While many car companies in the US, Europe and Asian market have several hybrid vehicles in their line-up for sale, the choices are narrower in T&T. Only two new-car companies in T&T are offering the hybird cars and from different ends of the price spectrum—a luxury high-end hybrid SUV and a high-performance sports car being sold by Lifestyle Motors, and three, more modest, hybrid cars being sold by Toyota.
Lifestyle Motors Porsche regional brand manager Riyad Ali said the company had sold a few Cayenne S E-Hybrid SUVs and Panamera S E-Hybrid sports cars, but not a whole lot. Diesel-powered models were faster sellers, he said. He said both luxury, high-end vehicles were plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV)—they can be plugged into a home’s wall socket to re-charge and also driven solely on electric energy.
Ali said the Porsche Cayenne S E-Hybrid had an all-electric range between 11 and 22 miles based on driving pattern and conditions. He said the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid had an EV (electric vehicle) range of up to 21 miles with a fully charged EV battery. Ali said hybrid technology was not only developed for road cars but was used in race cars many years before by Porsche as well as other companies.
He said the world’s first hybrid vehicle also came from Porsche, the 1899 Lohner-Porsche “Mixte,” designed by Ferdinand Porsche, which combined a battery-electric drive with a combustion engine. Ali said with respect to technology, it was the direction the world was going and not CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). He said both of Porsche’s hybrid vehicle prices depended on their configuration.
The Sunday Guardian visited the Lifestyle Motors showroom at the corner of Bhagouti Trace and Churchhill-Roosevelt Highway and was told that the starting price for the Porsche Cayenne S E-Hybrid SUV was $1.6 million and $1.8 million for the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid. Both models will be available for sale in January 2015.
A Toyota Trinidad sales manager said there were three models in the country: the Toyota Prius Hybrid (1.8L), the Prius C Hybrid (1.5L) and the Toyota Camry Hybrid (2.5L). He said the company and staff were very excited and looking forward to how the market will react to the hybrids. The sales manager said Toyota was eager to get response and feedback from the public to these vehicles now that there are tax concessions, and they will appeal to the “green” or eco-conscious people.
He said with Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) system the Prius can achieve 51 MPG (miles per gallon), the smaller Prius C 53 MPG and the Toyota Camry hybrid, 39 MPG. The sales manager said Toyota really wanted to “come good” to the market and reward its loyal customers and new-car buyers.
He said with the new motor vehicle tax concessions on hybrids, the higher savings will be on bigger engines. It may be surprising that the Camry might be discounted a lot more than expected compared to the Prius, he said. A visit to the Toyota Trinidad showroom in Barataria revealed that the company has the Camry Hybrid for sale at $399,000, the Prius Hybrid at $359,000 and the Prius C Hybrid at $239,000. All three hybrid models will be available for sale in January 2015.
A Kia brand manager from Southern Sales Ltd said the company manufactured two hybrid cars—the Kia Soul Hybrid and Optima Hybrid, however they were not available in T&T.