Prius is the top selling car in Japan 2009

Interesting, do you know what's the top selling car in the US?

 

The list may surprise you.

Top 10 best?selling cars and pickups for 2009

This one didn't surprise me.

10 cars rate highest on miles per gallon of gas

 

Still, as a Bloomberg News story by my colleagues Kiyori Ueno and Tetsuya Komatsu today shows, the mainstream success of the Prius in Japan may do little to bolster Toyota’s profitability.

One problem is that Toyota kept the price of the new Prius down to compete with the smaller, less luxurious Honda Insight hybrid that was introduced two months earlier. Another is that the fashionable Prius is gnawing into sales of more expensive and profitable Toyota models, such as the Toyota Crown and MarkX sedans. For instance, while Prius sales increased 186% to 208,876 in 2009, sales of the Crown, a more expensive luxury model, fell 46% to 40,216, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.

That could have quite a big impact as Toyota battles to avoid a second consecutive annual loss for the first time in its history. Koji Endo, managing director of advanced Research Japan in Tokyo, reckons that Toyota earns about $2,100 in operating profit on the sale of one Prius compared to $10,700 on a Crown and $21,400 on a Lexus LS sedan sold in Japan.

Prius on Top in Japan, but at What Cost? - BusinessWeek