Orders in Japan for Toyota’s new Prius hybrid have topped a booming 110,000, a major dealership chain said on Saturday, in what is turning out to be a rare bright spot in the gloomy auto market.
The third-generation Prius officially rolled out in Japan just two weeks ago. But dealers are already flooded with orders, including some placed weeks in advance, the dealership said.
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s biggest automaker, said two weeks ago that it received 80,000 advance orders, and has not updated that number. But the Toyota Tokyo Corolla dealer said on Saturday that nationwide orders at Toyota dealerships in Japan, including those of rivals, have soared to 110,000. Dealers tally their customer orders differently from the way manufacturers do.
But any way you slice it, the Prius is a hit. Toyota has set its monthly sales target for Japan at 10,000 new Prius cars — a figure that should make it the top-selling car in the country. As the orders stack up, the company looks on track to meet or even surpass its goal and take that crown — an astonishing accomplishment for a hybrid, although the Prius is fighting competition from another new hybrid, Honda Motor Co’s Insight. Hybrids are in demand partly because the Japanese government began offering tax exemptions for the cars to encourage their sales earlier this year.
Parliament gave consumers added incentive on Friday when it approved a cash-back rebate for trading in cars 13 years or older for greener cars.
Hybrids also promise savings on gas. In Japan, where frequent stop-and-go traffic lowers the fuel efficiency of gas-engine cars but actually raises it in hybrids, the Prius is promising nearly 38km per liter. In heavy traffic, hybrids rely on their electric motors and thus burn no gas.
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