Flagship Green Car Toyota Prius Faces Diminishing Influence
In his weekly newsletter, my colleague Jon LeSage notes:
The Toyota Prius has been a flagship for Toyota Motor Co. for about 15 years – and the automaker is counting on the redesigned 2016 model to restore its image as the leading green car on the market. Toyota faces steep challenges in getting Prius sales back toward upward trending with gasoline prices being where they are; and stiff competition coming from small, fuel-efficient cars and competing alternative technologies.
He notes that June 2015 sales of the Toyota Prius Liftback were 9,559, down 15.2% from June 2014. He also comments on the disappearance of the Toyota Prius Plug In, which sold only 464 units in June, down 70.5% from 2014.
Two comments:
1) Toyota obviously revels in the fact that, by virtue of the Prius, it is perceived by the public as the greenest of the automakers. This makes it possible for them to sell the Tundra (14.5 MPG pick-up), in approximately equal numbers, 9000/month) without too much damage to its eco-brand.
2) As I unabashedly told the Toyota representatives at the Los Angeles Auto Show a few years ago, the plug-in version of the Prius is a terrible concept—one that will be doomed to failure, regardless of the overall adoption curve of range-extended hybrids. Why? Its battery-only range is a paltry 11 miles. The vast majority of U.S. commuters will now have to both fill up their tanks and plug in their cars at home and at the workplace. That’s called “inconvenience.” News flash: Car owners don’t like that.
Craig,
Plug-in sales at large are down YOY. June sales overall were down 16%… and for every plug-in product not named “Tesla”, “BMW”, “Cadillac”, “Mercedes”, or “Porsche” (notice a trend?) June sales shrunk by far more than that.
If you recall, as soon as the invasion into the Crimea happened, I stated that we were coming into a winnowing period – because with low gasoline prices there would be far less enthusiasm for plug-in vehicles. This has occurred. The same is, and has been, true for hybrid vehicles. Every $0.10/gallon the price of gasoline drops, the overall economic penalty for buying a hybrid or plug-in increases… and the appetite for them decreases.
The Prius almost outsold every single plug-in vehicle available in the U.S. I think it’s a little early to think of its position as “threatened”.
🙂
FWIW, it looks like we might actually see a deal done with Iran this week (which will cement Obama within the top 7-8 presidents of all time, possibly as high as #6), in which case we’ll have at least another year of an oversupplied oil market, and the winnowing will continue for at least another year.
As for the Tundra… Yes, that’s a pretty horrible purchase for those that don’t actually need the functionality of a pickup. But those buyers are buying a pickup, not a sensible car… so whether they need it or not, there’s not a choice between a Tundra and a Prius… it’s between the F-150, the Ram and the Tundra… which are all pretty much the same (poor) efficiency. If Toyota refused to sell the Tundra, then you’d just have more sales of the Ram and F-150… you wouldn’t have more sales of more efficient vehicles.
Good points here. Please see: http://2greenenergy.com/2015/07/13/toyota-green-automaker/