Promoting Prius Prime by misleading about Prius PHV

in my not so humble opinion, if toyota put a plug in the rav4, then they would have a plug in suv. now sell it for the same price as a regular rav4, and you have a real winning formula.

 

Odd I've never had people say that to me with the PiP. But I used to have a lot of people say that about my Gen II Prius because they just didn't have a clue about what a hybrid was.


Unsupervised!

 

how would they know the difference?

 

In addition to avoiding the mpg hit, doing these miles instead in EV helps a lot with local pollution.

Vehicle emissions are worst during warmup. Taking a walk, jog, or bike ride, especially on a cold morning, the nose and lungs quickly discover what a passing cold start ICE vehicle is dumping into the air. It's a bit like stepping from fresh air into a smoke filled casino.

 

Especially those damn diesel pickups that are so popular now. Just get in back of one during the winter while driving is when it can be really bad.


Unsupervised!

 

even after they're warmed up.

 

in my mind, the big question for consumers will be, 'do i want a 4 seat car'? because that will be a paradigm shift for most american drivers.

 

I have been following this thread, especially what John has been saying and I have been seriously considering updating to the Prius Prime. In most ways my first generation PIP still works fine for me, however. In addition, I have two issues to updating to the Prime which I can not overcome. The first is that the Toyota dealers which I have access to have told me that they will not stock the Prime but will order one if I like. This goes against the case which John makes regarding the marketing of the Prime if this is a wide spread situation. The dealers will not have the Prime cars on the lot to sell to the customer.

The second issue which I have is that I have not yet been able to feel excited about the "upgrade". The change in styling does not look like an improvement (it actually looks weird to me) and the only thing which looks really appealing is the larger touch screen.

All of the explanations of why Toyota has (or will) make this change make sense from their point of view but it is my money that must be spent to make a purchase and for that to happen this car must appeal to me.

What it comes down to is that we have little choice but to compromise between carrying around a very heavy (and expensive) traction battery which we seldom use to its full potential in order to have adequate range on one hand and burning at least a little petrol from time to time on the other. If we accept the second compromise, the first generation PIP still works most of the time and the "sweet spot" is so very hard to hit what with our varying needs.

This is a very useful conversation.

Allan
Some insider notes on the 2017 Prius Prime | PriusChat[/QUOTE]

 

It’s a psychological thing.

In prior threads we noted six seat sedans were once common. Even then, most people would rarely, if ever, need to use that sixth seat. Family size has continued to shrink even further during our current realm of 5-seaters. More so, most of the time vehicles are used for single person commuting.

There will be those where a 5th seat is a real necessity and would be a deal breaker, but for far more people, it should not be an issue.

Marketing will be important here, at least as important as “the facts”. This seems kind of like computers of years ago giving up the floppy drive then later the CD-ROM drive. There were plenty of folks who voiced “are you kidding?!”.

4-seaters may be the start of a new trend that almost everyone gets comfortable with, but Toyota will need to work on their Apple marketing aura to push this into mainstream consciousness.

 

people want 7 seat, 8 seats, cavernous vehicles. 4 seats? not so much. i will give you this, when gas gets back up to $4.+, people may accept 4 seats, but they won't like it. this has proved out over 100 years of motoring. the majority of buyers want the biggest vehicle possible for their money, and will only compromise when there are no alternatives.

[/QUOTE]
we're not the target market for prime. i'll be keeping my pip until something better comes along.

2 more years, by which time hyundai and how many other competitors will be out there?

we've waited 5 years for prime, and it's not ready for prime time?

what's the point of waiting for tax credits to end, if we're not competing against cars that get tax credits?

 

The average consumer will NOT know that the Prime and Liftback have nothing in common. Heck look at how long it took Nintendo to get average consumers to realize a Wii and WiiU are not the same thing (loose comparison obviously).

I don't consider that quite a bit. Sure, it's a 50% gain, but 3.3 kW is still too slow, unless you never charge in public, or there are 1000s of chargers in your area (not true anywhere in the US yet). If you're doing overnight charging, then you don't really even need 240v for a car with a battery this size.

It would be useful to know what the usable battery capacity for a better idea on speed calculation. 20 minutes of taper at 0.5 kW at the end of a charge is a lot on an hour charge, but not so much on a 4 hour charge (numbers not exact for Prime, just for example).

I wish it was 6.6 kW (my normal complaint of PHEVs hogging public charging stations for double the time they would if the manufacturers would start including 6.6 kW on PHEVs), but unfortunately it's 3.3 kW (at least it's better than the 2.2 kW on the PiP).

Sure, it's not an issue most of the time. However, in buying a car this efficient, it would suck to have to take a different car when needing to ride with 5 simply due to not having a center seat in the back (my friend's trucks might be more comfortable, but we take my PiP since it costs less than a quarter of what it would cost to take their vehicles).

Honestly, I have a feeling Toyota will cripple sales of the Prius Prime to try to prove that people don't want to but plug-in's (between lack of 5th seat, price which we don't know yet, and nationwide availability which we'll see if actually happens).

 

I wonder whether TOYOTA will do a back-flip with Prime, and re-design a 5 seater, partly in view of the lower sales of Prius. Additionally, in recent days Germany has announced a transition to Electric vehicles, as have other areas of the world. VW and others have indicated an escalation of EVs. There is a possibility that, in view of the EU's downturn plus VW's - and possibly others - emissions revelations, that use of Diesel will be tightened and curtailed including in trucks and SUVs.

Nobody knows quite when fuel prices will again skyrocket - political instability in many parts of the world could see it MUCH sooner than later.

 

ooooh, camry prime, now you're talking. i hope they find a better place for the battery though.