Toyota hit a big milestone today, announcing the sale of the 1 millionth Prius hybrid in the United States. For those keeping score, there are now 3 million of the almond-shaped gas-electrics on the road worldwide.
It taken 11 years to hit that number, and in all that time not one month has passed when the Prius wasn't the best-selling hybrid in the United States, boasts Bob Carter, who has the unwieldy title of Toyota division group vice president and general manager.
“As we see fuel prices starting to rise again, it has accounted for more than 60 percent of hybrid passenger car sales so far this year," he said in a press release ballyhooing the milestone.
There's no doubt the Toyota Prius is synonymous with "hybrid" and the standard by which gas-electrics continue to be measured. Its tremendous success also helped make Toyota the world's largest automaker. Prius sales absolutely tower over all other hybrids. Toyota sold 140,928 of them last year, obliterating its two closest competitors, the Honda Insight (20,962 sold) and Ford Fusion hybrid (20,816 sold).
Toyota mentions lots of stats in singing the car's praises, mentioning that the cars have saved consumers more than 881 million gallons of gasoline, $2.19 billion in fuel costs and 12.4 million tons of CO2 emissions.
Toyota is raising the prices of most models, including the Prius, on May 1 to reflect higher materials costs and a stronger Yen, according to the Detroit Free Press. Dwindling supplies have the Prius is selling for as much as $3,000 more than it was before the earthquake in Japan.
Photo: Toyota
