Toyota’s Prius Pays Price for Cheap Gasoline

http://www.wsj.com/articles/toyotas-prius-pays-price-for-cheap-gasoline-1473149470

by jseliger • 10 years ago

15 63 10 years ago

chmaynard2• 10 years ago

“Toyota has put more energy into the mechanics of the [Prius] than the styling.”

I'm a happy Toyota hybrid customer. Styling was not an important consideration when I chose the Prius. Gas mileage was much more important, along with price, quality, and comfort.

melling• 10 years ago

ok. So, there's still a smaller market. That doesn't address the bigger problem where many people buy SUV's when gas is cheap.

Alupis2• 10 years ago

Styling was not an important consideration when I chose the Prius. Gas mileage was much more important, along with price, quality, and comfort.

Yes, that may be. But imagine if there had been an alternative to the Prius - was priced the same, had the same gas mileage and equivalent specs, but it looked a lot more stylish/sporty/refined, etc...

Which do you buy now?

viraptor• 10 years ago

The one that you like better. Which one "looked a lot more stylish/sporty/refined" is not going to be the same for every person.

pohl• 10 years ago

The one that gets the same gas mileage but has better styling would be the superior engineering achievement, so I'd choose that one. But now imagine a 3rd option that takes whatever advantages made that possible and puts them in the body with better aerodynamics: again I'd choose against style.

sokoloff2• 10 years ago

What "car people" see as a negative, some "eco people" see as a positive.

In Cambridge, MA, there's a significant part of the population for whom "I am making an overt statement about my care and concern for the environment" that will cause them to prefer the unstylish Prius/LEAF/Volt.

bane• 10 years ago

There is, is the Honda Accord Hybrid. Within spitting distance for mpg, bigger, better looking, faster, low end trims are about the same price.

r00fus2• 10 years ago

Yes - as a Prius '05 owner, I'd say back then it was the closest to a spaceship I could get in a production vehicle.

Today, there's plenty of options, and the Volt would probably win (budget) or Tesla (best looking, pure electric).

I think the latest Prius simply looks worse than previous designs.

spking• 10 years ago

I'm in the happy Prius owner camp, too. The styling (or lack thereof) is also driven by aerodynamic efficiency:

http://motorburn.com/2014/01/12-of-the-most-aerodynamic-cars... (#5)

For people like me who consider cars a utility item, I couldn't really care much less about its outward appearance to other people.

mikeash5• 10 years ago

Heh, we found the same link, except I looked it up in order to demonstrate that the Prius's looks aren't about efficiency.

Most of those cars look great. The Prius stands out (along with the XL1) as a weirdmobile there, and it still only gets fifth place.

I'm not going to bash it over its appearance, but I think that list shows that it doesn't have to look different to be efficient.

karmicthreat• 10 years ago

Yea. Those were the same criteria I had. I commute about 90 miles a day. So even with cheap gas fuel efficiency is important to me.

Also I went with the Prius over the Volt mostly because the Volt has WORSE styling and less reliability.

brightball2• 10 years ago

Gonna have to disagree with you there. My Volt was amazing. Drove like it had a V6 and looked really sleek. The Prius always looked like a box on wheels to me.

Spoom• 10 years ago

This is exactly where I am. The Prius looks fine, but when you do the math on the mileage, it can't be beat by any other sedan in the price range. But then, I bought a used Gen 2 Prius, so I wouldn't show up in these stats anyway.

clivestaples2• 10 years ago

My Honda died at 300,000 miles in February. I used the occasion to explore buying a pickup truck and discovered that gas prices had fallen and Toyota Tacomas were selling at a record pace above MSRP. The Dodge Ecodiesel was $40k. The Prius' were sitting the lot and the fleet manager said he'd make me a killer deal. I drove it and enjoyed myself. The car was ~$20k, >50 mpg. I fill up every two to three weeks in SoCal for about ~$20.

protomyth2• 10 years ago

What's the warranty like on Prius fleet cars?

clivestaples2• 10 years ago

I got the standard 3/36k with 60k drive train. I'm not sure I got a "fleet deal", I just worked with him through Costco.

EDIT: I did get a significant discount that was available to pretty much anyone who walked in to buy one. He told me there was considerable pressure to move them because sales completely dried up. In retrospect, I probably could have gotten a much better warranty :/ Oh well...

SandersAK• 10 years ago

For me, the issue is that intellectuals, futurists, etc constantly downplay the crucial cultural role that cars play as part of our identity in America.

America has really shitty public transit, so on average, you're driving (or being driven) somewhere and seeing other people driving.

America is also a place that encourages and celebrates individuality (for better or worse). At the same time, it's a country of sub-cultures and mixed cultural identities.

So you get people buying cars that they think fit their personal identity and their sub culture.

Prius(i?) were a statement for the conscious movement, but it's damning that Toyota never pushed the bar further and explored (until recently) other cultural identity vehicles as eco-conscious (like Tacomas, imagine how awesome that would be!).

tl;dr - cars are critical to American culture, and not just as practical tools for moving around. Even if you think you buy a prius because you "don't care" - that unto itself is a cultural and style decision you are making to express yourself. Hoodies forever.

side rant: Why Tesla is the only car company to make an electric (or even hybrid) that doesn't look like vanilla boring practical dogshit is beyond me.

Florin_Andrei2• 10 years ago

In one corner, cultural identity, a shared, commonly accepted fantasy, a set of semi-arbitrary rules for a role-playing game.

In the other corner, the effort to stop the transformation of Earth into a smoldering pile of garbage that cannot sustain human life.

It's a fight that "makes sense".

bdcravens• 10 years ago

I think you're painting a false dichotomy.

blacksmith_tb• 10 years ago

Granted, though compare the aggressive campaigns of the past 30 years in the US to make smoking cigarettes uncool. A couple of generations ago, it was just a commonplace that people (mostly men) smoked, and certainly cool ones (say, in films) did. What we need now is a similar campaign to uncool huge, inefficient vehicles, and redirect the next generation of car-culture into efficiency in general, and electricity specifically (though adding a few more turbochargers in the meantime is a good start, and does sound cool).

ndonnellan• 10 years ago

Or tax carbon. And let markets [probably] decide which efficiencies to prioritize. Not that it's politically feasible...

xenadu02• 10 years ago

America has really shitty public transit

And it wasn't an accident either. The car companies actively campaigned to tear up and dismantle public transit.

Dallas used to have a huge streetcar network; all that remains is the M uptown line.

Even here in San Francisco the anti-public-transit movement managed to tear down the A and B lines (among others; The A line used to run down Geary to the beach and the B line turned south and ran down 19th Ave.)

wizardforhire• 10 years ago

Oklahoma City had an extensive electric street car network that was eventually dismantled.

http://www.acogok.org/transportation-planning/maps-and-data/...

There are plans in the works to build a new light rail system. The trains were just purchased earlier this year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_Streetcar

knz• 10 years ago

Distain for public transport is effectively the default position for some politicians (and therefore their supporters) in some parts of the country regardless of the inefficiencies obvious during every commute. Having travelled to countries with good transit, it's so obvious that it makes more sense for urban areas. Somehow the Danes make it work out to smaller seaside towns (Helsingor to Hornbaek) but I'd settle for a few transit lines in my local urban area (3.3M).

I've often day dreamed about building a bot that sends a screenshot of traffic in Google Maps to my local representatives at 0830 and 1700 every day. Perhaps with the words "PLEASE fix my bloody commute" overlayed... the thought usually comes to me as I cross the 10 lane Wakota Bridge over the Mississippi that was recently replaced. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars, traffic still grinds to a halt at the same spot every damn day.

twistedanimator• 10 years ago

I think the reason car companies besides Tesla make ugly electric/hybrid cars is because they really don't want you to buy them. I assume at this point, both car companies and the oil industry are intertwined to such a degree that it's not in their financial interest to disrupt the status quo.

My next car will hopefully be a Tesla, but I cannot afford the Model S no matter how much I'd like one.

enraged_camel2• 10 years ago

The exact same thing happened with Kodak. They invented the digital camera in the 70s, but refused to capitalize on it because they were too heavily invested in film cameras and had thousands of people all over the US employed in some capacity manufacturing them. The rest is history.

brightball2• 10 years ago

I always really liked the look of the Volt. It was a lease but I still miss that car...a lot.

guelo3• 10 years ago

We are in desperate need of a carbon tax to continuously push the economy away from global warming emissions. It's crazy that we let Saudi Arabia's oil whims dictate our transportation policy.

sokoloff2• 10 years ago

Maybe. (FTR, I support carbon taxation on balance.)

Many carbon taxation implementations would amount to a regressive tax. Poor people on average drive more and spend more of their income on gasoline than the wealthy. Add in the fact that it becomes a hidden consumption tax as well and it could end up being a fairly regressive tax.

Then the question becomes: are the ecological advantages worth the economic harm from the regressive nature?

Since my wife buys about 200 gallons of gas per year, my daily driver is electric, and our income is enough that we'd never notice a carbon tax, it's easy for me to support it personally. That's far from true for many others.

guelo3• 10 years ago

Saudi Arabia was imposing an extra $400 tax on your wife a couple years ago but we didn't have any say in it.

My favorite idea is a dynamic gas tax that maintains a constant slowly increasing price level. And using the tax revenue to invest in shifting the economy to be less carbon intensive.

Tiktaalik• 10 years ago

You can mitigate the regressive nature of the tax by making the carbon tax "revenue neutral" and funnelling the revenues of the tax completely into credits and tax cuts for those most impacted, which includes low income persons.

British Columbia's carbon tax is claimed to be revenue neutral though I've noticed some criticism about the balance of resulting tax cuts.

Other carbon tax jurisdictions such as Alberta are taking a different approach and are using revenues on green projects.

dragonwriter2• 10 years ago

Many carbon taxation implementations would amount to a regressive tax.

So, set a national overall target CO2 production, divide it by the taxpaying population, and issue an fixed income tax credit of the carbon tax for that per-capita share of the target production. The poor spend, on average, a greater share of income on things that would pay the carbon tax, but if you rebate it that way, they still aren't usually going to end up seeing a net tax increase, though they'll still have all the socially beneficial incentives of a carbon tax.

tootie• 10 years ago

Saudia Arabia didn't drive prices down, the fracking boom did.

guelo3• 10 years ago

I suppose, though Saudi Arabia ramped up production to try to kill off the frackers.

sp332• 10 years ago

Fracking started the war, but it's not profitable at current prices. SA is holding the prices at the current very low value to make sure fracking doesn't become more profitable.

anexprogrammer2• 10 years ago

"The entire market has dramatically shifted to light trucks and SUVs with gas under $3 a gallon."

I did a double take at that as price per gallon seems markedly lower than when I was last in the US.

UK prices ratchet seemingly inexorably upwards. When US prices peaked in 08 at $4.50 we paid pretty much exactly what we pay now - £5 approx. Tax is around 65% of pump price, though it's been higher in the past.

I assume there's no US attempts to increase taxation to combat clmate change and encourage alternative behaviour.

mikeash5• 10 years ago

Around here, prices are currently a little over $2/gallon, with occasional stations showing slightly under $2.

Of course there's no attempt to increase taxes, because taxation is theft and government is the enemy. The federal gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993, and worse it's a fixed amount per gallon, not a percentage, so both inflation and increasing fuel efficiency cut into it. State gas taxes are a little more mutable but still face lots of resistance.

anexprogrammer2• 10 years ago

Blimey. No surprise sales of hybrids aren't growing.

We had, under Blair, yearly percentage increases above inflation in fuel tax as part of their climate change efforts. There was a point, I forget quite where - perhaps around 99p a litre or £4.40 a gallon, where behaviour and car use started to noticeably change.

fps2• 10 years ago

Gas in my area has been around $2/gallon for a few years now. (https://blog.gasbuddy.com/Retail_Price_Chart.aspx) The current price right now in Boston is $1.91.

Yhippa2• 10 years ago

“The people with money buy a Tesla,” he said.

The Prius looks like an old-man's car to me. Teslas have all the bells-and-whistles and don't look half bad. Much easier to peacock in a Model S than _any_ of the Prii.

karma_vaccum123• 10 years ago

True, but the Prius is the greatest ANTI-Peacock vehicle ever! To police, it is invisible. I have never been given a second glance by a police officer even when I am clearly speeding. Cops just seem to tune them out as granny cars.

Yhippa2• 10 years ago

Another benefit of being anti-peacock is that the thing will be easier to sell in the future. Lots of crafty folded sheet metal looks dated compared to more conservative designs.

sixothree• 10 years ago

Toyota has made some awful design decisions in the last few years. I've owned Toyota's most of my life. I'm on year 11 of my Camry and would like a new Camry or Lexus. Instead I'm looking at other manufacturers.

r00fus2• 10 years ago

Hear, hear!

In mid-2000s Toyota was an innovator and disruptor (hybrids). Now they're busy being disrupted by GM and Ford (Toyota has no production electrics) and, of course, Tesla.

And the new Priuses don't look good. Everyone I talked to have said the same thing. It's like they wanted to ensure it'd fail - because Toyo is now all-in for fuel-cells.

maxsilver3• 10 years ago

Is it really Cheap Gasoline that's the cause of the decline?

Seems more like Toyota's Prius is paying the price for hanging onto a decade-old product. The type of customer who would have bought a Prius in 2002, has moved on to EV's and PHEV's, and Toyota doesn't appear to be selling those yet.

Cheap Gasoline hasn't stopped Tesla from racking up multi-year-long waiting lists for the Model 3. "CMAX Energ-i" and Volts and LEAFs can be bought today at decent prices. But Toyota's response -- the "Prius Prime" -- doesn't appear to be for sale yet.

mikeash5• 10 years ago

Tesla's cars are awesome in just about every respect besides price. The Model 3 promises to preserve the awesomeness without the price tag. People want them, and it rarely has anything to do with saving money on gas.

Priuses are kind of boring. (I owned one for a while so I hope I'm not too clueless on this.) They work, they're reliable, they're cheap to run, but few people come back from a Prius test drive thinking, holy shit, I'll do whatever it takes to own one of these cars. Nobody warns prospective Prius buyers, "don't test drive one unless you're ready to put down a bunch of money to buy it, because you will want to."

If I had to buy a non-EV car again, I'd probably look at Priuses because efficiency pleases me, Toyota has a good reputation, and their stuff is pretty reliable, but it's not particularly compelling. For a lot of people, saving money on gas is the main reason to even consider a Prius. It's not even in most people's top 10 for a Model 3.

Note that with a whopping 22 miles of electric range, the Prius Prime is far from a Model 3 competitor. Toyota seems to be betting on hydrogen rather than batteries, for reasons I've yet to comprehend, so I'd say their Model 3 competitor is the Mirai. Although I don't know why anyone would ever buy a Mirai.

maxsilver3• 10 years ago

Toyota seems to be betting on hydrogen rather than batteries, for reasons I've yet to comprehend

I suspect this will go down in history as a major misstep. Especially given Toyota's experience / expertise in the space.

enraged_camel2• 10 years ago

>Priuses are kind of boring. (I owned one for a while so I hope I'm not too clueless on this.) They work, they're reliable, they're cheap to run, but few people come back from a Prius test drive thinking, holy shit, I'll do whatever it takes to own one of these cars.

The bumper sticker on my roommate's Prius goes...

"Hey, cool Prius!" -Nobody

pkulak• 10 years ago

I loved my Prius until I traded it in for a Leaf 4 years ago. I'll likely never again buy a car without a plug, so yeah, I'm pretty much done with Toyota, considering the new Prius Prime does nothing for me. The Bolt and Model 3 are only going to make things worse for Toyota.

dragonwriter2• 10 years ago

The type of customer who would have bought a Prius in 2002, has moved on to EV's and PHEV's, and Toyota doesn't appear to be selling those yet

Toyota has been selling a PHEV model in the Prius line for sometime, and is replacing that model in the 2017 model year with the new Prius Prime, which is also a PHEV.

Cheap Gasoline hasn't stopped Tesla from racking up multi-year-long waiting lists for the Model 3.

Having fairly small production numbers per year helps with racking up a multi-year-long waiting list -- the Model 3 waiting list is less than a year and half of combined sales of the Prius models in the US.

maxsilver3• 10 years ago

Toyota has been selling a PHEV model in the Prius line for sometime

Your right. I forgot that technically there is an existing "Plug-in" Prius. However:

- it has an EPA-rated an all-electric range of just 6 miles

- it has no way to actually lock in a pure electric mode

- is limited to 62mph in pure-electric mode

according to http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104921_2017-toyota-priu... . And Prius is the "weakest plug-in offering on the market", according to http://insideevs.com/plug-in-prius-setting-the-record-straig... .

Which is basically a repeat of my argument above. Prius seems to be selling poorly primary because it's no longer a competitive product. Other PHEVs have real all-electric modes, that are much faster (80-100mph) and longer range (20-40ish miles), making them more appealing than the Prius to those types of car buyers.

Prius Prime may change that. But it's not out yet -- people can't buy that yet. And in the meantime, this market can buy LEAFs, Volt's, CMAX Energi's, and other competitors today.

cpprototypes• 10 years ago

I don't understand why Toyota is not the leader in plugin hybrids. They had such a big lead in hybrid tech and the next natural step was plugin hybrid. Imagine a RAV4 or Highlander plugin hybrid with 50 mile range. The demand would be incredible. The marketing would be so easy, "Drive your SUV to get groceries with zero gas! Save money, help the environment, and drive a big car! win-win-win for everyone!" A SUV like this would fit so well with the suburban lifestyle in the US. Instead they are wasting time and money on the hydrogen fuel-cell nonsense. How can their management have enough vision to create the Prius and hybrid tech and yet so ignorant of this next obvious step?

Toyota’s Prius Pays Price for Cheap Gasoline

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