Toyota Motor Corp will send 75,000 of its popular hybrid small sedan Prius to U.S. dealerships by the end of the year, the company said on Wednesday.
This is a jump, the company said, from previously announced expected delivery levels, which were hampered by the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami. All Prius sold in the United States are imported from Japan.
The disruption of Prius deliveries to the U.S. market occurred just as consumer interest in fuel-efficient vehicles got a boost from gasoline prices near $4 per gallon.
Prius is rated at 51 miles per gallon in city driving and 48 mpg on the highway.
The second-half 2011 Prius delivery figures are slightly above those of 2010, Toyota said.
The Prius, introduced in Japan in 1997, went on sale in the United States in 2000 and has sold more than 1 million units, or about half of the global total. U.S. sales last year totaled almost 141,000, slightly up from 2009, and are up 13 percent so far this year.
More than half of the gasoline-electric hybrids on U.S. roads are Prius, Toyota said earlier this week.
The Prius was the first Toyota model to resume production after the earthquake. Toyota said that normal production levels of all of its vehicles is expected to resume after July.
