Toyota's first Prius-branded hybrid wagon — the 2012 Prius V — begins arriving at dealerships in late October with a starting price of $26,400 (plus $760 freight), the automaker says.
Three models will be offered. Besides the base V Two model at the $26,400 price, there will be the midlevel V Three ($27,165) and the V Five ($29,990).
This is the first of a variety of new models that will carry the Prius name as Toyota expands a brand that has become synonymous with “hybrid” since it was introduced in the U.S. market in mid-2000.
Toyota says the Prius V is designed for “young, active families.” The “V” stands for “versatility.” It's essentially a crossover version of the third-generation midsize Prius hatchback that arrived for 2010.
It is intended for people who like the idea of the gas-sipping hybrid, but need a bigger, roomier vehicle.
The Prius V seats five, just as its hatchback sibling, but has 58 percent more cargo space — 34.3 cubic feet — which Toyota says is more than that of “80 percent of the small SUVs on the road today.”
Its EPA classification is “midsize station wagon.” The overall look is quite similar to that of the current Prius, but the rear end is squared off like a wagon or SUV.
There is already a midsize hybrid crossover in the Toyota lineup, the Highlander, which can carry up to seven passengers. The Prius V will compete in the compact crossover class, where the only hybrid models offered now are the Ford Escape and its clone, the Mazda Tribute.
Although it has the same gasoline-electric drive system as the Prius hatchback, the heavier V model won't be as fuel-efficient. EPA ratings are 44 mpg city/40 highway, compared with 51 city/48 highway for the regular Prius. Still, that is the best mileage of any crossover, SUV or wagon, Toyota says.
There is a rear roof spoiler designed to improve airflow, reduce drag and help save fuel. The car has a 0.29 coefficient of drag, which is on par with many sports cars.
Standard on all three Prius V models will be an audio system with a 6.1-inch display screen and back-up camera system; Bluetooth phone connection and audio streaming; USB port for connecting external audio players; 16-inch alloy wheels with wheel covers; single-dial climate control; a driver's door Smart Key system; 60/40 split sliding/reclining back seat; and power lumbar support for the driver's seat.
Also included are electric air conditioning, keyless push-button start, an electronic transmission shift lever and power windows/mirrors/door locks with remote.
Moving up to the V Three model adds navigation and the Entune multimedia system with satellite and HD radio features, along with iTunes tagging. Entune includes Bing and Pandora, as well as real-time traffic, weather, fuel prices, sports and stocks. It also has text-to-speech capabilities.
The V Five comes with most of the V Three features, along with heated front seats, premium SofTex upholstery, a three-door Smart Key system, 17-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights and fog lights.
SofTex, a new plastic material that weighs half as much as leather, is designed to resist stains and spills and to take the kind of heavy wear that comes from having kids in the car. It's also easier to clean, Toyota says.
Cargo space can be expanded substantially by folding the rear seatback, and the front seatback can be leaned forward to accommodate longer items, such as snow skis.
Under the hood is the same 1.8-liter, four-cylinder, 98-horsepower Atkinson-cycle gasoline engine used in the regular Prius. There also are two high-output electric motors — including an 80-horsepower unit that helps drive the car, and a separate, smaller one that starts the engine and also serves as a generator to recharge the nickel-metal-hydride battery pack.
2011年9月25日星期日
2011年5月5日星期四
PG & E's CEO Discusses Q1 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Good morning, and welcome to the PG&E First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to introduce your host, Mr. Gabe Togneri of PG&E. Thank you and have a good conference. You may proceed, Mr. Togneri.
Gabriel Togneri
Thanks, Josh. Good morning, and we appreciate you joining us. Our primary speakers today will be Chris Johns, President of Pacific Gas and Electric Company; and Kent Harvey, Senior Vice President and CFO of PG&E Corporation. You'll also hear from Lee Cox, our Interim Chairman, CEO and President of the Corporation. Other members of the management team are here and will participate in the Q&A.
I'll remind you, our remarks in the Q&A that follows include forward-looking statements based on assumptions and expectations that reflect the information currently available to management. Actual results may differ materially from current expectations. Important factors that may affect our results are described in the reports that we filed with the SEC, including the risk factors and other factors that are in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and our Form 10-Q reports. We encourage you to read them. We'll be filing our 10-Q report for the quarter later today.
The earnings release we issued this morning is available on our website, along with the supplemental earnings tables and including the Regulation G reconciliations. You will want to have that supplemental information available to refer to as we go through the results for the quarter.
And now I'll turn the call over to Chris Johns.
Christopher Johns
Thanks, Gabe, and good morning, everybody. Now, I don't usually open up our call. So it's appropriate to acknowledge the transition that we're in right now. As Peter Darbee stated when he announced his retirement, this change gives the company an opportunity to move forward in facing some of our challenges. Obviously, a key step in that direction will be naming a new CEO. So with us this morning, to offer his thoughts on that, is Lee Cox. Lee has been a key member of the board at PG&E since 1996, and he's been our Lead Director since 2004. As Gabe mentioned, Lee is our Interim Chairman, CEO and President, and we're fortunate to have Lee's experience in this interim role.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Lee.
C. Cox
Okay. Well, thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I know the team has a lot to cover this morning, so I'm going to be very brief. Let me just expand now for a moment on a comment Chris made about a CEO retirement being a chance to move forward.
I want all of you to know that the board and our employees deeply understand and feel in every way how the events of the last year have affected the company. And right now, we're all very focused on doing whatever it takes to fix our problems and then also to regain the public trust. A lot of projects are already underway to do that. The new CEO we're seeking will be someone who can lead our teams to finish the operations turnaround that has really already started. And we also want someone who can personally engage with our many stakeholders and gain their support. So to that end, the search process is moving along well. The search committee is pleased with the quality of candidates, and we're on track to name the new CEO in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, in the coming days, you'll be hearing some announcements about what we're doing to resolve our problems and to regain the confidence of our stakeholders.
Now Chris and Kent are going to be delivering some tough news this morning, and I want you to know that the board believes that they and their teams will be able to solve our problems and then go on to improve operational and financial performance in the future.
So here it goes back to Chris to discuss company operations.
Christopher Johns
Great. Thanks, Lee. I'm disappointed by our first quarter results and our announcement today that we are revising our guidance. As a management team, we're accountable for the overall performance of our company. And as President, I'm accountable for the operational and financial performance of the company, and to assure the necessary changes are made for PG&E to become the leading utility that our management team aspires for it to be. This morning, Kent and I will address the recent developments leading to the revised outlook for the year, as well as our plans moving forward. You can be confident that we are challenging our leadership team to deliver better results.
My remarks begin, as they did last quarter, with an update on activities and plans relating to the gas transmission system and pipeline safety. I will also discuss our nuclear operations in light of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the winter storms we faced this quarter.
The issues we're dealing with as a result of the San Bruno accident will have a lasting impact on PG&E and across the industry. We continue to help the families and communities affected by this tragedy. We have funded a trust for the city of San Bruno so we can effectively and efficiently continue with the healing and rebuilding process. The entire San Bruno community remains in our thoughts and in our prayers.
This management team is fully committed to PG&E emerging from this experience, both as a better company and as the national standard bearer for safety and operational excellence. We have several years of hard work ahead, and we are taking the actions needed to achieve that goal. We continue to fully cooperate with the various regulatory proceedings and investigations concerning gas pipeline matters. The National Transportation Safety Board held 3 days of fact-finding hearings in March, and we expect the NTSB to issue a final report sometime this fall.
The California Public Utilities Commission is overseeing its own investigation, while also participating in the NTSB process. And as part of their emission, the CPUC appointed an independent review panel to look into PG&E and the commission policies and practices for managing the gas transmission system. We expect that the panel will provide its report to the CPUC sometime later this month.
At the end of February, the commission issued an Order Instituting Investigation, or an OII, to examine PG&E's pipeline record-keeping practices. On April 18, we responded to an initial set of questions posed in that OII. And this included a discussion of pipeline document retention practices. We're going to have to file other responses in the OII during May and June, including documents relating to pipeline maintenance procedures and practices dating back to the 1950s. Because the OII will likely take into account the findings from the final NTSB report, we don't expect the investigation to conclude until late 2011 or even into 2012.
In February, the CPUC also issued an Order Instituting Rulemaking or an OIR, which covers all California pipeline operators. We support the OIR and the CPUC's intent to establish new standards for pipeline construction, maintenance and safety. Responding to a directive that was part of the OIR process in March, we provided the CPUC with information on pressure test records and engineering specifications for our transmission pipelines in the more populated areas of our service territory.
Gabriel Togneri
Thanks, Josh. Good morning, and we appreciate you joining us. Our primary speakers today will be Chris Johns, President of Pacific Gas and Electric Company; and Kent Harvey, Senior Vice President and CFO of PG&E Corporation. You'll also hear from Lee Cox, our Interim Chairman, CEO and President of the Corporation. Other members of the management team are here and will participate in the Q&A.
I'll remind you, our remarks in the Q&A that follows include forward-looking statements based on assumptions and expectations that reflect the information currently available to management. Actual results may differ materially from current expectations. Important factors that may affect our results are described in the reports that we filed with the SEC, including the risk factors and other factors that are in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and our Form 10-Q reports. We encourage you to read them. We'll be filing our 10-Q report for the quarter later today.
The earnings release we issued this morning is available on our website, along with the supplemental earnings tables and including the Regulation G reconciliations. You will want to have that supplemental information available to refer to as we go through the results for the quarter.
And now I'll turn the call over to Chris Johns.
Christopher Johns
Thanks, Gabe, and good morning, everybody. Now, I don't usually open up our call. So it's appropriate to acknowledge the transition that we're in right now. As Peter Darbee stated when he announced his retirement, this change gives the company an opportunity to move forward in facing some of our challenges. Obviously, a key step in that direction will be naming a new CEO. So with us this morning, to offer his thoughts on that, is Lee Cox. Lee has been a key member of the board at PG&E since 1996, and he's been our Lead Director since 2004. As Gabe mentioned, Lee is our Interim Chairman, CEO and President, and we're fortunate to have Lee's experience in this interim role.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Lee.
C. Cox
Okay. Well, thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I know the team has a lot to cover this morning, so I'm going to be very brief. Let me just expand now for a moment on a comment Chris made about a CEO retirement being a chance to move forward.
I want all of you to know that the board and our employees deeply understand and feel in every way how the events of the last year have affected the company. And right now, we're all very focused on doing whatever it takes to fix our problems and then also to regain the public trust. A lot of projects are already underway to do that. The new CEO we're seeking will be someone who can lead our teams to finish the operations turnaround that has really already started. And we also want someone who can personally engage with our many stakeholders and gain their support. So to that end, the search process is moving along well. The search committee is pleased with the quality of candidates, and we're on track to name the new CEO in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, in the coming days, you'll be hearing some announcements about what we're doing to resolve our problems and to regain the confidence of our stakeholders.
Now Chris and Kent are going to be delivering some tough news this morning, and I want you to know that the board believes that they and their teams will be able to solve our problems and then go on to improve operational and financial performance in the future.
So here it goes back to Chris to discuss company operations.
Christopher Johns
Great. Thanks, Lee. I'm disappointed by our first quarter results and our announcement today that we are revising our guidance. As a management team, we're accountable for the overall performance of our company. And as President, I'm accountable for the operational and financial performance of the company, and to assure the necessary changes are made for PG&E to become the leading utility that our management team aspires for it to be. This morning, Kent and I will address the recent developments leading to the revised outlook for the year, as well as our plans moving forward. You can be confident that we are challenging our leadership team to deliver better results.
My remarks begin, as they did last quarter, with an update on activities and plans relating to the gas transmission system and pipeline safety. I will also discuss our nuclear operations in light of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the winter storms we faced this quarter.
The issues we're dealing with as a result of the San Bruno accident will have a lasting impact on PG&E and across the industry. We continue to help the families and communities affected by this tragedy. We have funded a trust for the city of San Bruno so we can effectively and efficiently continue with the healing and rebuilding process. The entire San Bruno community remains in our thoughts and in our prayers.
This management team is fully committed to PG&E emerging from this experience, both as a better company and as the national standard bearer for safety and operational excellence. We have several years of hard work ahead, and we are taking the actions needed to achieve that goal. We continue to fully cooperate with the various regulatory proceedings and investigations concerning gas pipeline matters. The National Transportation Safety Board held 3 days of fact-finding hearings in March, and we expect the NTSB to issue a final report sometime this fall.
The California Public Utilities Commission is overseeing its own investigation, while also participating in the NTSB process. And as part of their emission, the CPUC appointed an independent review panel to look into PG&E and the commission policies and practices for managing the gas transmission system. We expect that the panel will provide its report to the CPUC sometime later this month.
At the end of February, the commission issued an Order Instituting Investigation, or an OII, to examine PG&E's pipeline record-keeping practices. On April 18, we responded to an initial set of questions posed in that OII. And this included a discussion of pipeline document retention practices. We're going to have to file other responses in the OII during May and June, including documents relating to pipeline maintenance procedures and practices dating back to the 1950s. Because the OII will likely take into account the findings from the final NTSB report, we don't expect the investigation to conclude until late 2011 or even into 2012.
In February, the CPUC also issued an Order Instituting Rulemaking or an OIR, which covers all California pipeline operators. We support the OIR and the CPUC's intent to establish new standards for pipeline construction, maintenance and safety. Responding to a directive that was part of the OIR process in March, we provided the CPUC with information on pressure test records and engineering specifications for our transmission pipelines in the more populated areas of our service territory.
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