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Automotive News & Views Toyota in decline in 2009?
3255 messages, Last post on Nov 10, 2009 at 2:02 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
| I just saw an article on MSN.com about the top 10 cheapest cars to own - Toyota dominated with 4 out of the 10 being Toyotas - Corolla, Yaris, Scion XB, and the Pontiac Vibe, which is really a Toyota Matrix. The most any other manufacturers have is one. | |
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| Both of my cars are older models on this list! Echo and '07 Matrix. Being cheap to own over their lifetime is one benefit I have always obtained from Toyotas. | |
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they are admitting that the big "Toyotathon" sales drive from the late fall was a total flop, as they actually underperformed the market in that timeframe. So get ready to call Toyota "GM Junior", as it seems the BIG cash is rolling out now... Coming off a sharp sales decline in December, Toyota Division is trying to lure buyers into showrooms with new cash offers for customers and dealers. ....The new cash incentives are a reversal of Toyota's marketing tactics for the past three months, when the division emphasized 0 percent financing, low interest rates and lease programs. Those incentives generated little interest. Toyota's sales fell 36.7 percent in December, underperforming the market. So for January, Toyota is turning to cash. Toyota's trucks get the bulk of the support, including $2,000 dealer cash on the 2009 full-sized Tundra pickup and $4,000 customer rebates on the 2008 Tundra. But dealers are particularly excited about the cash programs on the 2009 Camry, Corolla and Prius--Toyota's three top-selling vehicles. "Whenever they put something on Camry, that's great," said Brad Paul, owner of Ardmore Toyota in Ardmore, Pa. "The $750 on Prius is a great help. Corolla, Camry and Prius are the big ones. The others are much less a percent of the business." Toyota has put $1,500 customer cash on Corolla's base and LE trim levels and $1,250 customer cash on all other trim levels. All Camry trim levels are getting $1,000 customer cash and $500 dealer cash. Overall, Toyota had a 90-day supply of vehicles at the end of December, compared with a 46-day supply in December 2007. Even the Prius ended the year with a 40-day supply. During the first half of the year when gasoline prices were high, the hybrid was getting as much as $5,000 over sticker. http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090119/FREE/901199995 With the new Camry getting the much-improved 2.5L four next month, and the new Prius coming out in about 4 months, how much is the cash really going to help sales though? I guess it could boost Corolla sales - $1500 is a LOT of cash to put on the hood of a $16K car. Toyota needs to be very careful not to fall prey to GM Syndrome in this hard economy. On a sidenote, they also just announced that Akio Toyoda, a founding family member, will take over as president in June. They are planning on offshoring a lot more of their production in the years to come, and more will come to the U.S. as long as it remains Toyota's biggest market. |
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Toyota taking risk by double-teaming Insight with current and new Prius Toyota Motor Corp. plans to keep selling the current version of its Prius hybrid alongside the third generation after the new Prius debuts later this year, a newspaper reports. The strategy: Slash the sticker price on the current Prius so it can go head to head with Honda's cheaper Insight hybrid. This way they can offer two models that directly compete with each other on the same dealer lot, and the Prius II they will sell, for around $20K according to the article, will still be more expensive than the new Insight for what is a 5-year-old model. Sounds like a winner! Honda had hoped the Insight would scoop a yet-untapped low-end market for hybrids. But Toyota apparently doesn't want to surrender that crown without a fight. Its answer is to make the current Prius cheaper by simplifying the interior, the Nikkei says. The question is, how enticing will it be? The fresh Insight undoubtedly will have more cachet among image-conscious, eco-minded drivers. Why be seen driving a car that has been on the road for half a decade? Why indeed..... http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090121/ANA05/901219947/1186- |
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Replying to: nippononly (Jan 30, 2009 7:48 am) OTOH, I've read that the new Insight has a really cheap interior and not much room in the back seat. Frugal buyers might very well choose the Prius II over the Insight II.
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Replying to: nippononly (Jan 30, 2009 7:48 am) First, the tooling is already done and paid for so any of the P2's will be pure profit. Second, Toyota already announced that the Tundra plant was going to stop producing trucks for like 6 months. Maybe they are planning on building the P2's at this plant which preserves the jobs and keeps the new plant viable. I also think Toyota buyers are a fickle bunch to begin with. It takes a lot to sway a Toyota buyer who is on his 9th Camry  to switch to a Honda. Even if the price is a couple of grand lower. So this way, the P2 can capture a few of those buyers who might be otherwise swayed by the 8 grand price difference between the Insight2 and the P3.
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Replying to: anythngbutgm (Jan 30, 2009 8:07 am) First time I ever drove a Prius II, in 2004, I thought the interior was fairly cheap and flimsy, middling quality at best, and now they propose to cheapen it? If they are going to pull thousands of dollars of cost out of this car, and they are going to do all that cutting in the interior, I shudder to think what it will be like when they are done. The Insight II is basically the new Fit with a hybrid powertrain. Cheapish interior, but not horrible.
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Replying to: 210delray (Jan 30, 2009 7:59 am)
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Replying to: lemko (Jan 30, 2009 8:21 am) The Insight II will cost $1500 more than the same-size Fit Sport, and have more features. Even if you value the extra features at $0, someone driving the Insight 12-15K per year could make up the cost differential in 2-2.5 years with $4 gas, 4-5 years with $2 gas, and be consuming less oil all along the way. The Toyota comparison is even more favorable to the hybrid, given the price jump of the new Matrix last year and using the current Prius (priced around $20K later this year) and the current Matrix (the closest model in size) as the basis for comparison. People will make their choices..... The question is, if the Prius II costs $20K and the Prius III costs $25K while making only 8% better gas mileage and being a half second quicker to 60 mph, which will people choose, ESPECIALLY in this down economy? I'm thinking most will choose the current/old Prius, not the new one. |
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anyone here knows what equipment the japanese prius II is going to ditch in order to lower the price? drop the touch screen and use a manual a/c control would save at least a couple grand? I mean yota could've sell it at cost and crush the insight. But price it too low would steal a lot of corolla's sales.
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