The amount of Prii in Los Angeles.

Orange County is an entity unto itself. So unlike San Diego to the south and LA to the north. "Behind the Orange Curtain" we used to say.

 

Orange County, CA has tons of Prii, drive the 405 during rush hour! See Prii, Leaf, and Volt's, all over OC. They are the new cars of the young and wealthy.

 

Watch for my silver C 4 (with British Columbia plates) in Vegas in 1 week on its 3800 mile tour of the western USA.

 

Hmmm... saw an unfamiliar silver C on Rainbow over the weekend, but that sounds too soon to have been you, Vernon.

 

Not yet. We leave Vernon shortly. We will be roaming Vegas streets and highways for a few days next week, then we are off to Palm Springs.

 

My wife and I are around Irvine in OC/CA, and have been scoping for a car for a few months now. The C is one of the final 3 contenders. One of our decision factors is how popular the car is - if there aren't many out there we wonder what's wrong with it.
Since looking at Prius we've been playing a game where every time we see one we call out "Prius!" and take notes on whether it's a 2, 3, or 4, etc. OK, that got old fast because the non-C's are Everywhere in packs and hoards. But (to the point here) in all this time we've seen One, count um, "1" C on the road. And remember, we're actively looking for them. I gotta say, we kinda like the vehicle compared to its heftier siblings, but there just aren't enough of them to make us feel comfortable with the purchase.

That's my story and I'll stick to it. Just passing on the observation.

 

I have a C and see plenty of them all around the OC. In 2012 they were selling as soon as they arrived on the truck. In Japan its the number one selling car. You may not be seeing them because they don't really stand out as they are small on the outside. They have been rated one of the most reliable new cars today. I see tons of Mercedes every day, but they are far from perfect. I know, I own one. Popularity has nothing to do with the quality of a vehicle.

 

I saw an article a few days ago that ranked the Prius c as overall most reliable car last year. Number 2 was Prius hatchback!

SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 ? 2

 

The Prius has been around for over 10 years... so obviously you are going to see more of them than a car that has been on the road for 2 years.

 

Here's some recent sales statistics:

"July was a great month for the Toyota Prius lineup. Toyota Motor Sales, USA sold 23,294 Prius units in July 2013 versus 16,643 in July 2012 – a nearly 40-percent increase. In July 2013, the standard Prius Liftback sedan sold 15,252 units, the larger Prius V sold 3,428, the smaller Prius C sold 3,797 and the Prius Plug-in Hybrid moved 817 units."

 

So averaging 3500 per month that would put these babies at ~84,000 C's on the road in the US.

 

And according to Wikipedia there were a million Prii sold in the USA as of April 2011, all of which would thus be liftbacks. At the sales rate above, that would put the number around 1,200,000 by now, so the number of Prius c's is less than ten percent of the total.

 

I know it wasn't you, but I saw a duplicate of my car - except with California plates, driving down Rainbow today.

 

I'm an LA native who has been living in NY for almost a quarter century now. Just got back from a visit to SoCal where I was floored by the Prius density out there compared to "Back East" (with the exception of all the Prius taxis at JFK). To be honest I would probably not have noticed the Prii at all if I hadn't just become a new owner - er, lessee - of one myself.

 

Once a Prius owner always a Prius owner. I know someone who had a Prius and then after several years traded it in on a Honda CRV. They can't wait to go back to a Prius!