Can you say price war? How else is Toyota going to shift 180k Priora when the market for hybrids has tanked (Prius sales down 44.7 percent in December) and Honda’s Insight has arrived to do battle? In their best year, Toyota shifted 181,221 gas – electric hybrids. The obvious answer: they’re not– barring a sudden recovery of the American automotive market and an increase in fuel prices. (Federal gas tax hike?) Could be. As far as the Insight’s concerned, ToMoCo isn’t. US Prez Jim Lentz told Ward’s Auto there’s room in the market for three hybrids. “You’re going to have Honda at the entry end. You’re going to have Prius kind of in the center, and you’re going to have (the) Lexus (HS 250h) on the luxury side,” he says. “It gives consumers clear choices, a large array of hybrid products.” So much for the Ford Fusion or any GM hybrid, then. Sad; but true?
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The tipping point is near, if it hasn’t already arrived, for a Prius to be considered a “normal” car. Normal, that is, except that it uses less gas and breaks down less often. Toyota should set its sights on the commercial market. Taxi operators, courier services, motor pools, utility inspectors, even certain public safety activities (e.g., campus cops) can make good use of a hybrid, as can most anyone with a high ratio of in-town to highway driving and no need to haul refrigerators. That should account for a hundred grand or so hybrids per year.
Uh… no. Good luck at that.
PS: LOL
These will be bought by people who can think further into the future than next week.
It’s that simple.
As has been noted previously, hybrid sales have not dropped off at the same rate overall, so in reality they’re doing a little better than the rest.
Toyota ignores the new Insight at its own peril. They think it will be competing with the Prius, but I think it will be competing with the Corolla and Vibe.
The difference in fuel usage between the Insight and the Prius is also not as great as buyers might think. Fuel economy is a rather poor measure of this; consumption is what you actually what to measure. Using the Canadian and European standard of liters per 100 kilometer, the difference between 30mpg and 40mpg is 2L/100km, but the difference between 40mpg and 50mpg is about half that (1.1L/100km). Whether Honda can highlight this diminishing return in their marketing is a different matter, but I suspect that the difference will be small enough in practice that most buyers will choose based on other aspects of the car.
When I said Vibe there, I meant whatever Toyota’s name for their version of the Vibe is. Which I don’t know, and I’m too lazy to look up. (Except I’m not, so here it is: Matrix. Whoa.)
Not bad. It has some of the luxury bells and whistles like led headlights, lane keep assist, and radar cruise control. I don’t understand why Ford thinks that they can get away with pricing the Fusion Hybrid over the Prius.
If Honda dials in some of their usual (former?) drivability, at least the folks disliking Toyota numbness have someplace else to go. I can see the Prius outselling the Insight, but not by much, especially if the Honda is decently ($2-3k) cheaper.
The Fusion will take on the Camry and Malibu hybrid market, a totally different market in my mind.
They may very well move 180k Prius’, but that will make it doubly hard for Chevy move any Volts, if and when that car ever sees a dealership (my prediction – it won’t).
The Prius is in its 8th year of production, making is a “proven” technology in a mid-size car for around $25k. The Volt will appear to be everything it is – unproven technology in its first year, for $40k, from a company on the verge of collapse.
Here’s a question for the Best and the Brightest: Should Ford kill the regular MKZ and turn it into a hybrid-only model using the Fusion Hybrid’s drivetrain?
180k Prius in U.S. in ‘09?
The Volt is doomed.
mcs
I don’t understand why Ford thinks that they can get away with pricing the Fusion Hybrid over the Prius.
because Ford isn’t putting the Fusion hybrid against the Prius, they’re putting up against the Camry hybrd, in which it’s priced competitively
Campus cops here love Dodge Chargers. They won’t give them up without a fight.
50merc: “Toyota should set its sights on the commercial market. Taxi operators, courier services, motor pools, utility inspectors”
It looks like they already have in downtown NYC. I had my first, and so far only, ride in a Prius a few weeks back, it was a NYC yellow cab.
Priuses (or whatever…) are becoming somewhat common as cabs, livery vehicles and transportation for the various city authorities. I’m seeing quite a few Hybrid Camrys and Highlanders as Taxis and livery cars too. To be fair, there are loads of Hybrid Escapes doing Taxi duty as well.
Kind of makes sense to me.
Probably not 180K this year but I see the Prius becoming the best selling car in the US eventually.
Ford can barely make enough hybrid powertrains as is. The Fusion Hybrid will likely come with a sizeable tax break, so why bother cutting its price and lose (even more) money on it?
Perhaps Toyota will pass the cost savings down to the consumer and whack a grand or two off the ‘10 Prius’ sticker? Those packages are nice but not cheap, and us cash buyers do so because we’re trying to save money in the long run.
The future is bleak for car lovers… Upon seeing the Pelosi XR 8.0 SRT ETC, I immediately thought it looked like a little Prii.
Here’s a question for the Best and the Brightest: Should Ford kill the regular MKZ and turn it into a hybrid-only model using the Fusion Hybrid’s drivetrain?…
No, but they should substantially upgrade the interior materials…my folks have one and at first glance the inside looks nicely styled. After 30 seconds or so the cheapness becomes appalling
There are quite a few Prius taxis here in Seattle. When I visited Victoria, BC there were many Prius and Camry Hybrid taxis as well. Furthermore, Seattle has a near-200 strong fleet of 60-foot articulating diesel-electric hybrid buses, too…
The future is not that bleak.
The young hot rod hoodlums of tomorrow will be hacking the cars AI to take advantage of the electric motors instant torque for wicked burnouts.
Or think how you could make a car drift if you reprogrammed the AWD and ESC system.
Having a bank of JDM ultracapicators will be the NOS bottle of tomorrow.
@N8iveVA :
because Ford isn’t putting the Fusion hybrid against the Prius, they’re putting up against the Camry hybrd, in which it’s priced competitively
Therein lies the problem. The Camry Hybrid is going to be taking a big hit from the Prius as well. Hybrid buyers are purchasing that type of car for efficiency and environmental reasons. They will prioritize increased efficiency, better features, and lower price over an extra 2 inches of shoulder room.
Like it or not, Ford has to forget about the Camry Hybrid and compete against the Prius. Otherwise it’s game over.
@Richard Chen:
Ford can barely make enough hybrid powertrains as is. The Fusion Hybrid will likely come with a sizeable tax break, so why bother cutting its price and lose (even more) money on it?
Unfortunately I think you’re right.
Having a bank of JDM ultracapicators will be the NOS bottle of tomorrow.
My car has to be put on a dyno for emissions testing, yet it runs better than when I bought it 14 years ago. Dumb ICE cars rule.
The main negative about Prius, for myself and quite a few other folks, is its Corolla-ish interior, ride, etc. A more comfortable ride and an upscale interior would help immensely, though I suppose that comes with a dastardly weight penalty.
I hear very little about the Camry hybrid, but I see those things all over the place in my area. I see at least as many Camry hybrids as Priuses — perhaps more TCH, overall. Of course, I’m from the ecoNW, so this might not be typical for other areas. But I expect the TCH is pulling in the folks who find the Prius to be too much of a “stripper” for their tastes.
Perhaps the 2010 TCH refresh will pull in more buyers — it’s got quite a different new nose, that’s for sure!
I really don’t think that it is an unreasonable goal. Except for that whole Great Depression 2 thing going on. Thinking anyone selling that many cars this year or next will be possible.
It appears that Toyota hasn’t kept up on the realities of the automotive market very well.
They can plan to sell 180K units all they want but they might have trouble finding enough buyers. The amount of money a Prius would save over what the potential customer has now isn’t compelling enough to get people to buy.
Lokki :
180k Prius in U.S. in ‘09?
The Volt is doomed.
But the harder it becomes to sell the Volt, the easier it becomes for GM to go cap in hand to Mr.Obama and say “Look we’re trying to be as green as an Irishman on St.Patrick’s day and we’re trying to employ as many Michigan
votersworkers as possible, but we’re just losing so much money doing it. Please Sir can we have another big pile of cash, and could you also change the trade/healthcare/retirement/dealer franchise laws so the tables are tipped in our favor while you’re at it”.180,000 goofy golf carts, eh? Wow, that’s a lot of used fleet vehicles with dead battery packs sitting in the auction yards in five years.
If Toyota thinks that a petroleum-burning econobox with 600 pounds of batteries in the trunk is the wave of the future, and is determined to push 180,000 of them through the public’s ever-tightening sphincter this year, then it is clearly aiming to be the New General Motors in more ways than one.
My money’s on Hyundai.
How many of those do they want to sell in Europe? Because in Germany they have never sold enough Prii to make in the top 100 best selling cars.
http://www.priuswiki.de/wiki/Zulassungen
Won’t change for the new model – an amazingly ugly package for Passat TDI money and worse autobahn fuel economy. Only attractive for the tiny niche of people who do most of their driving in the city and want a car that size.
My money’s on Hyundai.
…. who are shadowing Toyota’s every move;
Hyundai to Mass Produce Hybrid Cars Starting 2009
The 2010 Prius is loaded with incremental improvements (too many to list here) that address shortcomings listed by drivers of the second-gen.
Better performance, sharper handling, better mileage, more interior volume and some unique features (no belt-driven accessories – electric A/C that can pre-cool the car via remote fob).
This is the way it should be done.
Toyota hits another home run, but there are only 3,000 people in the park…
Mirko Reinhardt – I spent 4 days in London back in Sept and I was amazed by the number of Prius and RX350s. Those were certainly 2 vehicles I didn’t expect to see but I couldn’t throw a dead cat without hitting one. When I was last there in 2004, I don’t recall seeing a single one of either model.
Then again, 911s and R8s were rather common in London. The R8 is the most amazing street car I’ve ever seen. Hands down.
@Quentin
Yes, but in London they have a hideously expensive congestion charge, which doesn’t apply for hybrids – even if they are RX400hs with worse fuel economy than the average European car.
The numbers on priustalk.de show you that in Germany, Toyota sells 300-400 Prii in a typical month. The 100th best selling car in Germany is the Audi A8 at 600 cars/month.
I’ll try to dig up sales numbers for the UK.
@ PeteMoran :
“These will be bought by people who can think further into the future than next week.
It’s that simple”
So very few of them, then. If gas prices stay low, which they will if the economy stays down, which seems emminently likely at this point, hybrid sales will be down.
Since the Prius is a standalone vehicle and has a cult following, it will probably be down the least. Vehicles like the Fusion Hybrid and Camry Hybrid will have a difficult time justifying their higher price tag over the nearly as efficient in highway driving and much cheaper 4cyl sisters.
No, but they should substantially upgrade the interior materials…my folks have one and at first glance the inside looks nicely styled. After 30 seconds or so the cheapness becomes appalling
That they did for 2010. The new interior is much nicer than the old, though whether it’s up to par in a segment that includes the A4, C300 and IS250 is questionable.
@ guyincognito
Vehicles like the Fusion Hybrid and Camry Hybrid will have a difficult time justifying their higher price tag over the nearly as efficient in highway driving and much cheaper 4cyl sisters.
Is that a form of the tedious “it doesn’t save me enough in fuel spending today to get an ROI” argument?
@don1967 who somehow thinks the batteries in a Prius weigh 600 pounds.
It’s not hard to look up the correct numbers. For 2004 to 2009 models it is
45 kilograms = 99.208018 pounds for the entire battery assembly. Do you expect Toyota to increase the battery capacity 500%?
For the curious one battery sub module is 2.3lbs(1.04kg) and the current Prius has 28 modules, the net weight of the batteries is about 64lbs.
Massive batteries in the several hundred pounds range would only make sense in a plug in hybrid which the 180,000 sold in 2009 will not be. Even in 2010 or 2012 or whenever the first plug in hybrids are sold in the US the majority of the Prius sold will not have the massive battery weight you mentioned. It will be a long time before plug in hybrids are more common than the Prius you see today that has less than 100 pounds of batteries.
The ultimate question here is:
Will gas prices stay low long enough for
Americans to fall back to their big car gas-guzzling ways?
There are a ton of SUV’s out there at cheap prices right now, that make pretty good sense with gas at less than $2 a gallon.
Another factor that I sort of hesitate to mention is that Americans are, well, BIG people. When one of my friends came to visit us a week back, he barely fit into the passenger seat of my 3 series. Neither he nor his wife are ever going to fit into a Prius comfortably. Neither of them is svelte but neither is big enough that you’d notice them in a Walmart.
The reason that SUV’s and pickups became popular in the first place is that -in terms of interior space- they are the big cars that the American companies quit making but American buyers kept wanting.
Thus, I believe that if Ford can get their advertising mojo working, the “Big Car/SUV” hybrid is a long-term winner for them.
IF gas prices start to creep up, that is.
The first-gen US Priuses (2nd gen overall) have long since passed their 5 year marks, and the first 2004 Priuses are approaching 5 years now with no appreciable loss of battery capacity (I have one of them).
Add that to the cabs that have gone 200-250K miles with no problems and you have reality – the batteries do just fine; as many have said, they will likely live as long as the cars do.
M1EK – the batteries in the Prius are not actually doing ‘fine’ after 200-250K miles. The batteries Toyota put in the Prius are just overspeced (Engineering Fudge Factor) and are not magic. They have definately lost capacity, but just haven’t dipped low enough to see a noticeable drop in performance.
There was a study done by the US govt that found around 1/2 the capacity was gone at 150K miles and I would guess only a 1/3 would be left at 200+ K.
One has to wonder if Toyota is ‘increasing’ the fuel efficiency on the newer Prius by decreasing the amount of overcapacity available (ie, decreasing useful life).
SKiD666, cite or retract. The taxis that passed 200,000 miles didn’t see any detectible drop in fuel economy, nor have owners of 1st gen Priuses reported any such drop; nor have owners of 2nd gen Priuses that have driven that many miles.
I should state that it’s likely that there’s a small drop in capacity at large mileage, but that the claim that half the capacity is gone at 150,000 miles is ridiculous on its face given the real-world results mentioned above.
SKiD666,
So, they overspec’ed the battery? So that it would last any reasonable life of the car? Those cagey bastards! Giving up the revenue stream from replacement parts and repair service in favor of customer value and repeat sales? The nerve!
If Ford or GM had done that, I might not own 4 Toyotas.
M1EK,
There is such a study but it’s so old that it’s almost certainly irrelevant.
GM faces a similar problem, “Will the Volt batteries go the distance?” GM doesn’t know and there’s more long-term understanding of the NiMH’s in the Prius than the new-tech Li-Ions that will someday fill the Volt.
If they must overspec the battery to get them to last the life of the car, at least Toyota has a good knowledge base so as to do the necessary overspec’ing.
GM’s rolling the dice. With customer money. And taxpayer money. So as to lose money on an unprofitable car. Sheer genius.
Whuffo2, “They can plan to sell 180K units all they want but they might have trouble finding enough buyers. The amount of money a Prius would save over what the potential customer has now isn’t compelling enough to get people to buy”
They may or may not reach their goal. As a professional cheapskate, we don’t spend any money unless we have to (Bad for sales) but once a decision is made to actually purchase a car for say 20,000 dollars we still buy that vehicle which will save us the most money. THERE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A PAY OFF POINT. IT SIMPLY HAS TO SAVE MONEY COMPARED TO THE ALTERNATIVE 20,000 DOLLAR CHOICE. Cheap gas or expensive gas the Prius saves money
Who takes the OPINION of one company’s president as the truth. That an Insight/Prius/Lexus trinity would rule the market is a narrow-sighted industry view. Once the Fusion, Volt and similarly sized cars are out there will be little reason to buy those economy cockroaches. As for the Lexus stationwagon? Most normal folk will rather drive a sedan. And don’t forget the diesels! For a penny more (per-mile) a diesel Jetta will give you 130 city miles/160 highway miles more (per tank) than the gas-powered Jetta. (Using $1.73 gas & $2.70 biodiesel as base numbers). If someone comes up with a biodiesel-electric hybrid Beetle (Seth Brundel Edition?) every college girl and hippie couple will be standing in line to buy it!
M1EK – http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/hev/end_of_life_test_1.pdf
I’m sure there has been some small changes in battery tech, but they will still lose capacity over time, it just depends on how much ‘extra’ capacity that was built in before the owner notices a change.
Did you even read that report?
This suggests to me that some assumptions in the study were flawed. What could it be? Maybe this one:
Gee. Wonder if that might have something to do with it?
Didn’t the first n Priuses offer some sort of federal tax break to their owners, a break that has long since expired?
Didnt’ Priuses enjoy free unlimited HOV lane access in some states, even with a single driver, a privilege that will soon expire?
In any event, price wars are great for buyers, after all these years. Bring it on.
What’s not to agree with?
- the batteries in the Prius lose capacity over their lifetime (this is a function of NiMH chemistry and charge/discharge cycles, they are not made of pixie dust)
- a Dept. of Energy study found that after 160,000 miles the batteries were at half capacity (based on manufacturer specs) and they showed no difference in fuel economy
This would lead to the conclusion that:
a) Toyota engineers don’t use all of the batteries capacity to achieve their fuel economy ratings
b) at some point the fuel economy (we assume after the warranty runs out) will lessen until the batteries are replaced, and at that point it may not make economical sense to replace them (can a Prius run if battery pack is removed?)
BTW, is the warranty on the batteries pro-rated?
(ie. if in last year of warranty, the battery fails, do you get a brand new one for free?)
SKiD, what’s not to agree with is the theory that all three (different) hybrids supposedly lost so much battery capacity yet didn’t lose any fuel economy. Occam’s Razor suggests that, perhaps, the fact that the researchers couldn’t measure the initial battery capacity the same way might have something to do with the puzzle.
The algorithm in the Prius uses something close to the ‘middle third’ of the battery capacity. If the battery’s true (full) capacity shrank by such a large margin, it would be difficult to imagine a way that wouldn’t affect the actual capacity capable of being used by the HSD.
RedStapler- hot rodders will do the same thing to electric cars that RC racers do to their electric cars. New armature windings, more powerful magnets, special wires.
Read about the Tesla Roadster Sport for more info
“hand wound stator”
Mileage longevity looks great for the Prius for now, it hasn’t been sold long enough to know about time longevity.
davey, the first of the previous generation of Priuses sold in the US are now pushing 8 years old. There was a generation before that sold in Japan (1997-2000).