No insideev said that it was their changed behavior, and predicted that they might greatly ramp down production. The cancellation was a surprise but went along with that thesis. I will leave out the negative analysis posts, but here is the infographic Toyota Prius PHV Sales Card U.S. – Exclusive InsideEVs Sales Infographic You can see how when Toyota was trying, even without a national roll out, the prius phv sold a good portion of prius sales in August 2013 - July 2014, peaking at 13% of sales. August 2014 through today their was a major drop, August through december are the majority months in other years for toyota specifically and plug-ins in general. Low inventory levels and negative pr toward plug-ins accompanied the decline. Easy fixes if they wanted to sell the car, was better dealer training, adequate inventory, refreshes to option packages. Maybe make clear that you support plug-in vehicles when you bash bevs, instead of removing the gas filler door of a phev in an Lexus advertisement to pretend a long range phev took hours to refuel. No way to roll this like toyota failed when they tried, they were succeeding, then slowed sales on purpose. The car clearly did not meet their or my expectations, but that does not mean they could not profitably sell it in california or even texas. That doesn't say they won't do a good job on the next job phv. Engineers at fiat did a good job on the 500e even though top management seems to hate it. But the car is clearly missing corporate support, especially with bob carter in the US and the chairman of the board in Japan. clearly they would like to lose money and play politics on fuel cells than support this generation of plug-ins.
negative pr toward phevs being from lexus?i love the first comment after the article. guy didn't buy a pip because he thought it was a bev that only went 12 miles.
Lexus to show how bad phevs are took a "borrowed" i3-rex and pitted it against ct200h for a road trip to vegas. The i3 had to stop for long periods of time to charge. I guess when they looked at it with the fuel door, someone said remove that we may not fool enough people, and they removed the fuel door of the i3-rex in post production. The rex goes a shorter distance between charges than the bev, so I'm guessing that is why they used it as you had to charge it more than the bev if not using gas. This was part of a series of plug-in bashing ads and on-line content from lexus. Do you want a link? Toyota and their wholly owned subsidiary Lexus could educate people that you can refuel phevs with gasoline on longer trips, but hey that would step on the story that plug-ins are bad.
good line in there 'toyota winding down production to get ready for the next gen, AKIN TO GM AND VOLT'. no, i don't think lexus ads bashing plug ins affected pip sales. they only affected hill, and lexus buyers.
If it was not corporate attitude including bashing and low inventories how do you explain the third graph with yoy sales declining over 50% each month from august to through december. These sales declines continued. Do you think toyota canceled production because sales were low, or that sales were low because toyota decided not to support the car? Sales were up 300% in may 2014 yoy when it appeared toyota was trying. They took none of the actions chevy or nissan took to help car sales. Can you point to a statement where Toyota supported the prius phv in the last year, instead of just bashing other plug-ins.
Then why was the Prius PHV sales for July 2014 to December leveling off while the plugin segment was growing? Low gas prices would put a damper on the entire segment. At least one poster has said they didn't buy a PPI because it wasn't for sale in their state. Others have expressed the wish that Toyota had sold it in their state. So not everyone that wanted one has gotten it, but perhaps that is so in the states where Toyota sells it. Some of the continued growth for the segment can be attributed to new models becoming available; the i3 and Soul EV come to mind. Some of it can also be because models have rolled out to more states; the Spark EV.
And apparently the guy leaving the comment you mentioned... Since according to Lexus/Toyota, a plugin can ONLY use electricity "AKIN"?? Maybe second cousins once removed. GM wound down Volt production a few months before the next gen Volt. Toyota stopped production almost a year and a half before their implied release date.
hey, don't shoot the messenger. i'm just quoting from ag's linked article. if you want to pick and choose what suits you, that's your right, but doesn't buffer your argument.
I'm not stating the quote isn't accurate, I'm disagreeing with your statement that it was a "good line".
Pardon me, I misspoke. I should have said, "I'm not saying that you didn't accurately quote the article". The words may have been accurately quoted by you. What the original author said, and your agreement with it, are what I find illogical.
I think we will simply have to agree to disagree here. One thing we can probably agree on is if every one that wanted one in the compliance states had already bought, you could expand the market by, um, scary, sell in non CARB states like smaller car companies that released cars later like Tesla, bmw, ford as well as the leaders chevy and nissan. This year the model S, i3, fusion energi, and c-max energi are outselling the prius phv, not just leaf and volt. you might add increased competition to your list though. We can also probably agree that we both hope toyota does a great job of both engineering and marketing the prius phv. But anyway this is a mirai thread. Here is the latest Toyota Press release to enjoy. Petroleum Past Helps Fuel Hydrogen Future | Toyota
This latest press release said sales in october, which means epa fuel economy will probably be in september. Toyota has already given the Japanese prime minister - Abe - the first production mirai, but we have not heard official test figures. They may not be required before lease in japan.
thanks guys, i've lost my marbles, er, train of thought. when i have a few moments, i'll go back through the thread to see what we're arguing about.
They simply enjoy the debate. That's pretty clear with effort to steer clear of certain questions & facts and forcing the discussion to keep looking backward.
i know, me too, but my brain has seen too many years and glasses of beer and red wine. okay, i jumped in at post #79, asking for a link to toyota's statement saying they will never roll the pip out beyond the original 15 states. that link never came. then it evolved into how pip sales were robust, until toyota lost interest. no proof of that either, just opinion.
Evolved or devolved? I thought that the Mirai was an FCV. Wiki says: United States Sales are scheduled to begin in California by mid-2015, followed by five Northeastern States in the first half of 2016 as hydrogen fueling infrastructure is built in the Boston and New York regions. Toyota will provide free hydrogen fueling for the first three years to initial buyers of the Mirai, just as Hyundai does for lessees of its Hyundai Tucson-ix35 Fuel Cell in California.[9][11] Toyota expects cumulative sales of 3,000 Mirais in the U.S. by the end of 2017.[9] In the American market the 2016 model year Toyota Mirai will start at US$57,500 before any government incentives, and a leasing option for 36 months will be available with a US$3,649 down payment and a lease rate of US$499 per month. [9][11][48] Several states have established incentives and tax exemptions for fuel cell vehicles. As a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV), the Mirai will be eligible for a purchase rebate in California of US$5,000 through the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project.[49] The existing federal tax credit for fuel cell vehicles expired on 31 December 2014.[50][51] Seems a tad out of my price range for a car with all of the disadvantages of a BEV coupled with all of the disadvantages of an ICE car, but somebody somewhere thinks that the technology is viable, and there are places in the US that you can actually find fuel for an FCV. I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that Toyota will sell every single Pip that they make, and they were talking about making a g4 based pip in 15-16......and they'll probably sell all of those too. What's to argue about???
No problem. Some, including me, were arguing about the mirai's impact on toyota plug-ins. I think you were arguing against those points, but probably didn't keep the mirai context, but IMHO we all want alternatively fueled vehicles to do well. Well robust compared to how many mirai toyota is expecting. You certainly are entitled to the opinion that toyota is trying its hardest in plug-ins but the market simply is not there, but ... toyota is arguing there is a huge future market for the mirai. I think that is where we were arguing against each other and the thread topic may have been in my my mind but I didn't realize it wasn't in your mind. I certainly am not argung that toyota's profit this year or next will be majorly impacted by not selling the phv. Toyota/Lexus sold 10.23 million vehicles last year, so sales wise ten or twenty thousand cars are not going to make an impact its a rounding error, and while we can guess their was a profit margin on the phv, it was certainly lower than on the camry, tundra, vensa, etc. Hell I think all of us that are arguing that the mirai strategy hurts Toyota in plug-ins, want Toyota to do well in plug-ins. I hope that in 5 years we look back and toyota has publically embraced phevs as much as it seems to push hydrogen.
