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Prius Prime - U.S. sales of 30,000 per year?

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Toyota is targeting 30k N American sales per year according to linked article.

So ~26k US, ~2.5K Canada and ~ 1.5k Mexico? That would be slightly better than Volt and LEAF.

Toyota did not sell 1st gen PiP in Mexico but neither did GM sell Volt 1.0.

GM now sells Volt 2.0 in Mexico and Nissan sells the LEAF. Expect PiP 2.0 in Mexico as well.
 
Where do they stand with respect to ZEV credits?

Despite receiving some obnoxious number of credits per Mirai sale, perhaps they're not moving enough of the hydrogen vehicles and need decent sales of the Prime to compensate.

2.5k Prime sales/year in Canada is high unless Toyota changes its philosophy. The last generation Prius Plug-in was only available on paper in Canada. No marketing, no vehicle available for test drives or even just to see in the showroom. No inventory. The only way to acquire one was to hold a gun to a dealer's head to get him to place a special order which involved a seven-month wait. One month over 1,000 were sold in the USA and only one new registration was recorded in Canada.
 
Well, Toyota became a net purchaser of ZEV credits this year since HEV no longer get partial ZEV credit.

PiP 1.0 was a CA play to get a green sticker to access HOV.

PiP 2.0 will be a much better value proposition. Although less than half the AER of Volt 2.0 it should get much better MPG when on gas HEV mode. Ergo dealers outside CA may be much more willing to stock them and sell you one without the need for gun play.
 
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I actually SAW a plug-in Prius Prius at my local dealer! It was a special order. I have never seen it on the road, or seen ANY on the road in Canada.
Outside of California they're pretty hard to spot because they look just like a regular Prius. The only differentiating features are the charge port door, the tiny badge on the back and the metallic trim on the liftgate. They're easier to spot in California because most of them have the green HOV stickers on them.
 
Pricing info starting to trickle out:

Confirmed Pricing Thread

In the Netherlands, the "Business+" version of the new Prius Prime will run you $37,906, add in the "Luxury Pack" and it adds another $1,684. Total cost would then be $39,590. I'm guessing thats before taxes and delivery charges.

Toyota thinks they can sell 30,000 of these per year in the U.S. Through June Toyota has sold 48,251 Prii in the U.S. so maybe they can hit 90,000 for the year (note that sales are declining, down 11% YOY).

I will bet anyone here my early Model 3 reservation that Toyota does not sell 30,000 Prius Prime's in the U.S. in 2017. Any takers? :D

I'm thinking more like <10,000.

RT
 
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Pricing info starting to trickle out:

Confirmed Pricing Thread

In the Netherlands, the "Business+" version of the new Prius Prime will run you $37,906, add in the "Luxury Pack" and it adds another $1,684. Total cost would then be $39,590. I'm guessing thats before taxes and delivery charges.

Toyota thinks they can sell 30,000 of these per year in the U.S. Through June Toyota has sold 48,251 Prii in the U.S. so maybe they can hit 90,000 for the year (note that sales are declining, down 11% YOY).

I will bet anyone here my early Model 3 reservation that Toyota does not sell 30,000 Prius Prime's in the U.S. in 2017. Any takers? :D

I'm thinking more like <10,000.

RT

30k is 2.5k per month, which would be more than the Volt, which is a 4-and-a-bit seater.

No price, no bets. But if Toyota needs to shift 30k for ZEV credits, I think that they'll easily be able to load up incentives and move them. Much more easily than the PiP. Although with limited range, this time it's a near-EREV rather than an HEV with a plug.
 
Pricing info starting to trickle out:

Confirmed Pricing Thread

In the Netherlands, the "Business+" version of the new Prius Prime will run you $37,906, add in the "Luxury Pack" and it adds another $1,684. Total cost would then be $39,590. I'm guessing thats before taxes and delivery charges.

Toyota thinks they can sell 30,000 of these per year in the U.S. Through June Toyota has sold 48,251 Prii in the U.S. so maybe they can hit 90,000 for the year (note that sales are declining, down 11% YOY).

I will bet anyone here my early Model 3 reservation that Toyota does not sell 30,000 Prius Prime's in the U.S. in 2017. Any takers? :D

I'm thinking more like <10,000.

RT

Well it's pretty much exactly what I wanted Toyota to do in 2010, so it's only 6 years late vs demand. Leaf didn't come out until 2012 in all practical terms (2011 model year cars didn't get delivered until end of 2011 and beginning of 2012) so Prius Prime is only 4 years behind vs what I'd consider a response to the 2011 Leaf.

Unfortunately for Toyota the target keeps moving. If they are just now coming out with something competitive to EVs from 4 years ago when will they have something competitive to Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3?
 
If they price these in the US at the same price as the normal Prius (after tax credits) and if they have plenty of production then they may replace most of their standard Prius sales with Prime if they get their dealership sales people on the job.
Salesman: "if you don't plug it in it is just like the normal Prius, but if you do plug it in to a normal wall outlet at home then you save money and only go to the gas station half as often".
 
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If they price these in the US at the same price as the normal Prius (after tax credits) and if they have plenty of production then they may replace most of their standard Prius sales with Prime if they get their dealership sales people on the job.
Salesman: "if you don't plug it in it is just like the normal Prius, but if you do plug it in to a normal wall outlet at home then you save money and only go to the gas station half as often".

To price them as the normal Prius, after $4500, that would mean the base would have to be less than the PiP. I believe the Prius Prime comes with more standard features than the base Prius, and with the larger Li-Ion pack than the PiP...I don't really think they could price it under $30k.

Besides, Toyota doesn't really want to sell people PHEVs anyway.
 
The problem could be that they can't produce enough of them both to satisfy the Japanese market and CARB, uh, I mean, the US market.

And of course there's also the fact that in the USA, there's more time-sensitivity. The Japanese will order and wait. US customers generally don't like to wait as long. Oh, and any delay means we're closer to BEV Gen 2.
 
Wow, had to really set the way back machine correctly to resurrect this now 3 month old thread...

The Prius Prime is now being delivered to California customers. Those interested in further details can check out the prius chat forum.

RT
 
November sales of 781 units. Not bad at all for the first month. However, normal Prius sales are down from 2015 levels. The November sales of 7,284 are down from the prior years 8,287.

Given the low pricing on the Prime, I was reading a lot of speculation that it might really eat into the normal Prius sales. Not sure whether that is what we are seeing here, but seems plausible.Some people were also saying that Toyotas plan might be to gradually shift all Prius hybrid production from the normal hybrid to the plug in variety. I'll be monitoring the sales going forward, so we shall see.

My guess is that the Prius sales, plug in or otherwise, are getting slowly steamrolled by: 1) lower gas prices, 2) compelling alternate vehicles (Volt, Bolt, Model 3) that handily beat the plug in range of the Prius.

RT
 
I don't keep an eagle eye on sales figures but my impression is that hybrid sales are down but plugin sales are doing fine. The Prime is a big improvement over the first Prius PHEV. I suspect it will do well.