can anyone tell me why I never see the prius on tv ads?

Why spend the money on advertising a vehicle that sells 100% of the allocation built for the United States without needing to do anything?

There's enough promotion coming from current owners to fill the quota. This also helps to build a group of informed owners. Since they already know another owner, the experience is guaranteed to be a better one.

They also know about my website. A personal endorsement is far more powerful than any television commerical anyway (and a whole lot less expensive for them). Everyone wins, so I'm happy.

By the way...

This is expected to change when the next generation of Prius becomes available. Between whatever improvements are introduced and the already announced significant production volume increase (300,000 hybrid systems (total for several vehicle models) per year beginning in 2005), the expectation of increased promotion is a given.

Chimp Add

I've seen at least two Prius TV commercials, the only one that comes to mind is the family driving in the jungle and the chimps applaud. Catch line is something on the order of "nature approves"...

One more thing, I want to publicly acknowledge the great service from coastaletech.com, I sent them my screen last Tuesday, they sent it back with modifactions and a really cool DVD player. We got it installed last evening, it works perfect. Thanks Dave...

Geno