Toyota Suspends Prius Fleet Sales in US

Can someone please simply explain what this means. Thank you.

 

now, i'm no communications expert, but the impression i got is that Toyota expects a huge massive push towards hybrids thanks to the new tax credit. regardless of their intentions, it serves both us and them for them to put out as many full price (read: consumer) vehicles as they can before the tax credit begins to phase out. Imagine (using very imaginary numbers) that Toyota can put out 15,000 Prii a month. so by the end of april, they'll be donewith all 60k, and people will have bought all 60k at full price. in addition, all of the prii sold till the end of June will be tax credit eligible - so toyota sells 90kPrii at full or better price. if instead, toyota gave 2500 of each months production to fleet purchasers, then they would reach 60k in late may, and only total 72.5k Prii that people see as an economic no brainer. It could be even worse than that, in fact, if fleet purchases actually counted against the 60k.

the very, very simple news is that Enterprise won't be getting any Prii anytime soon, even if they wanted to. We get them first =)



Oh, and PLEASE correct me if i either missed something vital or am just plain interpereting wrong

 

I haven't gone back to check but I don't recall seeing anything in the tax bill which would have excluded fleet sales from the 60k threshold.

 

In your example, all the prii sold till the end of SEPTEMBER will be 100% tax credit eligible. The 100% credit is in effect through the end of the quarter *following* the quarter in which the 60,000th is put into service. All the better for us and Toyota.

Shelly

 

well, regardless of adding that extra three months (which is great!) both us and toyota will be happier without early fleetsales. somehow i had it in my head that it started dropping the following quarter - thanks for cluing me in. this is good, i hope gas spikes sometime in there and people buy lots of Prii. After i get mine =)


oh, and i've not read the actual text of the tax info because tax law is ugly. i took two extra electives to not have to take a tax law course =)

 

I think we might all want to rethink the government fleet sales. You and I pay for the gas in State and Federal cars! Just a thought.

 

I am a newbie what can I say lol - what are fleet sales? That was what I was trying to understand and how does it affect fleet and us consumers for 06? Thanks!

 

Toyota began sending letters to fleet customers last June and July telling them that there would be no fleet sales. Previously, fleet sales had been "limited" but now they are officially "none", although fleet customers can still get individual cars.

This is not a Toyota announcement, per se, but is rather a news agency figuring out what has already been going on for a while and reporting it.

As in late 2003 and early 2004 when orders soared, Toyota is again hearing stories of consumer frustration with wait times exceeding six months. Remeber when they were sending out keychains? Same problem now.

 

i dont have a hard time believing they are doing this to make the consumer happy. im fairly certain that my dealer mentioned that they did not give price breaks on fleet sales except for the same price break for anyone buying more than one car. (i guess there is a paperwork and fees reduction for cars purchased at the same time by the same entity)
my dealer also guarantees that all Priuses are sold as MSRP.

my dealer did mention that they did get somewhat of a price break because Toyota could not fill their orders. apparently they had a large order that was made in 2003 and spilled over into the 2004 model year. because of the contract, the cars when delivered will be at 2003 prices... last i heard, they had filled less than half of the order. living in the state capital means that they have a hugh fleet requirement since the state mandated that all fleet vehicles had to use alternative fuel sources if a vehicle was available that fits the states specific transportation needs.

at work we share our parking lot with the Dept of Health and the state vehicle license plates are unmistakeable and i will say that there has been no new Priuses in over a year. last they got new cars (that i noticed anyway) was probably sept 2004.

plus you have to realize that the 2004 Prius intro was a watershed event in many different ways. Toyota did one of the greatest 360's i have ever seen.

first they introduced one of the best designed upgrades in history, then announced that there were very few available. to me, that was a huge mistake. imagine a ground-breaking product, announced at the Super Bowl, then all advertising suspended on it because of the 6-8 month waiting list was already out of control. no sense in paying 5 mil for super bowl time to get it in everyones mind just to put it in the closet again. the 6-8 month wait was in place waaay before the opening kickoff. gotta be the fastest 5 million ever wasted on advertising in car history.

there was an announcement that the 2006's will have a 50% increase in production. well we all know that is not enough. even with a 100% increase it wont be enough. i still think that if the volume was there, the Prius would blow by the Corolla like hurricane Katrina

*edit* oh one more thing...

my slogan is something that i put on nearly everything i do nowadays. many have wrongly assumed that "driving" meaning driving a car. that is actually not the intention of the slogan.

driving is used to mean driving as in forcing or pushing. i knew when the 2004's came out that the no compromise design of the Prius would force other manufactureres to jump on the hybrid bandwagon. that is why i say the intro of the 2004 is a watershed event.

my slogan can also be read as

Toyota Prius: Forcing the future of automotive technology