Toyota Launches The Car Of The Future, The Prius Alpha April

In a normal world, an automaker wants to time the announcement of a new car just right: In time to build anticipation. Not too early, because that would hurt sales of last year’s models. In Japan, they keep things simple and have the press event the day the car goes on sale. Today, I was at a press event in Tokyo that celebrated the Prius Alpha, a bigger, roomier minivanish Prius that can seat 7. If you’d order it today, you would get your car in a distant future, in April 2012. No typo. 11 months from now. Next year.

Welcome to the new world of post-tsunami car launches.

When asked today when the car will be delivered, Chief Engineer Hiroshi Kayukawa said: “Well, we are trying to get our production up and in order, and having received so many orders in advance, we want to do this as quickly as possible, and it looks like it’s going to be April 2012.”

Instead of a tsunami, a ripple ran through the audience, assembled in a pavilion in the garden of the Tokyo Prince Hotel, where the members of the media were treated to the first samples of hot and humid Tokyo weather with the A/C turned to barely bearable. Perspiration for a powerless nation.

That’s how Prius Alpha is written correctly, by the way, hold the trademark suits, Alfa.

“You said April twothousandtwelve?” asked an incredulous reporter. “Is that related to the earthquake crisis kind of thing? Is that the problem?” Under fire, the Chief Engineer says: “Well, ok, now, originally we were planning to launch this in late April. The launch event has been set back a couple of weeks. So in that sense, there is a direct relationship to the natural disaster. However, in terms of actual production, we have all the parts lined up, we are ready to make it.” More flabbergastedness.

Here is what we could unearth at the sidelines of the first launch event of a car that will become available a little less than a year later: The Prius Alpha will be made at the Tsutsumi plant in Toyota city on line 1. On the same line, the Prius and other sedans are being made. There is such a backlog of orders for the Prius and other cars that the fabulous new guy Prius Alpha will have to take a number and wait for its turn.

And it’s getting even more complicated, as are a lot of things in the post-tsunami age. 25,000 orders for this car had been received, and some of them may already have been filled, I heard today from Toyota spokesman Dion Corbett. I told you it’s complicated.

But if I would go down to my neighborhood Toyota dealer in Tokyo and say “sumimasen, I’d like to buy that new Prius Alpha,” I would be told to expect delivery sometime in April next year.

The U.S. launch, originally planned for June this year, most likely will become a victim of this situation. But who knows, maybe the Prius Alpha will be launched in the U.S. in June, and will arrive at dealerships see volume shipments arriving in May 2012? Now mind you, this was a JDM event, and great pains were taken not to talk about anything American (or European, for that matter.) All speculations are strictly mine.

If the March 11 earthquake could shift the main island of Japan by 8 feet, you can be sure that it will cause many other shifts. Including many extra shifts.

PS: Toyota U.S.A. said later in the day “that the Prius v is still on track for delivery to U.S. customers this fall.” The Prius Alpha will be called Prius V in the U.S.