自販連のホームページ (use Chrome to translate it to the language of choice - I don't know how to post a link to the translated version, sorry) Since Jan. 2016 they sold a total of 142,5k Prius in Japan. I wonder how much they have sold in the USA and EU (not much I suspect in EU - they sell more Auris and Yaris Hybrids here). If they continue to sell this much, they are going to cover 95% of their revised WW lowest target (300k) just with Japan...or 70% of their original max target (400k): Toyota lowers global sales target for new Prius
Focus2move| World Best Selling Car in the 2016 - All data Prius (Gen4) ranks #32 in the World in the first quarter of 2016. Considering it is matching against cars that have been on the market longer than 5 months and it is the *world* market....not too bad. The Honda Civic, offering more than one drivetrain on the market, ranks #13 in the same list.
Gas prices in JP are about the same as in EU, or about 5-6$/gal. And like in EU, they like to buy local, also because foreign cars (e.g. VW, Audi, Mercedes, etc) are considered luxury items and are often much more expensive...
Keep in mind, in Japan the Gen4 being No. 1 is just displacing Prius c (Aqua) which has been the sales king over there prior to 2016. Yes when you think of $5-6/gal that tells you why Toyota engineers work so hard to get the absolute best MPG. However in the USA we don't quite need that +MPG over 50 too much right now (from a short-sighted perspective).
My estimate is that, given the number of cars I've seen at the dealers within my driving range (24) and that there are 209 dealers in Australia, I'd be surprised if even 200 cars have been sold, unless southern states (nearer the corporate head office) got better supplies of cars - many of our local dealers are still waiting for their first Gen 4 Prius. Petrol (and diesel) is cheap, let's buy a BIG TRUCK or SUV. They'll all be in a shock when Petrol goes up again - which could be in a real hurry depending on world politics. Either the people who have seen my car are "polite", or it isn't as polarising a look as I expected. I've been dreaming up a name - and I had a few good suggestions (I think she's going to be called Samantha, but it's not quite definite). One not so helpful suggestion was "Starship Enterprise", and she went on to say "if she was silver, you could call her R2D2 - but how about R2D3 seeing she's white?".
i do think they went straight japanese with all the toyota designs though. i bet there were a lot more positive comments over there when it was first shown.
I got the name "Batman's car" and "Goldrake" (the Italian name I suppose of the linked anime). Today I got a "I like it" from a colleague. Overall I only got a really openly in my face bad comment about its looks from 2 friends of mine - one drives a spanky new Golf and the other an Skoda Octavia sedan (read VW) and are both Germans - I was not surprised - and I made a bad comment about their cars too (I really don't like the Golf and I don't like VW in general - bad quality and expensive to buy and maintain). Straight Japanese designs - it was just about time they expressed themselves (instead of being conservative politically correct boring) and put some punch in their designs. I like it exactly because it is weirdly different (and it is not just a fashion statement, it has the numbers and substance to support it). This is also why I like the French cars, they have weird but interesting and different designs. Most other cars are boring and look all the same. (one exception recently is Mercedes, I like their new bold design - they moved finally away from the boring "luxury" - whatever that was...).
Be warned! My 6" plastic Werner Herzog figurine would fly off my BMW's dash whenever I hit a bump. I think the glue wouldn't stick because of the ArmorAll.
