SeeCalifornia.com

Nearly two years ago I wrote about a friend who got a Prius and observed (after ditching her SUV) that driving a small car made other drivers mad. Two years have passed and she’s gotten rid of the little hybrid car. Why? Lots of annoying  things, but mostly its lack of power and size during distance travel. Bigger cars have a tendency to be annoyed by the squeaky “toy” that Toyota built, she says. “They were constantly driving around me to show their size and power.”

Things are changing now that high gas prices are definitely not going away.  Toyota  Prius hybrid has passed Honda Civic to become the best-selling vehicle line in California, fueled by high gas prices.  60,688 Prius cars were purchased in California 2012–a whopping 78% more than the year before! Californians buy more than 10% of cars in the U.S., and their trendsetting ways may be a sign of things to come for other states. Toyota said the Prius line may one day surpass Camry, the best-selling U.S. car for the past 11 years. There’s no sign Toyota will be bringing jobs to the U.S., however, as Japan has kept pace with demand on this little winner.