Toyota working on a Prius-branded hybrid lineup

Let’s take a break from the Chevy Volt for a second and talk about one of its rivals, the Toyota Prius. We’ve heard it before but Toyota executives are now talking about it again - Toyota is considering selling a family of Prius-branded hybrid vehicles.

Toyota’s North American sales chief, Jim Lentz, says that there is even talk about creating dedicated areas in Toyota dealerships to showcase the Prius lineup.

“You will see us expand hybrid...
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Maverick2020 - 9/17/2008 10:07:21 AM

+4 Boost

This is what Toyota is doing. Toyota has created a de facto group of marquees to the Toyota brand. This allows these groups of vehicles to be marketed, merchandised and sold together inside a Toyota dealership:

- Scion
- Truck
- Prius

This has been going on for some time now, and now with the possibility of a Prius line-up of hybrid/plug-in vehicles the concept of marquees within the brand allows them to make the concept really work.

Training and development of dealership personnel then, becomes necessary so that you can have trained specialists who can sell to specific customers and be really informed.

It's pretty smart concept, really.

indifferent - 9/17/2008 1:02:50 PM

+1 Boost

Isn't this what GM did? Now people on this website are calling for GM to cut back on its brands. Toyota is full of very intelligent executives; I am sure they know what they are doing. To an ignorant consumer, just seems like did not learn from the history of their consumer.

M35MT - 9/17/2008 1:09:46 PM

+2 Boost

indifferent,

GM simply put different badges on the same vehicle. Most companies do this but in different markets, for example, the Lexus GS is a Toyota Aristo (or was) in Japan.

GM actually has some differentiation now, but back in the 80's it was really no different than a badge.

Bored - 9/17/2008 5:58:57 PM

0 Boost

M35MT,

So true about GM. Unfortunately, they are still doing it way too much. Look at their Lambda platform: GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook and now, Chevy Traverse. It's overkill to me.

As for what Toyota's plan for a Prius-brand line, I like the idea but think they are about 4 years too late to truly capitalize on it. In hindsight, could you image if this had happen between 2002 and 2004?

Porschinator - 9/17/2008 5:55:28 PM

0 Boost

Prius is popular because it is a ALL hybrid model. Not a standard model with a hybrid option. This is what made it popular. You see a Prius and you know it is a hybrid. Not so with other vehicles with hybrid option and hybrid badges.

can't wait for Volt but next gen Prius should remain strong.

Agent63 - 9/17/2008 9:16:21 PM

+1 Boost

Good idea but nothing exciting out of the Toyota camp as usual.

Barrie - 9/19/2008 8:44:04 PM

+1 Boost

How can a Toyota be exciting, there first car in America was going to be called Toyolet, someone changed it to Toyopet, they were right first time, give it a different name, like Lexus, with a L badge, that figures, L for loserthey don`t need to give it different names just get it to work, which seems a long way off yet, Chevrolet have got a better design with the Volt, way ahead, the Prius doesn`t come in the top 10 for economy or low Emissions in England and thats not counting Electric cars which are starting to improve and make excellent city cars