Toyota Motor Corporation has triumphantly announced today that global sales of the Prius, “first great hybrid car”, has reached one million units.

The precise figures, calculated at the end of the first quarter 2008, passes 1,028,000 cars sold in 40 countries with a significant share going to Japan and the United States. Toyota calculates that the Prius sold have contributed to cuts in total CO2 emissions that amount to 4.5 million tonnes compared to what would have occurred with petrol cars of the same class.

The first Prius series was launched in Japan in 1997 and then in 2000 in the US and Europe. The current model comes from 2003, and since 2005 has also been produced in China, in the Changchun plant. In the course of the next year, Toyota expects to introduce the Prius also to South Korea as part of a global market expansion in hybrids, of which the company intends to sell one million a year as of the next decade.

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