The Prius Hybrid Has Lost Half Its Buyers This Year

Toyota has sold 16,731 Prius hybrids in the U.S. this year through September, 51.1 percent fewer than a year ago, while the Prius Plug-in Hybrid has barely moved.

The hybrid sold 34,237 over the same nine months of 2025. The plug-in, by contrast, found 12,492 buyers from January through September, down only 0.4 percent from 12,540 a year earlier, so nearly all of the Prius family’s losses this year have come from the regular hybrid. Counting both versions, Prius sales stand at 29,223, a drop of 37.5 percent, and the plug-in now accounts for about 43 percent of every Prius sold, up from about 27 percent at this point last year.

The numbers come from Toyota Motor North America’s third-quarter sales report, released October 1, which breaks the two Prius models out separately in its electrified vehicle table. Toyota’s release doesn’t mention the Prius in its text and gives no reason for the decline.

The slide is a sharp reversal from last year, when the Prius was one of Toyota’s growth stories. According to Toyota’s 2025 year-end sales report, the hybrid’s sales rose 27.9 percent to 40,985 in 2025, and the plug-in climbed 22.3 percent to 15,503, for a combined 56,488 Prius sales, up from 44,711 in 2024. Through nine months of 2026, the hybrid has sold well under half of its 2025 full-year total.

September showed the gap narrowing on the hybrid side, though both versions were still down. The Prius hybrid sold 1,897 units, a 10.1 percent drop from September 2025, while the plug-in fell 25.3 percent to 1,272.

The rest of Toyota’s car lineup is moving in the opposite direction. The Camry is up 11.2 percent to 260,684 sales through September, the Corolla is up 8.4 percent to 195,141, and Toyota division car sales as a whole are up 4.1 percent. Toyota division electrified vehicle sales, which include every hybrid, plug-in and EV the brand sells, are up 16.8 percent to 927,135 for the year, so the Prius is shrinking inside a hybrid business that is still growing quickly.

Model	Jan-Sep 2026	Jan-Sep 2025	Change
Prius (hybrid)	16,731	34,237	-51.1%
Prius Plug-in Hybrid	12,492	12,540	-0.4%
Prius total	29,223	46,777	-37.5%
Camry	260,684	234,426	+11.2%
Corolla	195,141	179,983	+8.4%

The Prius returns for 2027 with few changes. Every version gets standard dual-zone automatic climate control and a new Inked paint color, and prices rise by $205, with the hybrid now starting at $28,755 and the plug-in at $33,980 before a $1,295 destination fee.

The Toyota Report Take

A 51 percent drop is not the kind of dip a minor model-year update fixes, and Toyota hasn’t said what is behind it. What stands out is that the plug-in, which costs more and shares the hybrid’s basic design, has held its ground while the cheaper hybrid has collapsed. That suggests the Prius name and design are not the problem on their own, and it puts the pressure on Toyota to explain why its most famous hybrid is losing buyers at the same time the company is selling more hybrids than ever.