RonDawg said:
TomT said:
Apples and oranges: It's a very different vehicle at a different price point.
Not really. It's hard to envision a time when people didn't think the Prius would take off, but it's true. The first generation 1997-2003 Prius sold relatively poorly; per Wikipedia, only 123k were sold worldwide during those 8 model years. Nissan has almost caught up to that figure in just 3 model years.
Back in 2001 when the Prius first became available here, it was priced at $20k, a lot of money for a car of its size at the time; that is the equivalent of $26,300 today, almost the base price of a Leaf. Compare that to a 2014 Corolla which is priced as little as $17k.
The Prius didn't become really successful until the second generation model.
(I don't like the Prius wikipedia entry because some "genius" screwed it up and decided to use "XW10", "XW20", etc. crap. Toyota has NEVER called their Priuses that. It's been NHW10, NHW11, NHW20, ZVW30, etc. I don't have bandwidth to fight that and change all the other associated entries.)
The NHW10 that began sale in late 97 was JDM only (steering wheel on the "wrong" side, messages and interface in Japanese only), so it's not a fair comparison. It had no touchscreen (had buttons under the color LCD) and was pretty wimpy. It also used D-cell NiMH batteries. There is a pic at http://prius.wikia.com/wiki/Original_Prius_%28sold_only_in_Japan_-_%22gen_0%22%29_-_NHW10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
The first version we got in the US was the NHW11, which looks real similar externally to the NHW10 (like an Echo) but actually had a touchscreen and went w/rectangular (prismatic) modules. Per http://john1701a.com/prius/prius-history.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, the "Classic" model aka NHW11 began delivery in the US in August 2000. Pic and more info at http://prius.wikia.com/wiki/Prius_Generation_1_%28%22gen_1%22%29_-_NHW11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
The hatchback version which was MUCH improved (which spanned the 04-09 model year) was the NHW20. I have one of these.
http://john1701a.com/prius/images/Prius-Generations.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; refers to NHW10 as Original, NHW11 as Classic, NHW20 as Iconic, etc.
From looking at http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?f=W&n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, gasoline back in August 2000 was $1.40-ish/gallon in the US and by December 01 was down to just a tad over $1/gallon. And, the tax benefits were pretty lame back then, a $2K tax deduction (NOT a credit), IIRC.
I bought my Prius when the $3150 tax credit began (in January 06).
This is definitely a very apples vs. orange comparison. Can you imagine if the Leaf was selling w/gas in the low $1/gallon range? In expensive electricity states, it'd be cheaper to fuel a Prius.