It won’t take a genius to figure out that since the price of gas keeps going up, and the Toyota Prius hybrid saves on gas quite notably compared to other cars, then the demand for the Prius should be going up. It’s also completely wrong, even with all the attention and incentives being showered on hybrids these days.

Sales of the Prius actually fell by 24.6% in April. Toyota says that the problem is due to supply being outpaced by demand. If that’s right, though, then there has to be some reason that the supply fell in April by such a large amount. This is where the speculation begins.

It could be that there is excess demand for hybrid parts because Ford and others are seeing their hybrid sales grow. The Honda Fit has hit the market recently, and it’s lower price and bigger size compared to the Prius could be a contributing factor. Or maybe Toyota is scaling down Prius production a bit and redirecting it to Lexus hybrids instead. Whatever the reason is, it’s an interesting an unexpected result. One thing remains certain though, gas prices will never go down.