With Americans suddenly reacting strongly to soaring gasoline prices, four Japanese cars outsold Ford's (F) fuel-thirsty F-Series pickup truck for the first time ever in May: the Toyota Camry and new 2009 Corolla, and Honda's (HMC) Civic and recently redesigned Accord. Yet, oddly, the most fuel-efficient model on the market, the hybrid-powered Toyota Prius, saw its sales plunge 39.8% in May, to just 15,011 units. Prius sales are up a mere 2.2%, to 79,675, so far this year.
What's going on? There certainly is no lack of demand for the Prius. A Toyota Motor (TM) spokesman says dealers have waiting lists of potential buyers and that Priuses typically sell within hours of hitting the sales lot. The problem is that Toyota simply can't produce enough of them to keep up with surging demand. The Japanese parent company has allocated about 15,000 Priuses per month to the U.S. market, which adds up to about the same as last year's sales of 181,221 units (up 69% from 2006). The main bottleneck is that Panasonic (MC), the company that produces the hybrid's batteries, is scrambling to increase production.