far up his keister that his head is stuck - when he commented;

The author's notion of "Beat" might be a ways off, from "compete with". Getting to market 1st isn't 'beating' Just saying. But still, clearly, the fewer parts moving - the less junk that'll wear out - whether phev or ev.
.

 

Yep. Same line from Hyundai and Honda. But if you had 23% of Lexus sales go over to Tesla, you'd have to step up and say something too. They are going for the lowest common denominator, 110V charge. If they say it long enough everybody will eventually believe it. While misleading, it is on a basic level, true.


Unsupervised!

 

This conclusion drawn is clearly not taking all factors into account:

"Toyota: Betting on hydrogen cars, including the Mirai on sale in California, instead of battery-powered vehicles."

It's a new platform, from Toyota, offering a plug. The facts pointed out makes out appear as though there Toyota is avoiding the plugging in entirely. And just because hydrogen is the primary, doesn't mean a long-range EV would would never be offered.

It's that mutual-exclusive spin that's the problem.