It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that with the current state of the economy, businesses the world over – including the auto industry – would plummet in ways never before seen in history. If there are any cars that are actually in demand these days, then they’re the few fortunate ones because the rest of their brethren have been sitting idly in showrooms.

One of the said cars that’s actually in-demand, so much so that it’s even got its own wait list, is the 2010 Toyota Prius. Despite having already beefed up its personnel in its production plants in Japan, the demand for the Prius has forced Toyota to open their plants 24 hours a day with the added benefit of overtime pay for its employees just to meet its soaring demand. Can you imagine that at this time? Neither could we.

Continued after the jump.

Continued

But that’s the situation Toyota is facing, and were pretty sure that while they’ve been working extra hard to make as many cars as possible, they’re not the least bit complaining about their good fortune. The demand has even reached a level where Toyota has reached out to bring in workers from other countries just so they can meet the demand for the hybrid car.

Auto sales are down – that's not exactly a surprise to anyone anymore. But Toyota has revived a little something from last summer called a wait list – for people who are interested in buying a new 2010 Prius. According to a story in The New York Times, Toyota is running its Prius production plants in Japan 24 hours a day and offering overtime to Likewise, Panasonic EV Energy, the Prius' battery supplier, is facing a similar quandary to make as many battery packs to put on the Prius.

While we think that Toyota’s dilemma is something that they’d gladly take over the prospect of having their cars accumulating cobwebs in showrooms, the ironic thing is, despite the Prius’ sky-rocketing demand, Toyota is still forecasting a down year for the company.

That’s what happens when times are unstable. Nothing seems to make sense and as a company that’s losing a boatload of money by the day, you’ll take any form of good news anyway you can get it, even at the risk of wearing yourselves out too thin.