PriusChat member (and apparently Toyota of Dallas representative) Dallas_Prius is letting everyone know about a 2010 Prius event being held at Toyota of Dallas.

Here are all of the details.  Any Dallas/FW area PriusChatters should attend!

I was starting to feel ike a deadbeat dad. Due to a couple mishaps I brought upon myself, my 2010 Winter Grey Prius had been sitting on the lot at Jim Barkley Toyota in Asheville, NC for a whole week. It was disoriented, cold and alone, locked up in an unfamiliar dealership lot. My Prius probably thought that no one wanted to drive it, that no one cared about it enough to take it home. But tonight was the night. I finally picked up my brand spankin' new 2010.

The Toyota Prius was Japan's best-selling car in May, while the Honda Insight dropped from 1st place to 3rd place behind the Honda Fit.

"I think a green car tax break and other incentives helped the sales performance (of the Prius) quite a bit," Akihiko Otsuka, chief engineer for the new Prius, told reporters in Toyota City, home to the automaker.

Shortages

You've probably seen at least 2 of the 3 Prius commercials on TV by now, but you may not have seen some of Toyota's other marketing efforts for the 2010 Prius.  Today PriusChat member (and maven of his own website) john1701a pointed out Prius advertising on Dictionary.com.

You can also find Prius references on various Dictionary.com pages:

Dictionary.com

Hybrid definition

Toyota, how can I be one of the lucky 150 US-based testers?  And no, I'm not kidding.

Toyota to start leasing plug-in hybrids in Japan, US, Europe

YURI KAGEYAMA

AP Business Writer

3:41 AM PDT, June 3, 2009

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota said Wednesday it will start leasing plug-in hybrid cars, that are even greener than its hit Prius, by the end of this year in the U.S., Japan and Europe.

The economy sucks, we all know that.  But the decline in Prius sales may have finally hit bottom as we saw a rise in May sales compared to April.  Taking into account that the 2010 Prius was not available for about 95% of May, it looks like Prius sales may have been on their way up on their own without sales of the new model.

May sales were still down 30% compared to May 2008, but gas was about $1.50 higher last May.

Best. Prius. Commercial. Ever.

"Ya won't see me ever hit E with my MPGs..."

Video after the jump.

It looks like Japan is getting all of the fun and comical TV ads for the 2010 Prius while the US is stuck with the artsy ones.  Below are 2 commercials airing in Japan that feature Superman helping to point out all of the new features on the 2010 Prius.  For the "Chuck" fans out there, you might recognize Superman as Bryce Larkin, AKA actor Matthew Bomer.  Funny enough, Bomer was originally cast as Superman for Brett Ratner's remake that never ended up happening.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported today that Toyota plans to resume overtime at its Aichi plant next month in order to help meet strong demand for the new 2010 Prius.  Toyota has received orders for more than 110,000 vehicles and plans to raise monthly output of the model by 20 percent from the original schedule to about 50,000 cars, NHK said.

Here's the 2nd Prius commercial titled "MPG".  Basically because it talks about the Prius' 50 MPG rating.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, so here's mine: these commercials are just embarrassing.  Sure, my mother thinks the flower people are "cute", but I sincerely hope that 60-something women are not the "mainstream" group Toyota is looking to get into a 2010.  More on my opinions later...