Originally Posted by Micheline Maynard @ NY Times
Toyota is considering setting up a separate brand for Prius, and may broaden the Prius lineup with bigger and smaller Prius models, the head of Toyota’s American sales arm said today.
The idea is the brainchild of James E. Lentz III, who is president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., who first talked about a possible Prius brand at the Detroit auto show in January.
I heard more details about the idea last week when I visited Blue Springs, Miss., where the Prius will be built starting in 2010 (more about the plant in the next regular episode of the Prius Diary). People there told me they had heard Toyota was not going to make a final decision about the date it will begin production in Blue Springs until the company decided whether to create a separate Prius brand.
I asked Mr. Lentz about that after the dedication of Toyota’s new safety and engineering center in Ann Arbor, Mich., this morning.
He said he was lobbying Toyota officials in Japan to let him establish a Prius brand in the United States that would be similar to Scion, Toyota’s brand of lower-priced cars aimed at younger buyers.
Mr. Lentz said the brand would include the original Prius, and future models bearing a Prius badge that Toyota is said to be developing. For example, one version could be smaller than the original Prius, and “there could be one on steroids,” meaning a bigger version of Prius, Mr. Lentz said.
Toyota plans to show the next-generation version of Prius at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show this January, where it also will unveil a dedicated hybrid car for Lexus.
The next-generation Prius will be bigger than the current car, and will be shipped initially from Japan, Mr. Lentz said. Then, sometime in 2010, the Mississippi plant will begin building that version.
(He said the plant would get started whether or not the company decides to do the separate brand, so folks in Mississippi can rest easier.)
The bigger Prius logically leaves room in the lineup for a smaller model, maybe something the size of the Toyota Yaris. But the “Prius on steriods” is something of a mystery. Toyota is also said to be working on a crossover version of the Prius, although Mr. Lentz wouldn’t talk about it today.
He stressed that Toyota was not planning to sell Prius models in separate dealerships, like its Lexus luxury models. Instead, the broader Prius lineup would be sold alongside Toyota and Scion cars in Toyota dealerships, he said.
In a sense, Mr. Lentz said that consumers had already created the Prius brand, and the company was just catching up to the marketplace. The Prius accounts for 75 percent of the hybrid-electric cars sold in the United States, he said, while the United States accounts for 65 to 70 percent of all Toyota hybrids sold worldwide.
“We’re catching the wind with this,” he said.
Mr. Lentz came to the conclusion that Toyota should create a separate Prius brand after a failed effort to create a brand around hybrid synergy drive, the system that is in hybrid models sold by Toyota and Lexus. Toyota has run TV commercials and magazine ads explaining the system, both in the United States and around the world.
But consumers just didn’t latch on to that idea. Instead, “they’ve latched onto the Prius,” he said. “We have to go with what they want.”
The separate Prius brand would be specific to the United States, Mr. Lentz said, and is not under consideration for other parts of the world. “Whatever Europe or Canada wants to do is their business,” he joked.
Mr. Lentz said final approval for the idea would have to come from company executives in Japan. He wouldn’t say when a decision might be made, but added that he planned to be in Japan next month to review future Toyota models.
Having covered Toyota for years, I can say that executives rarely talk this much about an idea unless it is under active discussion, so the chances of a Prius brand are probably pretty good.
Moreover, Toyota may need to do something to keep the spotlight on Prius.
The next-generation car will compete head on with the new Honda Insight, which is set to go on sale in the United States next April. And, General Motors has promised it will start building the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid in 2010, although analysts say it might be 2011 until consumers can take one home.
Having switched from an S.U.V., I’d be intrigued by a Prius crossover, as long as it got good gas mileage. What would you think about a bigger choice of Prius models? Would you like something smaller or bigger than your Prius?
