New Prius Orders Top 180,000
When Toyota put their new 2010 Prius hybrid on the market last month, they were anticipating about 10,000 sales per month. Well, after under two months on the market, they are currently beating that estimate by over 1,000%, and that’s in Japan alone. The 2010 Prius has just gotten to the United States recently, and so far there have only been about 700 units sold. However, that number is misleading as backstock of the previous generation Prius were over 9,000 for the month of May, so the model is still doing well. What makes Japan’s demand for the Prius so much higher than the U.S.’s is a matter of economics.
In Japan, the cost of gas is a lot higher than in the United States (almost double), so the desire for fuel efficient vehicles is a lot greater. Also, the Japanese government has been offering a lot of tax rebates and other incentives for buyers to purchase more fuel efficient and eco-friendly vehicles in the past few years, furth er catapulting sales. In fact, this past April marked the first time ever that a hybrid vehicle, the Honda Insight, was the best-selling car in Japan. The new Prius took away that title for the month of May and, considering the amount of orders, will likely retain it for June.
These sales must certainly come to a boost to the beleagured Toyota corporation, as the recently posted their worst fiscla year ever this past March. However, the Prius, and to a lesser extent the Honda Insight, are not representative of the entire Japanese auto market. While these two models have been making impressive sales, vehicle sales in Japan for the month of May were down almost 20% over that same month last year.
