In an insightful post about Toyota and its current hybrid situation, a friend of AutoSpies — Anton Wahlman — offers up a suggestion to Toyota: Build more hybrid variants across the board, period.
Not only that, there's another factor that's likely affecting the sales of the latest-gen Prius. That would be design. While we appreciate the unique stance that Toyota has provided the latest Prius, the reality is it simply is not a great looking product, inside and out.
The latest Corolla sells in droves because it is a reasonable looking vehicle and it's priced right. The Prius may be priced aggressively but with its awkward look it just doesn't connect with buyers like the third-gen model did — this is when global sales peaked.
While I suspect that vehicles like the Tesla Model 3 and Chevrolet Bolt has impacted Prius sales as buyers choose to move upwards and go fully electric, we're just a bit curious:
If YOU were running Toyota, what would YOU change about the Prius to make it more competitive in the market?
For good reason, almost two decades ago, the Toyota Prius became almost synonymous with "hybrid" - and largely for good reason. Toyota got the powertrain technology down right: it was smooth, reliably fuel efficient, and just plain reliable. Witness the Prius taxicabs in major cities that run over half a million miles without any significant issues.
Prius sales peaked in the U.S. in 2007 at 181,000 units and globally in 2010 at 509,000 units. It's been downhill since then. By 2017, U.S. Prius sales were down to 66,000 units and in 2016, they were around 355,000 globally: here.
However, while Toyota's Prius sales are down drastically over the last seven years in particular, that does not mean that Toyota's overall hybrid sales are down nearly as much. How come...?
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