As a dealer and someone who has a deposit on one

[bruceha2000]

Holy flashback Batman!!

When the 2004 Prius came out in Oct 2003, the dealers knew SQUAT. A year later they knew SQUAT.
Their problem (and I am quite confident the Leaf will be the same):

• The cars were sold before they got on the boat in Japan let alone to the local lot.
• People picked them up the same day they were delivered or early the next morning; they had been impatiently waiting months for their car (sound familiar??).
• The closest a dealer could get to driving one was moving it from the 'prep' area to the 'delivery' area. Demo car? Didn't exist.

Like this forum, PriusChat (kudos Danny) was the savior. The techie types bought the manuals, figured out how things worked and could answer a lot of questions. Those who got their cars earlier in the cycle put out as much info and answered as many questions as they could. The only dealers who knew anything either followed PriusChat or learned from the people who were picking up their car.

Enjoy the ride

[evnow]

[*]The closest a dealer could get to driving one was moving it from the 'prep' area to the 'delivery' area. Demo car? Didn't exist.

I think this time will be different. They are giving test drives to everyone - (probably through dealers ?) - so dealers will obviously get time in the car.

[bruceha2000]

That would be nice. The only reason I was able to test drive an '04 Prius before ordering was that Enterprise got a bunch of them before anyone knew how 'in demand' they would become. I rented one for a week and drove local and long distance. Base model, no SKS but still: SWEET! The best the dealers could do was let you look at a car ready for delivery. No sitting in it mind you, just looking.

Same was true when we ordered my wife's '06 in Jan '06. I wanted to see what the rear view camera looked like on the display since they didn't put that out in th e '04 and '05 models - even though there is a knockout in the back for 'in future models'. Clearly they KNEW they were going to put a camera there but we '04 and '05 owners are SOL, no Toyota kit exists to retrofit.

[Dandc3]

A dealer offered me Zero down to buy one. Is that good?

[TomT]

One big question is, are they free or do they charge, and if they do charge, how much? Another: will any of them be available after hours?

If I have to choose between several equally-good dealers, I would choose one with a L3 charger freely available to customers.