Toyota Prius Reports Runaway Sales In April; Spurt Of 49.7% Makes It A Dream For Toyota

By Michael Smith

If there could have been a dream story that could be written for coming months and years, then Toyota Prius’s story has all the ingredients of being a hit dream story. In the past 3 months, Prius seems to have seen everything that an automotive brand would have gone through in its entire lifecycle from the time of development to the launch and subsequent retirement of the product from active markets.

For the benefit of those who are unaware of the self-wrought agony of Toyota, I will reiterate the background behind this discussion. Toyota had reported a glitch that has been aptly called ‘gas-pedal’ recall wherein the accelerator pedal of the car gets entrapped under the faulty mat, thus creating a situation of uncontrolled acceleration and subsequent danger to the safety of the occupants of the car and the people on the road.

However, Toyota has emerged stronger from the fiasco. And this is the entire point of this discussion. Look at the sales figures of Prius for the month of April 2010.In it lies the under-current of a strong recovery by Toyota. Prius sold 12555 units in the month of April, thus making it post a very strong and subtle recovery within 2 months.

I say stronger because Toyota Prius was the hybrid car that was the primary focus of attention in these recalls. From the time that the recall was announced in the month of January, there was a discussion about the future of Toyota and specifically the Toyota Prius. The heat was on Mr. Akio Toyoda and while he tried his best by appearing in front of the US Congress to apologize and assure of improvements in the near future, no analyst had given a thought about recovery for Prius and Toyota.

Yes, it is indeed true that Toyota has been successful in salvaging and subsequently improving sales numbers by offering very aggressive pricing and leasing discounts. And it has chosen to continue this as of now, because it realizes that the right pricing is having the desired boost on the sales. However, one needs to realize that the spurt in sales would have never happened with a restored consumer confidence.

While I may not be the definitive authority on what makes this turnaround for Toyota, but the resurgence of the brand Toyota and specifically, Prius, is a fit case study for the students of automotive industry. Only time will tell if Toyota’s agonies will end soon, but the consumer confidence and rising sales do indicate that the time is nearer that anyone would have thought it to be.

Michael Smith loves his Prius, and is a big time supported of business fleet cards. A fuel card will control fuel spending and provide a consolidated fuel management solution.

Article kindly provided by UberArticles.com

Topics: Automotive | Comments Off

Tags: Automotive, gas pedal recall, prius, prius recall, prius recalls, runaway prius, Toyota, toyota debacle, toyota lawsuits, toyota prius, Toyota recall, toyota recalls, toyota sales

Reprint Rights

Comments are closed.