I'm wondering if Toyota is going to increase the Prius production to assist with demand.... I have heard something about the camry production in its place?

 

That may be true but my understanding is that the 07 Hybrid Camary will be built here (Alabama?). All Prii are built in 2 cities in Japan and shipped out. A 3rd factory was just opened in China for Chinese only Prii in January I believe. Any corrections welcomed.

 

The factory in China should take a bit of the burden off the Japanese facilities if they are currently selling to China.

 

First rule of mass production: makes as many of the widgets you can make so you can sell as many as the market will bear and earn a lot of money.

Better rule of mass production: make as many widgets as you can while still retaining quality and customer satisfaction. Sell those quality items to the public and if they want more than you can produce create more production capacity to meet the demand without loosing quality. Sound familiar?

Prius production is really high right now. Not as high as Camry, but if they were somehow able to get their battery production and planetary transmission manufacturing up to the line speeds of assembly, well, they would end up flooding the market with Prii. Camry people are not Prius people, and most of the time, vise versa (there is no way I would be caught dead in a Camry). Camry people are looking for good A to B transportation. Most of them want nothing to do with making a statement with their cars. Prius owners are making a statement, not all of them are making the same statement, but it is a statement nontheless.