The good news for Toyota is that its recently launched Prius C hybrid is proving to be a hit. In Japan, where it went on sale last December as the Aqua, the sub-compact hybrid received 60,000 orders even before it was even launched and that number has now increased to 120,000 units.
The Prius C / Aqua is manufactured exclusively in Japan at Toyota's Iwate plant. While in 2007, the plant exported around 60 percent of its output, that number has now been halved to 30 percent.
Therefore, the bad news is that despite Toyota's boasting about the fact that it only took three days for the Prius C to sell more units than the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet combined in one month, the Japanese automaker may not be able to satisfy demand for its hybrid model in the U.S. market.
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