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(Source:  Wall Street Journal, Green Car Congress & Tree Hugger)

Image Courtesy: Green Car Congress - Prius sales in Japan by month since January 2007. Data: JADA.

Last month (May 2009), the Toyota Prius was the top selling model in the world’s second-largest economy; the rival Honda Insight hybrid came in third, according to new car sales rankings—excluding minicars with displacements of less than 660 cc—released by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association (JADA).   

In April Honda was quite happy to report that its new Insight hybrid was both the best selling car in Japan for that month (outselling the Toyota Prius) and the first hybrid car to have that honor with 10,481 units. (Earlier post.) In May, the Insight dropped to third place with 8,183 units, behind the Prius and the Honda Fit, with 8,859 units.Toyota’s May performance was all the more surprising, since the third-generation Prius didn’t go on sale until May 18.  

The Prius posted 10,915 units in May, in Japan more than twice the 5,079 units sold in May 2008 and compared to 1,952 units in April 2009, according to the JADA data. (In the US, Toyota reported 10,091 units of the Prius sold in May.)

There are several possible explanations—beyond the fact that both Toyota and Honda have cut prices to make hybrids a little less niche and a little more mass market. First, generous government incentives: Japan’s stimulus package included a range of tax breaks for buyers of hybrid (and electric) vehicles which can knock thousands of dollars off the price tag. Japan has tougher mileage standards—but that affects what kind of cars manufacturers turn out, not what kind of cars consumers flock to. One huge difference is the price of gasoline—which automatically makes the hybrids more attractive, especially in a recession. Japan, like many European countries, slaps a hefty national tax on gas. Right now, Japanese pump prices work out to $4.61 a gallon. That compares to a U.S. national average of about $2.50 a gallon.

Over 1.8 Million new and used cars

(Source: Time & Green Car Congress)

Orders in Japan for Toyota’s new Prius hybrid have topped a booming 110,000, a major dealership chain said Saturday, in what is turning out to be a rare bright spot in the gloomy auto market.

The overall Japanese auto market has been languishing for years, with vehicle sales falling to their lowest level in more than three decades last year. Demand has worsened since the U.S. financial crisis sent this nation into a recession.  According to Green Car Congress, the Nikkei estimates that Japan passenger car production in fiscal 2009 will likely decrease to 1979 levels, mostly due to a plunge in exports. The projection, which was compiled based on automakers’ data and interviews with company officials, calls for the eight Japanese passenger car firms to assemble 8.21 million vehicles in the year ending in March 2010, 14% fewer than last year and the second consecutive annual decline, following a 15% fall in fiscal 2008.

REPORT: GAZ confirms interest in Opel…GM is said to prefer a single bidder, in the guise of Fiat, while Germany was recently said to prefer Magna’s proposal because of promises to keep production in Germany. If, however, GAZ’s real desire is to increase its Russian production abilities, if it were to take a larger stake in Opel than Magna, there will undoubtedly be conflicts to reso…

…According to GM‘s Britta Gross, future versions of the Chevy Volt are expected to have this capability.There are a few possibilities presented by Gross that GM could use to allow the Volt to communicate with utility companies, including its own OnStar technology and, in the future, embedded chips using the Zigbee protocol that could wirelessly c…

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Transportation Headlines for Monday May 11, 2009…GM Stick to Fuel-Cell Plans as Obama Guts Hydrogen FundsBloombergImagine If People Really Drove the Speed LimitLA StreetsBlogI still believe in public transportationOC MetblogsPort proposed expansion expected to draw a crowd to the Long Beach councilPress TelegramSan Jose and LA Use Technology to Ease Downtown Parking CongestionPublic CEOSan Mar..

Experts call GM bankruptcy ‘almost inevitable’ [w/POLL]…GM, Earnings/FinancialsTo stave off bankruptcy, General Motors must rework its union contracts, drastically cut its capacity, workforce and dealer networks – and convince creditors to take 10 cents on the dollar on $27 billion in unsecured debt. In two months. That’s a herculean task for any company, much less for a monolith the size of The Gene…

Review: 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 goes to Hell and back…just as GM reached the pinnacle of high performance cars, the world economy imploded. The global financial bubble got pierced from multiple sides and sales of cars at every price and performance level vaporized. Fortunately for us, GM is still hanging in there and Chevrolet let us have a few days of quality time with a ZR1 while the opportunity …

GM: Mascoma ethanol process works as promised in laboratory testing…GM: Mascoma ethanol process works as promised in laboratory testing originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Mon, 11 May 2009 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

2010 Opel Astra Gets “Full Lutz” Skirt-Lift [Spy Photos]…on the GM‘s Delta II architecture, the same as the Chevy Volt. But don’t expect the Astra to come as a plug-in or standard hybrid, at least, not at first. Do expect to see a new 1.4-liter, turbocharged gasoline/petrol engine with various power outputs. Opel will likely be reserving its 2.0-liter engine for an OPC version (or the Astra VRX for Va…

Latest findings says cars more affordable now than they have been since study began in 1979…GMWhile tanking auto sales are bad for automakers, the customers buying cars and trucks are paying less for them than any time in the past 30 years. Comerica Bank’s Auto Affordability Index shows that a vehicle with a $26,000 MSRP takes the average family 21.5 weeks of median income to buy. That’s 1.3 weeks less than in December of 2008, as ince…

 Rumormill: Suzuki to join Marchionne’s Fiat/Chrysler/Opel super-group…forces with Chrysler, Opel, Saab and General Motors Latin America, the Italian auto group is expanding its home base to the United States, Germany, Sweden and South America. So what’s it missing? Japan. The latest rumors out of Automotive News Europe could go a long way towards addressing that omission, as the trade organ is reporting that Fiat …

Fiat’s partnership with Chrysler could bring the Ford Ka to America…partnership with Chrysler could actually allow Ford to bring its small and super efficient Ka city car to the U.S. market. How so?The latest version of Ford’s diminutive Ka shares its basic underpinnings with the Fiat 500, which is one of the first small cars Fiat hopes to sell in the United States through Chrysler‘s under-utilized dealer networ…

Driving the Dodge Circuit, now with video…works for Chrysler‘s ENVI and was project lead on the Dodge Circuit EV, talk about the car. The bumpy roads weren’t quite long and straight enough for our liking, but at least we got to learn a little bit more about Chrysler‘s EV strategy and why the automaker thinks it’s ENVI battery strategy is better than Tesla’s. Having driven both the Circu…

LOOK: The Motorless City…or Chrysler’s; they move instead on Schwinns, BMX’s, and behind some of the 600 horses that pull the town’s quaint Victorian carriages. It’s a place that looks, in some respects, frozen in time. But…

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2011 Chrysler 300C Reveals Previously Unseen Clay Rump [Spy Photos]…Chrysler‘s Viability Plan earlier this year revealed the design direction for the 2011 Chrysler 300C. Now, thanks to Chrysler PR, we’ve got a partial view of the new Detroit gangsta-mobile’s rump. Also depicted is a quarter scale clay model just above the head oChrysler‘s Senior VP of Design Ralph Gilles. Seeing as it’s in quarter scale, it doe…

Dodge Pulls Plug On Circuit EV Electric Sports Car? [Over The Back Fence]…month after Chrysler ran a full page ad in our national newspapers and also finalizing a deal with A123 Systems to supply the battery packs, a heavy-handed rumor is coming down the stream that the whole project might be dead in the water causing at least one question to be raised: Was the Dodge Circuit EV ever intended for production or was it j…

Cummins not ready to give up on light duty diesel regardless of Chrysler‘s fate…standing was Chrysler, and even that company pushed back its new Cummins-developed light duty diesel until at least 2011. Mike Levine from PickupTrucks.com spoke with Mark Land, director of public relations at Cummins, about the new light-duty diesel engine. Apparently, the diesel engine maker is very confident that its new engine will get adopt…

Chrysler’s sorry state revealed Bankruptcy court filings reveal the complications the auto business – and just how much trouble Chrysler is in.

GM, Chrysler Polish Dealer Cut List Thousands of GM and Chrysler dealerships could learn their fate within the next few days as auto makers choose which they will cut.

Chrysler Hedges on Dealer Cuts Chrysler has “no active plan” to drop any of its dealers in the U.S., although it is working on “contingencies” to do so as part of its restructuring in bankruptcy court, Vice Chairman Jim Press said.

Nascar Feels Chrysler’s Pain The fall of Chrysler is just the latest setback for Nascar, a once red-hot sports phenomenon.

White House Sees U.S. Holding GM Stake for At Least 2 Years The Obama administration is planning for the U.S. government to hold an ownership stake in a revamped General Motors for “at least two years,” a person briefed by the administration on its plans said Friday.

 Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says GM in ‘good hands’ – The Detroit News…LaHood says GM in ‘good hands’The Detroit News, MIWashington — US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Friday endorsed General Motors Corp.’s new CEO as the right man to lead the Detroit automaker, saying, “GM is in very good hands.” Fritz Henderson took over as CEO on March 30 after the Obama …California in running for h…

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Toyota hammered with $7.7B loss in Q1 …than even GM‘s just-reported loss of $6 billion. Toyota now expects to lose $5.5 billion for the year ending March 2010, surpassing the $4.4 billion it lost in the just-concluded year.The reasons for Toyota’s reversal of fortune is well documented. Global sales were down 21.9% last year, with the most stark losses occurring in the U.S. and Europ…

Song remains the same: GM loses billions, Volt still on track…res gallery GM‘s announced yesterday that it lost $6 billion in the first quarter of 2009. That’s par for the course for the General these days. What’s also pretty standard was the immediate confirmation that work on the Chevy Volt is going A-OK and that, as GM‘s product development chief Tom Stephens said, “At this point in time, I know of no r…

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GM and U of M create new institute for research …GMGeneral Motors and the University of Michigan have been working together on vehicle technology for 50 years, and a new institute will take the long-standing relationship to the next level. GM researchers will work with U of M faculty and students to develop new battery, engine, manufacturing, and smart materials technology to expedite the adva…

Sandia Successfully Completes Hydrogen Storage System for GM…designed for GM. To the right is the “SmartBed,” featuring a thermal management system with individual control of four identical modules, each of which is a shell and tube heat exchanger. The sodium alanate material used to store the hydrogen resides within the tubes. (Photo by Randy Wong) Click to enlarge.Researchers at Sandia National Laborato…

Nissan skipping SEMA this year, Mazda limiting presence Filed under: Aftermarket, SEMA, Tuners, Mazda, Nissan, Holden Troy Lee Designs Mazda6 from SEMA 2008 – Click above for a high-res image gallery Participation at last year’s SEMA show was notable for its absences, with the event’s organizers struggling at the last minute to fill vacated floor space with companies that would have normally been shunne…

Booo! GM also canceling Cobalt SS Sedan for 2010 …GM also canceling Cobalt SS Sedan for 2010

G.M. Suffers Big Loss. Is Bankruptcy Next?General Motors could be one step closer to bankruptcy, after posting a $6 billion loss for the first quarter. The Obama administration’s auto task force has given G.M. until June 1 to come up with a plan to prove its viability. After reporting a 40 percent loss in worldwide sales, G.M. doesn’t seem likely to do […]

Save the Cheerleader? GM creates Hero Edition Corvette ZR1 to benefit Kids Wish Network…GM‘s team of Corvette designers and engineers equipped this particular ‘Vette with a bespoke graphics package with red accents in lieu of the normal blue. Other special bits include “additional carbon fiber components,” though we’re left wondering what those composite pieces may be.You can’t actually go to your nearest Chevy dealership and order…

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Rendered Speculation: Alfa Romeo Milano, the next 147…the next Chrysler Sebring. The versatile building block will offer various lengths and widths in FWD and 4-wheel-drive versions, and propulsion will be courtesy of MultiAir engines. Unveiling of the 5-door hatchback is expected at either Frankfurt later this year, or Geneva in 2010.[Source: Car]Rendered Speculation: Alfa Romeo Milano, the next 1…

Chrysler reveals more facets of “We Build” campaign…Chrysler, LLC. Click above to watch all five commercials after the jump Chrysler sales have been abysmal throughout 2009, and with the uncertainty of bankruptcy, the short-term sales outlook is decidedly bad. To get the word out to its customers that the Pentastar is alive and well (except for its idled plants), Chrysler is launching a new campa…

Classic Ad: Chrysler’s Promise of a Small Car…Chrysler‘s former chairman, Lee A. Iacocca, makes some lofty promises in this 1984 commercial, including the introduction of a small car. Will we hear the same from Fiat’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne?

Greenlings: Can we build a better battery with lithium?…Chrysler ENVI battery packsGallery: Tesla smart mule and batteryContinue reading Greenlings: Can we build a better battery with lithium?Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Etc., EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, GreenlingsGreenlings: Can we build a better battery with lithium? originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 07 May 2009 19:52:00 EST. Please see …

Nissan skipping SEMA this year, Mazda limiting presence…out on Chrysler, and Honda is currently evaluating their presence, although it may be reduced compared to previous years. No matter what automakers pull-out of this year’s show, expect less products on tables, fewer vendors on the floor and even fewer attendees as the aftermarket continues to struggle to keep its head above water.Gallery: SEMA 2…

Misery loves company: Throwing our wig into the ring at Reno-Fernley LeMons…onto any Chrysler product “competing” in Reno to honor the automaker’s latest union.Registration ended on March 14, so those of you who missed the deadline narrowly avoiding our cold steel scythe of justice. But if you want to come out and enjoy the madness, spectator tickets are available for either a single day or the entire wretched weekend. …

The 2011 Jeep Phoenix… why not?…gallery With Chrysler‘s proposed alliance with Fiat all but a done deal, people have begun turning their attention towards the Italian automaker’s vehicle line up and creating a wish list of which ones they’d like to see for sale over here in the U.S. Thing is, those people should keep in mind that any Fiat making the long trek overseas may not …

Chrysler Plan’s Foes Step BackA group of Chrysler lenders who opposed the government’s restructuring plan for the auto maker is disbanding after two of its five members backed out.