Slithr

Trucking is experiencing a boom right now, so that's one reason diesel is expensive. It's that crappy supply and demand thing again.

Palmateer

Toyota would step up production of Prius cars, except that the batteries are in limited supply.

rai

I see the limited supply, but don't you think they could make more batteries. If Toyota said they'd buy 2x or 3x as many, don't you think the battery company would find a way to meet the demand?

Also I was reading in Europe and Japan they have a feature on the Prius that will allow it to run in electric only mode that may never use the gas motor for propulsion only to charge the battery. It's only good for 32mph top speed and kind of slow, but it gets even better mileage. I wonder why thats not offered on the US Prius. I mean if it's just a push button it sound like it's not hard to make happen.

And in Europe you can get all kinds of cars even S-class MBs and minivans and such that can get in the mid-30s. Of course they're slow, but with the way most people drive around here they're driving like pokes anyway so they're not actually using most of a cars potential performance.

goldskiguy

Just last week Toyota bought a controlling interest in the company that makes thier batteries, so we should see an increase in the supply of batteries. I am sure one of the first things Toyota will so is make the mfg. process better.