Toyota's Third-Gen Prius a Sales Bright Spot

(MoneyWatch)  Every automaker is looking for bright spots as the dog days approach, and Toyota can take heart in the strong advance orders it has for the third-generation 2010 hybrid Prius.

In April, as pre-production began, Toyota said it had received 40,000 pre-orders and would be increasing global volumes 25 percent, from 40,000 per month to 50,000. It also said it would be making as many as 500,000 cars in fiscal 2009. Toyota has sold more than 1.25 million Priuses worldwide, and that is awfully good for a car seen as "Toyota's folly" when it was first introduced in the U.S. in 2000.

A spokesman, Joe Tetherow, said that "it's looking good for the Prius' U.S. launch." He said there have been 135,000 "hand raisers" who say they want more information on the car from Toyota.com, and 50,000 who've made that request at dealers. The car is now at 50,000-per-month full capacity (it's built in two Japanese plants) and some 50,000 will have been shipped to the U.S. by the end of July.

In Japan, the Prius has had a gangbusters start, receiving no less than 180,000 orders and displacing its arch-rival, the new Honda Insight, from the top-selling spot. In the U.S., the car sold slightly more than 10,000 units in May. Toyota Motor Sales (including Lexus) sold 14,846 hybrids in that month, but almost all of them were Toyotas and the overwhelming majority the new Prius. In May, Lexus sold just 463 hybrids.

I've just spent a week with the 2010 Prius, here it is on video: I find the new Prius indeed a major improvement over the second-generation car, with two minor caveats. The first is that, although the slightly squared-off styling changes (largely dictated by .25 coefficient of drag aerodynamics) are minor, the earlier car was cuter. And the second is that the much-touted "EV" mode is largely for show. Try as I might, I constantly got messages telling me it was "unavailable at this time." I experienced similar limitations in a test drive last week of the new entry-level luxury hybrid contender, the Lexus HS250h.

But in every other way this car is an engineering triumph with many upgrades and new features that allow it to claim an overall 50 mpg. That's true despite the gas engine growing to 1.8 liters (from 1.4), and power output to 134 horsepower. The Hybrid Synergy Drive system is 90 percent new, and the lighter transaxle reduces torque loss by as much as 20 percent. Toyota has been nigh fanatical about light-weighting and downsizing Prius components, and it's paying off in the EPA numbers.

The Prius bristles with new high-tech features, making it a marketer's dream. For coolness, the Prius offers a solar panel driving a fan to keep the car ventilated on summer days, a Touch Tracer system to put displays at eye level, and Lane Keep Assist to make sure you stay in line. The company is hoping that stuff like this, necessary or not, will get the customers in line, too.

Jim Motavalli photo