Toyota's $999 Charger Does Not Include Installation
By Scott Doggett November 4, 2011
Despite many publications reporting the contrary, Toyota will not be offering a $999 Leviton 240-volt home charger for use with the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in hybrid hatchback that includes the cost of installation. Inclusion of the cost of installation in the price of a car charger would have been a breakthrough of sorts. That's because the cost of installation, which many people would assume could involve some wiring work, is one of the financial marketing hurdles automakers face as they try to sell electric vehicles.
In a conference call with reporters this week, Ed Larocque, Toyota's national marketing manager for advanced technology vehicles, said, "the Leviton 240-volt product will be available at an industry-best price starting at $999 for the 16-amp, level-2 charging station, including installation." Consumer Reports and many other publications understood that to mean that if a 240-volt outlet did not exist in the garage or wherever the home charger was intended, the $999 price would include whatever was necessary to bring 240 volts to the unit, including running wire, supplying electric upgrades and furnishing an outlet if need be.
In an older home, those costs can total well over $2,000 and do not include the cost of the charger. So, on the plug-in vehicle front, word that Toyota and Levitron were offering the charger and installation for a flat $999 was greeted as a huge positive development. As GreenCarReports put it, "The one-size-fits all pricing plan from Toyota is a breath of fresh air in an industry where electric car owners are regularly being charged anything up to $1,818 for an 'easy' installation of an official charging station - with more complex installations costing thousands more."
Laroque's comment that the $999 charger price included installation was meant to convey that the cost would include hooking up the charger to an existing 240-volt outlet. The amount of that work would typically be minimal and be limited to little more than removing the charger from the box it was transported in, mounting it on a wall and plugging the device into the outlet, Toyota spokeswoman Jana Hartline clarified in an interview with AutoObserver on Thursday. The 2012 Prius Plug-in is scheduled to go on sale beginning in March.
The Leviton 240-volt home charging station decreases the required charging time for the Prius Plug-in to approximately 1.5 hours compared to approximately 3 hours using the factory-provided 120-volt cord set. The charging station can be cord connected or hardwired, has a small footprint and requires a minimum amount of wall space for mounting.
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