Toyota, Sales | featured news

March is turning out to be the best month for auto sales in at least six years. Major automakers including Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, General Motors and Nissan all reported increases, with some reporting their best monthly totals since the start of the Great Recession in December of 2007.

A high-ranking Toyota executive says the auto company's North American sales spiked around 50 percent the first eight days of March as incentives helped lure customers.

Sales under the U.S. government's "cash for clunkers" auto incentive topped 180,000 with Toyota Motor Corp overtaking Ford Motor Co with the top-selling vehicle, officials said on Wednesday.

Toyota Motor Corp. got 180,000 orders for the new Prius hybrid in Japan in just a month, far surpassing its target of 10,000 vehicles in monthly sales, the automaker said Friday.

The third-generation Prius, which rolled out a month ago, has been a big hit here, partly because of tax-breaks and other new government incentives that are meant to perk growth during the nation's downturn.