Over the roar of engines that get as little as four miles per gallon, a woman with a microphone asked a crowd milling inside a Toyota exhibit at a Nascar race here, “Does anybody know how much we spend on imported gas?”
“Too much,” said a man in a T-shirt that read, “She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy.” Not exactly, but not too far off: $800 million a day. Some of the racing fans—in shirts and hats bedecked with the sponsor logos ubiquitous on the Nascar circuit—shook their heads in dismay or swore at the answer
So it goes as Toyota Motor Corp.—maker of the best-selling gas-electric hybrid car, the Prius—campaigns to break out of the blue states and into the red with its green message.
Propelled in part by gasoline prices hovering near $3 a gallon, sales of the Prius have surged 69% this year compared with a year ago. Toyota is on track to surpass its goal of selling 150,000 Priuses this year, about 50,000 more than it has sold in past years. The Prius is beating models like the Ford Fusion sedan in sales and is now Toyota’s fourth best-selling model, after the Camry and Corolla sedans and the Tundra pickup.
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