I thought it was relative just showing what is happening with the US dollar of late.

Toyota is being forced to up the price in a bad market, I'm going to assume because their fiscal report is due out Thursday they are getting ahead of the bad news on the dollar.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080507/japan_toyota_us_prices.html

Conversely, in Canada, where our dollar is running wild...we get drastic price cuts. Below is link to Toyota Canada's website. Something tells me there won't be a 'Toyota Higher Price Philosophy' page on the US website.

http://www.toyota.ca/cgi-bin/WebObjects/WWW.woa/wa/vp?vp=Home.Vehicles.Pricing&language=english

I don't know how this translates for the big 3. Probably helps them in the short run? Not sure.

This is probably why GM is focused on moving production to Europe? More overall price stabilization?

Clearly the dollar is the reason GM is currently 'making money' on it's 'non-North American' business, they are getting a 'free' 30 percent mark-up on their products built in NA and sold elsewhere.

With Volt 2 being Euro made, I wonder how that will affect pricing?

The starting price as of today, May 7th, 2008 was

$21100 in the US
$29 500 in Canada


At direct conversion rates of todays exchange - that same Prius should cost Canadians $21,199.17

- basically $100 more. The dollar has been on par with the American dollar for months now. Even exceeding it by as much as 12 cents ( it actually harms a lot of the Canadian economy to have a stronger dollar - because we export a lot to the U.S )

But because we live a stones throw away across the boarder ( we even make Toyotas here in Ontario )
we have to pay an extra $8300 ?

$8300? For what? America is a bigger market? That argument holds no water. With the dollar even a lot of our products have come down to the NORMAL price Americans have been paying..

It's a fact Canada has been a cash cow for the Auto makers for quite some years now. Part of the reason GM can afford to keep selling their cars so cheaply in America.

Let me illustrate with this :

The G6 GXP was starting at $25000 in Bay City in Michigan. This was a nicely loaded model too. Quite the nice ride.

I went into the dealership and there was a further incentive on the car - it was like $2500 off. I offered to buy and the dealer said he would LOVE to sell it to me - however, he was under orders from the general NOT to sell to Canadians. Excuse me?

That same car priced with the same options was $45000 in Canada.

This angered me to the extent that I wrote General Motors. I wrote my Government both Federally and Provincially.

The car companies got so much flak they have reduced prices a LITTLE bit, but still refuse to sell to give us even a fair deal.



So, if prices are coming down on the prius - there is MUCH that needs to come down yet..

there is still $8300 left to go..

I agree with you Ghost, it really sucks buying a car up here in Canada. I'm afraid that the Volt might be way over priced and at such a huge premium that I won't want to pick one up. If it's priced at $40000 US by that time it hits Canadian dealers it could be north of $60000 very easily.

My current vehicle, a 2006 Chevy HHR, cost me about $8000 more than a similar one in the US (albeit the dollar was at about $0.80 back then.) I'm hoping that the class action lawsuit that has been filed against GM and it's pricing goes somewhere and I get a few dollars back.

I was recently wanting to buy a new Buick Enclave but at $62,000 up here I started looking south and found I could get one for some $40,000 but then GM told me that it would be blacklisted in Canada and I would have no warranty coverage. I got fed up and very discouraged. I hate overpaying for everything up here right now.