Toyota Motor

1. QS:- What micro environmental factors affected the introduction relaunch of the Toyota Prius ? How well has Toyota dealt with these factors ?

Answer to the Question No:- 1

Honda successfully introduced the insight in 1999 as a 2000 model. Toyota closely followed Honda's lead , bringing the 2001 Prius to market one year later . Introducing a fuel sipper in a market where vehicle size and horsepower reigned led one Toyota executive to profess . "Frankly , it was one of the biggest crapshoots .

Apparently , consumers liked to improvements . In its inaugural year , the Prius saw moderate sales of just over 15,000 units -not bad considering Toyota put minimal promotional effort into the new vehicle . But for 2005 , more than 107,000 Priuses were sold in the United States alone , making it Toyota's third-best-selling passenger car following the Carmy and Corolla . Perhaps more significantly , Toyota announced that as of April , 2006 , the Prius had achieved a major milestone , having sold over 500,000 units world wide .

There are many reasons for the success of the Prius . For starters , Toyota's targeting strategy has been spot-on from the beginning . It focused first on early adopters , techies who were attracted by the card's advanced technology . such buyers not only bought the car , but found ways to modify it by hacking into the Prius's computer system . soon , owners were sharing their hacking secrets through chat rooms such as Priusenvy.com , boasting such modifications as using the dashboard display screen to play video games , show files from a laptop , watch TV , and look at image taken by a rear-view camera . One savvy owner found a way to plug the Prius into a wall socket and boost fuel efficiency to as much as 100 miles per gallon.

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2. QS:- Outline the major microenvironmental factors -demographic , economic , natural , technological , political and cultural - that affected the introduction and relaunch of the Toyota Prius . How well has Toyota dealt with each of these factors ?

Answer to the Question No:- 2

In addition to Toyota's effective targeting tactics , various external incentives have helped to spur Prius sales . For example , some states allow single- occupant hybrids in HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes , some cities , including Albuquerque , Los Angeles , San jose , and New Haven , provide free parking for hybrids . But the biggest incentives contribute real dollars toward the price of the Prius , making it more affordable . Currently the federal government gives a text break of up to $3,150 . This tax break will expire under the current rules in 2007 , but there are various efforts to extend tax incentives for the Prius and other hybrid vehicles .

Some state governments are also getting in the game . West virginia , New York , and various other states are offering tax breaks over and above any IRS kickbacks . The most generous is Colorado , giving a text credit of up to $3,434 . And if a chunk of money from these two sources isn't enough , employees of certain companies can cash in for even more . A select few companies are anteing up in order to do their bit for the environment . Eco-friendly Timberland contributes $3,000 as well as preferred parking spaces . Google and Hyperion solutions , the California- based software company , each give employees a whopping $5,000 toward hybrids such as the Prius .

Although Honda's insight was the first to market in the United States , its sales have been miniscule compared to the Prius . Thus after the 2006 model year , Honda will drop the insight . And although Toyota's Japanese rival has had much better results with its Civic hybrid , its sales goal of 25,000 units for 2006 is less than one - fourth of the Prius 's anticipated sales . The overall category of gas-electric vehicles in the United States appears to be hotter than over , with units sales up 140 percent from 2004 to 2005 , to a total of 205,749 units . The Prius alone commands over 50 percent of the market and is largely responsible for category growth .