What's the deal with Prius incentives?

Prius is now mainstream

This morning CNBC's Phil Lebeau interviewed Jim Press, head of Toyota's North American division, about plans to build a new plant in Mississippi. During the course of that conversation, Lebeau also questioned Press about the reasons Toyota started offering incentives on the Toyota Prius hybrid. Essentially, Mr. Lebeau wondered, did Prius incentives demonstrate that hybrids were becoming a harder sell.

Mr. Press exclaimed that was not the case. Now that production was pushed to 150,000 Prius hybrid vehicles, the Prius was now a mainstream vehicle. As a result, the Prius became eligible to receive the same kinds of sale incentives as other conventional vehicles. Also, many of the extra fees that were attributed to limited supplies were also being removed, resulting in cheaper Prius vehicles.