With the Toyota Motor Corporation being the leader in hybrid vehicle technology, it might sound odd when officials there say they are not very fond of plug-in hybrids. It does not sound so odd when you hear their reasoning though.
The main reason Toyota has not given in to the plug-in hybrid technology is because consumers simply are not fond of it. Toyota estimates that these plug-ins would sell, at the most, 50,000 units each year. When thinking more realistically, however, officials estimate the numbers would be closer to 4,000 units per year and maybe even fewer than that. Those numbers are basically “chump change” (my words, not their words) when you figure that the Toyota Prius sold nearly 160,000 units of the gasoline-electric hybrids last eyar.
Bill Reinert, the U.S. national manager for advanced technology, explained that there may one day be a market for plug-in hybrids, “but their success depends on advantages over existing hybrids.” Currently, however, plug-in vehicles seem inconvenient to consumers as they need constant recharging and there simply is no infrastructure to support this need.
Who knows? Maybe one day you will be able to pick up a plug-in hybrid at your Doylestown area Toyota dealer and drive it for a few hundred miles on one charge. Until something like that happens, though, the Prius is your best bet.