The Carpocalypse has forced Toyota to finally offer incentives on the Prius. Now's the time to buy one on the cheap to sell back to liberal elite coastal-dwellers at a profit when gas prices rise.
Right now is the perfect moment for a buy-and-flip on a Prius, or really any hybrid, for when gas prices rise. For starters, for the first time ever, the Prius is getting a dealer incentive — up to $1000 off in dealer cash depending on where you're buying. Second, if you spend some time doing an inventory search at Toyota dealer web sites, you may be able to find a dealer with an over-supply on the lot and haggle your way into a lower offering price given the 2010 Toyota Prius is on its way to dealers in a few months.
While it's possible to just keep the car and drive it around as a form of transportation, you could just park it for a year and wait for the economy to improve, gas prices to go up, the Prius inventory to drop and then offload your "barely-driven" new Prius to some poor sap who promises his wife a Prius for Christmas and gets the Tickle-Me-Elmo fever when dealerships are sold out.
But it's not just new Prii, in general, with prices are low, there's a downward pressure on used hybrid prices as well. Given the generally high resale price on used Prii, why not take advantage of Toyota's new certified used hybrid program and buy a used one for flipping later?
Whether you go new or used, look at this as an investment using that cardinal rule of buying low and selling high.