Prius popularity not important: Toyota

Toyota has launched its fourth-generation Prius in Australia, but won't say if it expects its latest hybrid icon to be more popular than the outgoing model, sales of which declined to just 459 last year.

Now 18 years old, the Prius nameplate has found more than 3.6 million homes globally since 1997, but less than 20,000 in Australia.

"Prius is an extremely important vehicle for Toyota, not just in terms of sales," said Toyota Australia executive director of sales and marketing Tony Cramb today.

"Over the past 20 years we've sold about 1000 [Prius vehicles a year], but sales volume for this particular vehicle is not what it's about – it's about making a statement.

"This is about introducing technology to the market, not being market leader. Prius remains our hybrid technology leader."

Cramb said that despite common perceptions, very few Prius vehicles sold to taxi companies in Australia, although taxi fleet business remains important to Toyota.

"The taxi market is really very important to us because it exposes people to our cars," he said. "It also gives us lot of learning from the high mileages they do.

"We frankly don't set out to chase the taxi market, but there's certainly a benefit to us to get customers exposed to the vehicle and to gauge sustainability over many, many kilometres.

"The taxi market is only about 3000 [cars a year], so out of 1.1 million that's not a big market."

Cramb said 65 per cent of all Prius models sold in Australia went to private buyers and he expects that figure to remain unchanged with the new model.