No Hybrid Option For New Avensis

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Mr Llewellyn summed this up years ago on his first Fullycharged Show video. If a manufacturer doesn't really want a product to succeed they overprice it and give it half hearted marketing. Just watch from 6.35 to 7.25 for an explanation. i trend to agree.

[Heidfirst]

sometimes there are reasons though - can't remember if we've had it in this thread but we've certainly had it in one or another - within the last year the boss of FIAT asking/hoping people in the USA didn't buy their hybrid or plugin because even at a high by US standard price the company still lost $15,000 per car sold ... But by having it in their range they avoided massive penalty payments for their range average mileage otherwise not meeting the minimum standard set.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

That's in the US, though his attitude could be classed as short sighted. Just think if they marketed that vehicle correctly and sold it in Europe? It would be very popular in many places and could have been the Nissan Leaf of EVs.

Instead they cobbled one together, made a loss, cried to everyone about making a loss, lose experience and then get caught with their pants down in 5 years when EVs gain more sales due to placed like London and Paris insisting that most cars entering will need to be zero emission.

[Heidfirst]

well, it costs FIAT £30,000 per car to make (although undoubtedly if they made more the cost would drop) but it has saved them millions even if nobody buys one. The LEAF is £16500> retail, so half the price..

[Grumpy Cabbie]

well, it costs FIAT £30,000 per car to make (although undoubtedly if they made more the cost would drop) but it has saved them millions even if nobody buys one. The LEAF is £16500> retail, so half the price..

Nissan 'want' to make an EV and make a profit (potentially), Fiat cry foul and pretend it costs them £30k and they can't possibly make money. One company sells the most EVs in the World, the other can't make a car go up a hill.

[Heidfirst]

FIAT aren't crying foul at all - they are just gaming the system & trying to minimise their costs (every one sold costs them $15000 so the fewer sold the better they like it). the car has already done it's job as far as corporate are concerned by saving them millions in fines.

The main reason for bringing it up again though was to show that sometimes decisions that don't appear on the face of it to make sense to the general populace may well make sense from a company point of view.

It would be interesting to know how profitable or not the LEAF is, got any reliable info later than October 2014 (at which point the answer was no, it had not turned a profit)?

[Grumpy Cabbie]

None at all. To be honest I doubt they are making profit, but they're learning important lessons for future models.

Toyota did the same in about 2002 when the gen1 Prius hit the market. It was an expensive, subsidised curio, but 13 years on and virtually every model in the Toyota range has a hybrid option and that option is one that is gaining ground. I also wouldn't be surprised if Toyota sales had nose dived if it hadn't been for their hybrid experience.

[Heidfirst]

Ah, but if Toyota hadn't put the energy into hybrid what else (even conventional cars) might they have brought out instead?

Of course the same investment arguments go for hydrogen too & I see that BMW have just shown their latest prototype using the Toyota stack.

[PeteB]

None at all. To be honest I doubt they are making profit, but they're learning important lessons for future models.

Toyota did the same in about 2002 when the gen1 Prius hit the market. It was an expensive, subsidised curio, but 13 years on and virtually every model in the Toyota range has a hybrid option and that option is one that is gaining ground. I also wouldn't be surprised if Toyota sales had nose dived if it hadn't been for their hybrid experience.

You may be right - after my first brush with Toyota, I wouldn't have ever touched them again, except I found the Hybrid irresistible.

My first one was actually registered in October 2000 (when it was launched in the UK), the original was launched in Japan in 1997.

At the time the original Prius was born it seemed to me and many other early adopters to be a quantum leap in car technology. When mine was written off in a crash after just 6 months, I so loved the way it drove I got on the phone to my dealer and ordered another whilst still sitting in the wreckage waiting for recovery - even if it only had average economy, I loved the driving experience - still do!

The then chairman of Toyota put together a team who were told they could have virtually unlimited resources except time - they HAD to design a car with half the CO2 and double the mpg of the Corolla of the time. Despite several protests that it was impossible, after being sent back to the 'lab' they achieved it.

Whilst the Gen 2 and 3 Prius had obvious improvements (as well as a few backward steps), I was always a bit disappointed with the slow rate of improvement compared to that original giant leap. When the Gen 2 came out in 2004 many of us at the time were convinced we'd be able to buy a Yaris sized Hybrid within 10 years that easily did 100+ mpg without extreme driving techniques.

I can't help feeling if the project teams for the Gen 2/3/4 had been locked away for 2 years with a brief they HAD to do better, it would have happened.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Copied from Toyota UK Blog:

"I just wish UK had an up market Hybrid above Prius. Any chance of a Hybrid powertrain for Avensis?

REPLY
CHARLOTTE MILLS September 2, 2015 at 12:27
Hi there,
Thank you for your post. The reason why we do not have an Avensis Hybrid is because the Prius fulfills this segment of the market. We do appreciate your feedback and will pass your comments to our marketing team. Just to make you aware we will be introducing a RAV4 Hybrid into the UK market next year. More details will come soon so stayed tuned to our blog for the latest news."

[Heidfirst]

_{they do have upmarket hybrid models above Prius - they are badged as Lexus though :P}

[MEP's Yaris GS]

_{they do have upmarket hybrid models above Prius - they are badged as Lexus though :P}

With Toyota hybrid tech which is 5 years behind Toyota's ;)