Comments on: Measuring Green Car Success with Toyota Prius

By: tapra1

tapra1 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:46:33 +0000

11 months of the year. (Keep in mind that the total 2010 auto market in Japan is about 5 million—compared to about 11.5 million sales expected in the U.S. by the end of this year.)Mobile News

By: etcgreen

etcgreen — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:02:26 +0000

Toyota, Nissan and Mazda hybrid assembly lines were shutdown for weeks last month as the result of the rare earth embargo from China. For the past several years, Toyota has monopolized 65% of the world’s total neodymium extraction.

The projected demand for heavy rare earths is projected to increase by a factor of 35 while the reserves are projected to be depleted within 30 years at current extraction levels.

There is no future for EV’s or hybrids at large scale production. Why would “environmentalists” perceive square miles of tailing ponds for the extraction and refining of rare earth minerals as any better than square miles of tailing ponds in the Canadian Oil Sands? Why would anyone be willing to sequester 30lbs of rare earth minerals in a car they drive for 30 minutes per day for 6-7 years when the same amount of rare earths in a wind turbine would produce Green Energy for 12-16 hours each day for 30 years.

http://etcgreen.com Article: EV’s and Hybrids are not our Future

By: Randy Grenier

Randy Grenier — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:31:33 +0000

There are other “incentives” to buy Prius including the fact that the 2010 Prius topped J.D. Powers reliability survey for it’s class. Do you really think the Volt and the Leaf will be so reliable first year or two?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 03:55:48 +0000

If you’re dreaming about a ‘$25k’ Leaf, it’s about time to check your local building code and contractors about how much it’ll cost you to install a 240V recharging station. (And make sure what you get is flexible enough to fit other BEV and their sucessors as well.)

By: gdk004

gdk004 — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 22:56:03 +0000

The 50 MPG and above will outsell those below in a few years.

By: Dom

Dom — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:16:04 +0000

"Look no further than the Toyota Prius as the benchmark—especially when viewed from a global perspective."

You're kidding right? Then you'd better ignore Europe... where hybrids don't sell all that well considering all the other comparable or better choices they have. That's what I've heard/read anyway.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:42:02 +0000

Prius and Fit took away much of the Sales in Japan that a famous model like Civic lost all its sales and is being ended.

Similar thing could happen here in US as well.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:21:04 +0000

With a base model, Prius will sell more units here in 2011. Actually high MPG of Prius will be challenged by cars like Fiesta, Cruze & Elantra rather than Leaf or Volt.

But Leaf costs only 25K after incentives and could threaten higher end Prius models. After all 95 % of our trips are less than 100 miles. By the time the government incentives end, someone will learn how to install a generator and let the Leaf run more miles.

Lets hope that 2011 will see bigger hybrid sales.

By: Brad Berman, Editor

Brad Berman, Editor — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:29:42 +0000

@Anonymous: You are correct. We modified the story accordingly.

The numbers make sense, considering that Toyota expect to sell a total of 1 million hybrids per year in the next year or two--with Prius sales contributing 500k or 600k.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:09:50 +0000

Wait.

According to the WSJ blog quoted:
"Prius’ global performance shows a strong 36% jump in sales to 438,270 in the January-October period, according to the latest available data from Toyota. Its domestic sales accounted for a big chunk of 63% of the overall sales in that term "

Hmm... If I'm not mistaken, what WSJ blog is saying is Global sales ~438K, of which Japanese domestic sales accounted for 63%(438k*0.63=~276k) that matches (roughly) what you said: "Toyota sold 297,500 Priuses in the first 11 months" in Japan.

So, I don't see, right now, (as you said) "the model could hit about 840,000 units this year" as the Japanese sales is already counted in the global sales of ~438k (first 10 months of the year).

Did I miss something from this post? Can the author please clarify. Thanks.