Prius hits 1 M in Sales, Saves 450 M Tons of Carbon

Toyota has announced that their worldwide cumulative sales of their popular Prius has just exceeded, 1,000,000 units. Over 600,000 of these have been purchased in the last 3 years alone, showing a rapidly growing demand for the vehicle since its introduction in 1997. In 2007, Toyota saw an increase in 51% in sales for the hybrid versus 2006, a claim that none of the SUV-powered American manufacturers can come close to matching, in fact, their market shares are steadily declining.

Based on their sales, Toyota has calculated that comparing straight gasoline vehicles in the same class and similar size and driving performance, their cars have prevented 4.5 million tons of CO2 from being released in the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent to about 535,500,000 gallons of fuel or, at todays prices, $2.01 Billion saved. That’s a lot of… well, everything! And the 2010 version should be even greener!

While the standard package Prius (Japan) currently gets about 71mpg, their upcoming models, including a plug-in version promised for 2010, should be over the 100mpg level. If you can’t wait until then, A123 Systems has officially started taking orders for their 2004-onwards Prius conversion kit which will give you that 100mpg+ immediately, though at a cost of about $10K.

Original here