But to save money, he says, most people replace their old car with a used car instead of a truly new one.

Mr. Bragman says when Americans shop for a car, they are most concerned about fuel economy. But that does not necessarily mean they are looking for hybrids, which use gasoline and electric power, like the Toyota Prius.

AARON BRAGMAN: "Really what we're seeing is not so much people specifically looking for hybrid cars. Although fuel economy does remain very important to new buyers, they're realizing that some of the new gasoline cars [are] almost approaching hybrid levels of fuel economy. So you don't even necessarily need to spend the extra money for a hybrid vehicle in order to get really, really decent fuel economy.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Still, Greg Thome at Toyota says the Prius remains one of his company's most popular models.

GREG THOME: "The Prius has done really well. We expect our sales this year to grow incrementally as far as Prius is concerned, because we are growing from one Prius model to a family of four vehicles."

Toyota launched the smaller Prius C this month at the two thousand twelve North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Mr. Thome says the smaller model is an answer to changes in demand after the Great Recession.

GREG THOME: "The recession certainly hit all models. Now we're starting to see a lot of people come back to the market, including for new technology like hybrids and so forth."