Toyota Prius supply will continue to be short

Bloomberg News today is reporting that Toyota does not have enough gas-electric hybrid Prius vehicles to meet consumer demand, which must be nice for the company but means a long wait for customers and, for all of us, more carbon dioxide in the air. A Toyota vice-president told Bloomberg that the company could sell 250,000 of the vehicles this year, if they had them in the lots. The company sold about 108,000 last year and sales in April were down about 4,000 units from last year.
An analyst told Bloomberg that what used to be seasonal price spikes are becoming just regular old price spikes and that higher gas prices are driving demand for hybrids. Oh really.

[Source: Mercury News via Mixed Power]