Toyota sells three million Prius hybrids

Toyota has heralded the sale of its three-millionth Prius, the world’s top-selling hybrid vehicle.

Included in the total are more than 1.3 million deliveries in North America, a similar number in Japan, 260,000 in Europe and almost 80,000 in the rest of the world.??The latter includes only around 18,300 examples in Australia since the Prius was launched here in October 2001.?

In fact, Prius sales have been in serious decline here in recent years, despite a series of price cuts that have reduced the base pricetag to $33,990.

Just 35 Prius cars were sold last month (down 70 per cent), bringing to 277 the number purchased in the first half of this year (down 43 per cent).

That means both the newer petrol-electric Prius c hatch and seven-seat Prius v people-mover have both proved more popular than the original Prius five-door so far in 2013, with the former attracting 1242 buyers and the latter finding 539 homes.

Including all three models, cumulative global sales of the Prius family have now reached 3.8 million, while total global sales of all Toyota and Lexus hybrids exceed 5.3 million units.??The first-generation Prius was launched in Japan in late 1997 and the model is now sold in 60 countries and regions.

The second generation followed in 2003 and the third generation in 2009.

Annual sales exceeded 100,000 for the first time in 2004 and cumulative sales reached one million in 2008, with the two millionth being sold in September 2010.

Toyota says that in the current Japanese fiscal year ending March 2014, it expects to spend 790 billion yen (A$8.6 billion) on the development of environmental technologies and new platforms and major components.

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