Toyota has a hit with the new Prius in Japan. The company expects to have more than 40,000 pre-orders before it goes on sale in middle of next month.
Currently, Toyota has already accepted orders for more than 20,000 of the 2010 Prius and feels that they will double that number within the next month or so.
The numbers may be optimistic, but they would put Toyota well ahead of its main competitor the Honda Insight. Honda sold 18,000 Insights in its first month of production. But Toyota predicts that they will sell twice that.
In what was only a price war, has no become a war of words and a war of one better. Toyota aims to sell 400,000 Prius in 2010, a significantly higher number than they have ever sold in the past.
However, we can't count Honda out as the sales of their new Insight are about 3.6 times higher than Honda expected.
Where as Honda appears modest with their numbers and predictions, Toyota seems optimistic and possibly even arrogant in their assumptions.
Source: Automotive News
