[Cybereye]

When I was reading the online news, I stumble into this article. It gave many pointer of why? Prius is not growing as fast in the global cars market. It had made a few point why other people had brought the Prius when it came out. Two reason, It start was designed from the ground up as hybrid-only car. The second reason is image was the No. 1 reason for buying a Prius. So that tell me GM is going the same thing with the volt as well.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12523027

I would like at add a pointer into the article. I says, It all to Dr. Lyle that made a web site about the GM volt. It had made many cars buyer hold off getting the Prius.

 

[Texas]

Now if it was true that the Volt kept people from buying a Prius, which I think is silly because you can get the Prius now and just sell it when you buy the Volt (the value will be very good because the price of gas will probably be well over $5 a gallon), AND GM decides to not produce the Volt over some questionable reason then that would really anger the masses. Of course if they did that and gave up their E-REV platform that would probably be the last time many people would ever consider buying GM. Over their dead bodies kind of resentment.

I feel that GM is genuinely excited about their jump on the competition and are changing their culture on-the-fly. I also hope that GM is secretly planning an even bigger run into the electrification market. I'm talking about designing a full EV from scratch, putting forth even more effort into the high-wire platform concept (with hydrogen optional - I only hold a small hope for hydrogen to fulfill even small niche markets), and moving forward on world class designs in every market. From Hot muscle car to micro car. I don't know what the Volt will actually achieve in the minds and souls of people but can you imagine an EV car that invoked the passion that a Camaro SS once did? I want GM to bring that feeling back to me and I think they can pull it off.

 

[kmb1966]

In my area, Toyota Prius cars are getting scarce on the new car lots. I don't think there is a disinterest in this car at all. It is one of the best cars for gas mileage that we can get right now, until the Volt comes out. The car I can't figure out the selling point of, is the Toyota Camry Hybrid. It costs more than the non-hybrid Camry, gets only slightly better mileage and costs more than the Prius with much better mileage. If I were buying a hybrid today, I would opt for the Prius over any of the other hybrids.

 

[Sentinel]

I'll answer the Camry Hybrid question seeing I just bought one. I wanted better mileage than I was getting in my Tacoma. I think the Prius is FUGLY, (but I'd take one as a gift if I could sell it). And the Camry is just flat out one heck of a NICE car. I liked it better than the Altima Hybrid that I test drove.

Here's me quoteing myself from another post

Well... a few weeks ago I traded my 2005 Toyota Tacoma quad cab 4x4 for a brand new 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid LOADED. I do mostly city type driving and was getting about 16mpg in the Tacoma. @ $3.45 a gallon I had had enough.

I now am getting 38mpg in the Camry and loving it Not to mention I got $22K in trade on the Tacoma and it was over half paid off. So I had about $12K to put down on the $32K Camry. My payment went up $4. Plus the Camry has GPS, Leather, heated seats, nice stereo, keyless everything, blue tooth, sun roof.... yada yada yada.

I really like the performance of the Camry. It's not a "rocket" but it's pretty quick, much better performance than I expected. Once you get use to finding the sweet spot in the gas pedal you can get it to run off the battery pretty much at will. All the toys are NICE!!! but I'm a techie by trade. The CVT tranny takes some getting use to after driving a stick for the past 16 years, but it performs very well. I'm VERY happy with the car so far, and a Prius it is NOT! (Prius's are Fugly) Oh... and the 2008 Camry Hybrid has a .27 or .28 drag CD too depending on who you believe too.

Now I look down the road to the Volt... I put about 8000 miles a year on my vehicles so I think I will be in a good place to trade my loaded Camry for a Volt. I think that the Volt will increase demand for all other Hybrids so I think I will get another good trade on the Camry.

As long as the Volt is under $40K I'll be all set to get one I'm rooting for GM on this big time to bring me back from the dark side. And my sister-in-law sells Toyotas so I know I can get an awesome deal any time I want there. But the Volt and the tech behind it is the future. I want to drive an American car again, and the Volt will be IT, if GM gets it done!

Chris

 

[Statik]

When I was reading the online news, I stumble into this article. It gave many pointer of why? Prius is not growing as fast in the global cars market. It had made a few point why other people had brought the Prius when it came out. Two reason, It start was designed from the ground up as hybrid-only car. The second reason is image was the No. 1 reason for buying a Prius. So that tell me GM is going the same thing with the volt as well.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12523027

I would like at add a pointer into the article. I says, It all to Dr. Lyle that made a web site about the GM volt. It had made many cars buyer hold off getting the Prius.

Nope. Toyota sells as many as they can print...and have yet to market this car at all.

Toyota is ramping production from 280,000 units to 450,000 units. This makes it the largest increase of a current production vehicle in the history of auto. (some of them, up to 10,000 may be the new Lexus hyrbid however)

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/toyota-honda-plan-significant-boosts-hybrid-production-numbers.html

 

[Cybereye]

I know the Prius is popular in the US and I'm assume the users that reply are from the US. I was looking at a gobal point of view. Prius been around 10 years or so?, Should there be more Prius in the world market. What I didn't think of what Statik says about the production from Toyota may have been a bottleneck output to the gobal cars market.

 

[dagwood55]

You can't sell a sophisticated drivetrain outside of Europe, Japan and North America (probaly sans Mexico) and maybe a handful of other places... Australia (small population, though), the infrastructure in many countries just won't support it.

Europe likes their diesels, so the Prius probably isn't as hot there.

 

[Cybereye]

That a good point there, dagwood. I guess Toyota's idea of the Prius was made for the US in the first place. Now it seem GM plan made a stronger playing field for the world car market in a long run with E-Flex system that support gobal car market.