Toyota Prius Sales Will Plunge In 2017

2017 will be the fifth consecutive year of U.S. year-over-year sales decline for the venerable Toyota Prius.

The core member of the four-pronged Prius lineup — this non-Prime liftback — was once a seemingly unstoppable presence in America. Annual volume shot beyond 100,000 units in 2005 and rose to an all-time high of 181,221 sales in 2007.

But America’s post-recession enjoyment of lower fuel prices and an accompanying turn to SUVs and crossovers (plus a measure of distaste for the current model’s egregious exterior styling) led to a 98,866-unit U.S. sales result in 2016, a 12-year low for the Prius.

2017 will be worse. “We’re going to follow the market,” Toyota Motor Sales USA’s vice president for automotive operations, Bob Carter, told Wards Auto.

What’s that mean?

It means a 24-percent plunge to only 75,000 Prius sales in 2016.

There’s no expectation Prius sales should be as healthy now as they were in 2007. With the Prius family’s expansion and far more hybrid competition from virtually every automaker, the Prius can’t continue to earn maximum market share.

Of course, the entire Prius family never generated the level of demand Toyota expected, either. Initially hoping for 400,000 annual sales with the Prius, Prius Plug-In (now the Prius Prime), Prius C, and Prius V, the best year yet was 2012: 236,659 total sales.

Yet while Toyota projects a loss of roughly 24,000 Prius sales in 2017, greater Prius Prime availability will help pick up some of the slack. After months of inactivity, Toyota reported 781 Prius Prime sales in November; another 1,641 in December. While adding those Prime sales, however, Toyota lost 3,370 sales of the conventional Prius during the same period.

Toyota will also rely on increased demand for the RAV4 Hybrid in 2017. Self-congratulatorily crediting “almost impeccable” timing, Toyota’s Carter told Wards that in 2016, “people were coming out of the Prius, preferred a utility body, and here’s a vehicle that provides almost the same benefits, but with a utility body.”

The RAV4 Hybrid arrived in showrooms in late 2015. Toyota then sold 45,099 RAV4 Hybrids in the U.S. in 2016, but supply was limited. As Toyota ramps up RAV4 production in the hopes of selling more than 400,000 total RAV4s in 2017 — quite possibly enough for the RAV4 to become America’s best-selling SUV/crossover for the first time — the automaker wants the hybrid variant to account for at least 15 percent of all RAV4 sales, up from 13 percent in 2016.

Despite anticipated growth from the RAV4, plus the arrival of an all-new Camry, increased production of the Tacoma pickup truck, and growth across the light truck lineup, Toyota doesn’t expect to see overall U.S. sales growth in 2017.

You know where to cast the blame.

Cars.

Especially the Prius.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.