Just too bad there is only one Toyota Prius
The reliable and cost-effective king of hybrid cars
Reliability. Cost effectiveness. What more do most really need in a car?
Competition. How long I’ve wished for a real battle in the hybrid segment. Sure, it’s gotten a little better through the years, but the hybrid segment is still mostly about the Toyota Prius. Honda kind of tried to take on the Prius, kind of. Everyone else has thus far avoided direct competition.
Can there be only one Toyota Prius?
Haters will of course mock the Prius for many reasons. Even many plug-in advocates ridicule the Prius because it still uses gasoline.
But, when you come back down to the real world, the Prius really is an amazing car. Sure, you can’t plug it in, but most consumers don’t want to plug-in their cars yet.
Then there is Toyota Prius reliability — something that has been proven throughout the last decade. Thanks to outstanding dependability, Prius resale value has remained far above the industry standard. Take the whole package and the likes of Consumer Reports have regularly named the Prius a best buy. Even better, a Vincentric LLC study found the Prius to offer exceptional total cost of ownership — compared to all vehicles, not just hybrid cars.
Is there really any wonder no other automaker has yet taken on the Prius?
It’s obviously not an easy task. But it does seem we’re getting closer to a more competitive hybrid battle. Some day there might even be a new hybrid king.
As for today, however, it’s really too bad there is only one Toyota Prius.
For the LAST time….
It is NOT the Obama discount. It is the “W” discount….
The tax credit for plugin vehicles was implemented in 2006 under George W Bush…..
There are several aspect to Toyota that makes them different.
1. Reliability – They have managed to maintain or exceed reliability during “hybridization”. The prius is fantastically reliable, service & repair costs are cheap compared to other non-hybrid toyota models
2. Profitability – The hybrid businesss machine is running well for toyota, its been so for a good number of years
3. Maturity – Toyota takes a very mature view of the future. Whereas others have hurried to put out pure electrics, diesel hybrids, plugin hybrids, etc etc without carefull assesment of what makes a viable engineering design and a good product that sells
4. Forward Look – They have never critisized evolving tech, look at Audi, VW, Ford, the list goes on on whos been spreading negative propaganda on hybrids only to find they themselves need to be getting into it
I can list many more points, the list just goes on.
Toyota’s forte has always been quality and reliability with new and novel technology.
that’s an exceptionally valuable quality for any company that is worth protecting.
when Toyota decides to make variants of a current technology verses pushing ahead to newer technologies one wonders if they are hesitating because the technology is stuck and not moving forward or if they decided to play it safe(er) for awhile.
I truly expected Toyota to introduce a plug in the same year the Leaf and Volt debuted and I expected it to be clearly superior in quality and reliability as well as cutting-edge technology.
didn’t happen.
Battery Technology still has a long way to mature for the EV to be viable. ICE is a very mature technology that is incrementally evolving but will never be able to compete with Hybrid, PHEV, or EV technology as for Fuel Economy. Unfortunately we are in a transition period, where Toyota has decided to make a stand. Some naysayers say Ford, the Koreans, and the Chinese have long passed Toyota technology wise. The new PHEV Prius is being criticized for having a limited(15 mile range) but has the same gas mileage as regular Prius(combined 50 MPG). Nobody has mentioned that the EVs currently out there, take overnight(+10 Hrs) charging for those huge Li-Ion batteries which give you a range of 70 miles and a lot of range anxiety. Tesla now has problems with dead batteries(Can’t Charge them), so now you have a $40-100 K POS that isn’t worth AAA Flatbed to pick up. Toyota’s Highly Reliable HSD PHEV Prius is truly the way to go. If the EV system fails, you have Redundancy and Diversity with the ICE. Can’t get that in a Volt, Leaf, Tesla, Fisker, or Chinese EV.
toyota is still just making the same ace backwards system year after year. instead of something new they just make a bigger one and a smaller one and an expensive one with a plug with really lousy electric range (worse than ford). 11 miles for $7k after the obama discount? i’m sure the great mr toyoda will make gods out of his marketing people that came up with the idea to make prius a brand rather than a make. the chinese already have toyota smoked. just look at byd and their iron battery technology. already in use and proven. cheaper and greener.
they can do it but they risk others getting ahead.
it’s not like no one else is producing hybrids and have firm plans for plug-ins.
people are not longer looking at ONLY Toyota,
Until the market responds to hybrids with mainstream purchases as opposed to the more green and loyalty based followers they now have, Toyota would be silly to do much more than they’ve already done. They have a solid lead, can make them profitably, and have a great reputation. Why risk losses without a better market acceptance of their current product?
I think they are already behind. They should have had a plug-in on the market BEFORE NIssan and Chevy and they should have had hybrid versions of their Corolla and Yaris by now.
Something is going on with Toytota and hybrids because they are willingly forfeiting their leadership position.
It was just last week, Ford was crowing about the 500+ patents they have on Hybrid Design Technology. It made readers believe that Ford was gaining on Toyota when it came to Hybrid Technology. Then Toyota let the cat out of the bag and answered Ford’s Bravado boast, that it had over 2000+ patents on Hybrid Design Technology and it was specific that the Prius alone had 1000+ patents by itself. I would venture to guess that Toyota has a 10 year+ advantage over their closes rival Ford. The other indication of success in Hybrid Technology is in Sales and based on 2011 numbers, Toyota is far ahead of the pack. Whats scarier is that Prius C when it comes out, will put a big dent the EV market. Kudos to Toyota.
The Prius is a generation ahead of the other hybrids, and nobody seems to be gaining on it. Will the LEAF keep a generation ahead of the other electric cars in the same way?
The bottom line is that when Toyota was developing the Prius, gas was cheap and everyone else was developing bigger gas guzzlers. The Prius has at least a 5 year head start on all the competition (except for Honda who proved to be no competition at all).
It may be another 5 years before we see hybrids that are as good as the Prius.
The question is whether Toyota will continue to progress and keep that 5 year advantage, or will they let the competition catch up?