Have dealers damaged Toyota's hybrid halo?
Could markups kill the Prius?The Toyota Prius is hot and getting hotter. Almost a year ago, my local Toyota dealer told me the Prius was the best selling car at the dealership. As gas prices have gone up, however, interest in the Prius, and other Toyota hybrid vehicles, has increased greatly since last year. Unfortunately, this increase in hybrid interest has coincided with a massive battery shortage which has reduced Prius availability by a whopping 40 percent. Thus, in hot markets some dealers are charging $3000 or more for a Prius, and in some cases, the Toyota Camry hybrid.
While some say its supply and demand, I say nonsense. If Toyota was factoring in this supply shortage into the MSRP and using that cash to build more batteries, maybe I could swallow the markup. Instead, in my opinion, some dealers are just taking advantage of consumers. Ask most in the market for a car and they'll tell you they trust neither the dealer nor the salesperson, and these kinds of dealer - not manufacturer - markups don't help.
So, have dealers damaged Toyota's hybrid halo?
Labels: Hybrid Vehicles, toyota camry hybrid, toyota prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
7:25 AM
4 Comments:
the only thing worse than toyota dealers adding $3000 to the prius is the fact that there really isn't any prius competition from other automakers, especially the big 3.
Then, what's more disappointing, $3000 markups, or the lack of other hybrids from Toyota's competition?
The general lack of hybrids and batteries is unfortunate, but market forces will eventually win here. The dealers mark it up, demand will go down, and they'll be forced to lower their prices like they did a few months ago.
If you're wanting to buy a Prius, your best bet will be to keep getting new car quotes until the price drops again. But it probably won't drop until after summer's over.
I'm not asking for them to lower prices.
Dealers put an MSRP on the window, the sticker price. That price represents a very good deal for both the manufacturer and the dealer, especially if extras like bluetooth, stereos, alarms, etc are added - those items are very profitable to dealers.
Most buyers try to negotiate somewhere between the invoice price - the cost to the dealer - and MSRP. The more extras, the more power consumers should have. Yet, consumers can't find a base Prius because dealers are already adding extra profit to every Prius sold, AND they are simply adding $3000.00 on top of of this.
That's nonsense.
Dealers are simply sacrificing long term customer service versus a short term bump in profit - a very short term. Is that the way to new customer acquisition?
The point to take away is: the customer is not the priority at many US Toyota dealerships.
That sort of business model has no future in today's wired world, especially considering the costs of the product in question. For a company, such as Toyota - an embracer of kaizen - such a business model seems sadly hypocritical and ironic.
I expect more from Toyota.
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