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I mean it is impressive. But Toyota was not really a startup with no manufacturing experience in 2000. Edit: Just reading the post twice. Tesla took 7 years to

by dmode 8y ago

I mean it is impressive. But Toyota was not really a startup with no manufacturing experience in 2000. Edit: Just reading the post twice. Tesla took 7 years to go from ~0 to 250K annually. Toyota took 18 years. Not really an apple to apple comparison

gamblor956 8y ago
Toyota took 7 years as well. They did not start selling the Prius worldwide until 2000, and they hit 280k worldwide sales within 7 years. But if you want to compare yearly figures...the non-liftback models went from 0 sales to 530,000 in sales in just 2 years. Now that is impressive. And it's also the counterpoint to Musk's Tesla: both Tesla and Toyota knew that demand existed for their cars. But Toyota knew how to execute properly, and did so, and was able to satisfy that demand. Tesla so far has royally fucked up, continues to fuck up, and it's up in the air whether they'll be able to right the ship before they run out of money.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- rconti 8y ago
  I'm sorry, but this strikes me as extremely disingenuous. They didn't invent the market, the Prius was just a better Honda Insight (primarily by virtue of having 3 more seats). Again, they deserve massive credit for their accomplishments. But, again, they lose the "sales increase" by a wide margin unless you tweak that by insisting on limiting it to "a single model". Certainly we don't know if Tesla will survive but the challenges facing a new carmarker of any sort are simply massive, rather than just producing a slightly-differently-propelled model in addition to the millions of conventional cars you already produce. And where you really fall over is by trying to argue about "the non-liftback models" which I can only presume means the discontinued[1] Prius V which is a slightly-differently-bodied version of an existing car. [1] https://www.toyota.com/priusv/ https://www.toyota.com/priusv/
- dmode 8y ago
  Toyota had 80 years of car manufacturing and selling experience before the Prius. Of course, they will be able to execute properly on a product (which is an incremental innovation).

by dmode 8y ago

gamblor956 8y ago

Toyota took 7 years as well. They did not start selling the Prius worldwide until 2000, and they hit 280k worldwide sales within 7 years. But if you want to compare yearly figures...the non-liftback models went from 0 sales to 530,000 in sales in just 2 years. Now that is impressive. And it's also the counterpoint to Musk's Tesla: both Tesla and Toyota knew that demand existed for their cars. But Toyota knew how to execute properly, and did so, and was able to satisfy that demand. Tesla so far has royally fucked up, continues to fuck up, and it's up in the air whether they'll be able to right the ship before they run out of money.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rconti 8y ago
I'm sorry, but this strikes me as extremely disingenuous. They didn't invent the market, the Prius was just a better Honda Insight (primarily by virtue of having 3 more seats). Again, they deserve massive credit for their accomplishments. But, again, they lose the "sales increase" by a wide margin unless you tweak that by insisting on limiting it to "a single model". Certainly we don't know if Tesla will survive but the challenges facing a new carmarker of any sort are simply massive, rather than just producing a slightly-differently-propelled model in addition to the millions of conventional cars you already produce. And where you really fall over is by trying to argue about "the non-liftback models" which I can only presume means the discontinued[1] Prius V which is a slightly-differently-bodied version of an existing car. [1] https://www.toyota.com/priusv/ https://www.toyota.com/priusv/
dmode 8y ago
Toyota had 80 years of car manufacturing and selling experience before the Prius. Of course, they will be able to execute properly on a product (which is an incremental innovation).