Prius Prime launch again delayed!

Or maybe they want to get the solar panel option in the US as well.


Unsupervised!

 

Not for US and Europe
Here is the link


Toyota's plug-in hybrid launch delayed by several months - Nation/World - The Daily Astorian


iPhone ?

 

i think what they are trying to say, (poorly) is that the japan date, which was to be first, will be closer to late 2016, like everywhere else.
that gives them a few months to figure out how to get the battery out of the hatch area.

 

Yes, they will just use these few months to make all of our dreams come true.

 

Yeah. They should get that 5th seat in


iPhone ?

 

Or the lack of a hard release date in any market allows for some wiggle room as whether this is a delay or not.

 

Worldwide rollout of a new product in an extremely volatile market... what more could you realistically expect?

Think about all the suppliers & distribution to coordinate.

 

My prior speculation is:
Prime needs California green HOV extension if it is going to sell anything here.
I am confused where we stand on the proposed CA HOV changes, I thought it was supposed to be June_2016 we heard about it. As long there is no CA HOV access for Prime, Toyota can cool it's heels and wait.

Saw a Nissan Leaf yesterday with Virginia tags, but with a crap-load of Calfornia white HOV stickers on the rear bumper! I hope they know, no free HOV access here for transplants (we got some dwindling numbers of "grandfathered hybrid" HOV access).

 

My wish, but with no expectation .... the delay would be to increase the EV milage.

 

To expand on this thought leads me to an obvious (to me) possibility. Toyota may have run into delays in a supply chain in an already established intent to construct a battery which will fit in the space provided without intruding into the cargo area any more than the production version of our present Plug in Hybrid. Remember the prototype of the present PHEV also took up cargo space.

I am curious why no one seems to have mentioned this possibility before.

 

bisco sort of said it

 

Hope you are right but I don't think there is anyplace to put the batteries in a Gen4 Prius body. Gen3 Prius had extraordinary amount of cargo space with oodles to spare for a 4 kWhr battery which fits in the ~5-ft3 underfloor in Gen3. The whole idea of Gen4 is to lower the rear profile to look more like a sedan by getting rid of that underfloor 5-ft3 in the Gen3. (5-ft3 include the spare tire port in the Gen3)

 

Yea, they need time to think about either to reduce the claimed EV range or find a way to squeeze more kwH into the battery because of the recent law suite.

 

When I looked carefully the Gen4 Prius at the local dealer, I was impressed at the available room. This was an upscale version and it did not have a spare tire but the trunk room was open especially behind the rear wheels. Our PHEV battery does not use any of that space but it is available. Or at least some of it is available to allow for the inevitable fender bender. And the cargo area floor without the battery is a few inches down from the door opening. Together with careful packaging, I suspect that there is room, even with the larger battery. Of course, the battery must be offset to allow for the exhaust pipe and the heat which it generates, but that also can be dealt with. I can imagine that there might be delays in dealing with this, however.

 

and they can go back to the 10 gallon tank and i'm sure an origami expert could be hired to rearrange things.

 

Toyota also went with an independent rear suspension that takes up more space. Then they needed to leave space for the solar roof battery in the Prime.

Any major changes from what has been already shown won't be seen until mid-cycle. Maybe a year soonest if sales are really bad.