Shortage fears boost Toyota Prius’s US sales

American car buyers are flocking to buy Toyota’s Prius hybrid hatchback, propelled by rising petrol prices and fears of supply disruptions in Japan.

“A lot of customers are convinced that [Prius] prices will be going up and that availability will be a little short”, said Tammy Darvish, who owns four Toyota dealerships in the Washington DC area.

Paul Atkinson, a dealer in south-east Texas, said that his outlet’s Prius sales have doubled in the past four to sex weeks largely as a result of the run-up in fuel prices.

Besides being the world's top-selling hybrid model, the Prius is one of only a handful of Toyota’s North American models assembled in Japan.

Toyota sold a record 13,500 Priuses in the US in February, up 27 per cent from January and almost three-quarters more than a year earlier when the carmaker was engulfed in a crisis over mass recalls and quality concerns.

The US has made up close to half of the worldwide Prius market since sales started in 2000. Toyota expects to sell its one-millionth vehicle in the US within the next few weeks.

Production at all Toyota plants in Japan has been halted until at least next Tuesday. Honda said on Friday that it was extending shutdowns of several plants to March 23.

The main Prius assembly plant, west of Tokyo, was not damaged by last week’s earthquake, while two of three hybrid battery plants were also unscathed. The company said that future production is “is a matter of prioritisation and electric power availability”.

Michael Robinet, director of global production forecasts at IHS Automotive, described the Prius as especially challenging given its unusually high electronics content.

Toyota’s US arm said that while Prius inventories were adequate, “customers may need to check a number of dealers and may not find exactly the colour and equipment they want”.

Robust demand has enabled dealers to pare discounts and other incentives. Edmunds.com, an online car-pricing service, estimates that Prius transaction prices now average 97 per cent of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, up from 95 per cent a month ago. “We’ve seen steady price increases since mid- to late February”, Jessica Caldwell, an Edmunds analyst said.

Mr Atkinson, the Texas dealer, said while demand for the Prius was strong, it was less frenzied than in early 2008 when fuel prices spiked and many buyers rushed to dump gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and pick-up trucks.

The average price for regular petrol in the US stood at $3.54 a gallon on Friday, up from $2.80 a year ago .