Keep in mind: "The all-electric car will be “mass-produced†in the early 2010s, President Katsuaki Watanabe said Thursday in Tokyo without elaborating. Tests of rechargeable Priuses, previously set for 2010, were moved up to late 2009, the automaker said." Toyota plans electric car, speeds plug-in Prius push | www.charlotteobserver.com

But will it initially be available to the public or only as corporate lease? If it's the latter then it makes sense to give deposits back.

"Early 2010s" suggests to me something like 2012 or 2013. Given the present state of battery technology and the cost issues that a mass-manufacturer of cars must take into consideration, that sounds reasonable. Ten miles EV range for a PHEV in 2010 also sounds reasonable, given the same considerations. It's not enough for a lot of folks, including me, but it sounds like it's possible. The Volt, by comparison, does not, unless they charge so much for it that only wealthy EV enthusiasts can afford it.

Toyota has said that the PHEV will be available only to fleets at first. I don't know whether the phrase "corporate lease" was used, but it sounds like their intention is to provide it only to corporate fleets, so that they can study its real-world performance in an environment where failures, bugs, and shortcomings are a simple matter of dollars and cents, and not disillusionment and anger for private owners.

If a car requires lengthy repairs, or Toyota wants to keep a problem car for a month to study it, and it's in a corporate fleet, the driver merely takes another vehicle from the motor pool. If that other car is not a Prius, it really does not matter. But if it's a private owner, he's going to be angry, and every day he's without his car, even if they give him a loaner, he'll be angrier. "I was getting 60 mpg in my Prius and they're making me drive a 40-mpg POS for a month!" It makes sense to provide it only to fleets until they are sure of the design.

And there's this: If a 60-mpg car has only a 10-mile EV range, one plug-in only saves 67 cents worth of gas at $4/gal. And the electricity will cost 15 or 20 cents. A lot of people would not even bother plugging it in to save 50 cents.

Perhaps, but I think Toyota is short sighted to ignore the few enthusiasts on the forums who desperately want a plug-in Prius. Many of them could be of great help to Toyota in their development/testing.

But your point is well taken - one car per city vs 10 in one place. If I was Toyota I'd take the 10 in one place.

Well not all dealerships have stopped taking deposits. The Toyota dealer here on the central coast of California just took my $500 deposit and has a list of others who have made deposits on a PHEV. They couldn't give me any exact date of course but I'm hopeful that I'll be driving one of the first to hit the showroom floor.