With the presentation of the Prius V minivan last year, Toyota effectively gave birth to a new sub-brand of models borrowing the name of its first hybrid vehicle.
The move has proved to be successful with Toyota revealing that it sold 8,399 units of the Prius V from the last week of October (that’s when it arrived in dealerships across the States) through the end of December 2011, according to Carly Schaffner, a spokesperson for the automaker.
Toyota says that it plans to deliver more than 220,000 vehicles bearing the Prius nameplate this year in the United States alone, which represents a 60 percent increase over 2011, according to a report from Bloomberg News.
Along with the original Prius liftback and the Prius V minivan, Toyota will launch the Prius C subcompact hatchback that we saw in Detroit this month and which arrives in March with a starting price of under US$19,000, plus a plug-in hybrid version of the Prius liftback priced at $32,760 that offers an extended electric-only driving range of up to 15 miles.
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