Prius crazy sales in japan could take away u.s. Prius

Not to worry. Toyota Sunnyvale has a number of spankin' new 2010's for sale today, unspoken for.

The Prius is far too important for Toyota to starve the US market of them. They will keep coming in.

Sometimes shortages happen and gotta call around, get on a list and wait 3 months like I did.

 

A sale is a sale. I doubt they will "take away" cars they could sell in the US and sell them in Japan "instead" and lose those US sales.
That makes no sense.
However, if they can sell more in Japan, then they will make more for Japan and make less for the US. That makes more sense.

Do they have every Prius factory running at 100% maximum output and are unable to keep up with worldwide demand?

 

I don't think so. The American Prius factory isn't running yet is it?

 

High domestic and US demand might be just what the doctor ordered to get Toyota to reinstate plans to build Prius in the USA. Then the likes of Malorn will need a new soapbox to stand on.

 

I believe it was reported that the U.S. Prius Mississippi plant was mothballed at about 90% complete. And that it would take up to one year to complete everything to begin production. So, for now, Japan plants are it....

 

Looks as if Toyota is going full-bore manufacturing our cars.
Pumping out about 2 cars every minute off two lines in the main assembly plant. Two plants in Japan dedicated to Prii...


June 7
Toyota on a roll building hot Prius

YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer

TOYOTA, Japan — Toyota’s Tsutsumi plant was abuzz with drills and other machinery Friday, with workers brought in from other, less busy plants to crank out the new Prius to keep up with bursting demand for the hybrid car.

But the Toyota Motor Corp. executive in charge of production said plans to open a U.S. plant to build the third-generation model of the world’s top-selling hybrid were still on hold.
The Prius has been a rare bright spot not just for money-losing Toyota but also for the overall auto industry, hammered by the global slump and U.S. credit crunch. It was the top-selling model in Japan last month.
Still, worries about the U.S. auto slump since the financial crisis hit last year were too great, Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said. Originally, a Prius plant in Blue Springs, Miss., had been scheduled to be up and running by 2010, but such plans were still frozen.
“I am extremely unhappy with the situation,” Uchiyamada said. “It all depends on how the economy recovers.”
A plant to make the gas-electric hybrid involves more investment than a standard plant because the vehicle has more parts for ecological technology. Going ahead with such an investment is too risky until Toyota monitors the U.S. market longer, he said at a reception for reporters in Toyota, the central Japanese city named after the automaker.
Getting the U.S. hybrid plant off the ground will take at least a year until a decision gets made, and so for some time to come, the Prius will continue to be shipped from this plant in Toyota city, one of just two plants in the world — both in Japan — that make the remodeled Prius.
Toyota officials said the two plants were making about 50,000 Prius cars a month, running at full capacity. The Tsutsumi plant was churning out one Prius every 66 seconds in one line, and every 57 seconds in the other line. Reporters toured the plant Friday.
Overtime is back at Tsutsumi from April — all thanks to the Prius — at a time when other Japanese plants are idle, grappling with layoffs or collapsing.
Workers from other factories from as far away as the southwest island of Kyushu are helping out at Tsutsumi, plant official Takahiro Fujioka said, while declining to say how many. The plant currently has about 5,300 workers.
Tsutsumi assembly line workers were rapidly screwing in bolts, using innovations they had come up with like picking up several bolts at once with magnets. Incorporating such cost-saving ideas from the workers has long been a part of “Toyota production methods,” which are emulated at plants around the world.
The Prius symbolizes Toyota’s hopes for a turnaround after the world’s No. 1 automaker suffered its worst annual loss last fiscal year since its 1937 founding — and predicts more red ink this year.
The global auto industry has been hammered, with two of the U.S. “Big Three” automakers, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, filing for bankruptcy protection.
Sales of the Prius and other hybrids are expected to grow not only in Japan but also in the key U.S. market because of President Barack Obama’s stringent mileage and emissions standards for 2016.
“Hybrids are going to be hot sellers,” said Koji Endo, auto analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo. “At least for the next three or five years, Toyota will have a definite advantage over the rivals.”
Although GM and Ford Motor Co. will be pushing their own hybrids in coming years, they aren’t as financially strong as Toyota to develop hybrids, Endo said.
The problem for Toyota is that booming Prius sales are eating away sales of more profitable models, he said.
Executive Vice President Masatami Takimoto, the executive in charge of technology, agreed that governments around the world were going to push green policies but stopped short of saying Obama’s program would be a boon for Toyota’s hybrids.
“We still can’t see what will be the best technology,” he said of future U.S. requirements, adding that tiny electric vehicles could also be the answer for some regions.
Toyota will continue to develop “the right cars at the right time for the right region,” he said. But it was clear autos need to rely less on oil, making hybrids a key technology for all kinds of green vehicles, Takimoto said.

 

That plan was jettisoned, though, and Toyota now is increasing production at its two Prius plans instead.

"Toyota Boosting Prius Production To Align Supply to Strong Demand " Green Car Advisor