GREEN LIVIN DETROIT - The surge in popularity for it's hybrids have left Toyota Motor Corp facing an unusual problem. A shortage of their popular models like the Prius hybrid.
The limited inventory of small cars has really hurt Toyota, which reported a 11.5 percent drop in US sales in June.
In contrast, Japanese rival Honda Motor Co reported a 13.8 percent sales rise on record demand for its Fit subcompact car and Civic sedan.
Toyota executives said a dwindling inventory of vehicles, such as the Prius, Yaris and Corolla, forced the automaker to try and keep up with demand , while US auto sales dropped almost 9 percent.
Sales of Toyota's Prius, the top-selling hybrid in the US market, fell 26 percent as dealers ran short of inventory and customers faced a six-month waiting list.
"It is very doubtful that there is going to be able to satisfy the Prius demand and that is very unfortunate," said Jim Lentz, Toyota's head of North American sales.
Toyota had a one-day supply of the Prius hybrid and a 2-1/2 day supply of its hybrid Camry sedan at the end of June.
Toyota cars also ran low in June. Dealer supply of Corolla sedans was down to a 15-day supply, while Yaris had a 7-day supply at the end of June, the automaker said. Toyota expects inventories of Yaris and Corolla to increase in August and was working on its hybrid battery manufacturing plant in Japan.
The current Prius uses nickel-metal hydride batteries made by Panasonic EV and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd.
Toyota, which put the first hybrid car on the road in 1997, goal is reaching global annual sales of 1 million hybrid vehicles by 2010, more than double last year's sales.
Toyota's Lentz said the production constraint made it hard to forecast the market for the hybrid model in the US, the Japanese automaker's largest market.
"We don't know what the top end on Prius is," Lentz said.
In the US market the 3 major Japanese automakers were mixed in June with Nissan Motor Co posting a 7.5 percent decline.
Honda skirted the downtrend in overall US light car sales, outselling Chrysler LLC for the 2nd month in June and ranked 3rd in the US market.
The 3 major Japanese automakers increased their share of the US market to 1.8 over a year ago.
The market share of the 3 Detroit automakers General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler -- fell to 45.8 percent in June from 50.2 percent a year earlier
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