According to reports coming out of Japan, Toyota is expecting 40,000 pre-sale orders for the 2010 Toyota Prius in Japan, due to go on sale there next month.

That’s a big enough number in itself, but consider that Toyota sold 73,100 Prius models in 2008 and it begins to look like Toyota is shooting at the moon.  Not so - the world’s largest carmaker has already received over 20,000 orders.

The third-generation Prius has been beaten to the market by the 2009 Honda Insight, which surpassed domestic Prius sales when it went on sale in Japan in February.

In its first month on the market, 18,000 Honda Insights found homes in Japan, 3.6 times more than the 5,000 units the company had expected.

Priced at 1.89 million yen (AU$26,195), Honda’s 1.3 litre Insight hybrid sells for the same price that Toyota is expected to offer the current model Prius for, while the all-new Prius hybrid, powered by a 1.8 litre engine, will sell in Japan for 2.05 million yen ($AU28,410).

Toyota is expecting 400,000 sales worldwide of the new Prius in 2010.