"U.S. Sales of Toyota Priuses Plunge Nearly 40 Percent" Green Car Advisor

U.S. Sales of Toyota Priuses Plunge Nearly 40 Percent

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Toyota Motor Corp. just released its U.S. sales figures for May, and right there in the center of them is this shocker: Prius sales down 39.8 percent over May 2007.

Last month, Toyota sold 15,011 of the gas-electric hybrid sedans in America – or 8,998 less than the 24,009 that Japanese automaker sold during May of last year, despite soaring demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.

What happened?

According to company spokesperson Zoe Zeigler, two things happened: In May 2007, Toyota aggressively promoted the Prius in TV commercials and offered lots of price incentives to help dealers unload a growing inventory.

There was no Prius ad campaign to speak of last month, nor were there special incentives to buy, Zeigler said, because the amount of time between delivery and sale was a mere ".7 of a day."

In other words, the average time that passed between delivery of a Prius to a dealer and sale of that vehicle was 16.8 hours.

Besides the ads and incentives, the supply of Priuses to the United States is dependent on the availability of nickel metal-hydride battery packs for the vehicles, and production of them has not kept up with supply.

As Green Car Advisor reported on May 23, Toyota and its battery partner, Matsushita Electric, plan to spend nearly $700 million to build two new battery plants to boost supply.

We asked Zeigler if there was a chance persons wanting to purchase a Prius might be told by a dealer that Toyota is fresh out of them – that wannabe Prius owners might have to wait for 2009 models. Toyota dealers have been known to use scare tactics just like that to encourage a sale.

Zeigler said that "it wouldn't be out of a customer's reach to get into a 2008 model, but how soon varies dealer by dealer. If a customer is a little more lenient with the color and the options they want on a vehicle, they can get in one much sooner" than someone who is particular about such things.

More importantly, she said that "we still expect them [2008 Priuses] to be available" through the summer. But, she quickly added, no one can predict demand for the Prius, although historically it has been high.

"We wouldn't want to tell people, 'You have to buy one now or else they won't be available later on in the year,' because we don't think that's the case at all," she said.

Information on when the 2009 models will start appearing in showrooms is not available.