Automobile industries are now set to retool in an effort to make and market vehicles that reflect new customer demands, just as the United States, a leading automotive giant emerges from one of its worst sales periods on record. According to reports, this strategy is creating jobs in the so-called “green car” industry, but eliminating others.

“People are instead buying cars like the gasoline electric hybrid Toyota Prius,” Toyoto Communications Manager, Greg Thome says in a report it is one of the automaker's most popular models.

“The Prius has done really well.  We expect our sales this year to grow incrementally as far as Prius is concerned, because we are growing from one Prius model to a family of four models,” Thome said.

Toyota debuted the more compact Prius C at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Thome said the Prius C reflects post-recession customer demand for cheaper vehicles that don’t cost as much to fill up.

“The recession certainly hit all models.  Now we’re starting to see a lot of people come back to the market, including for new technology like hybrids and so forth," Thome said.

America’s leading automaker, General Motors widely publicised, electric-powered Chevrolet Volt enters a second year, the company is concentrating more on the green vehicle market.

GM’s director of regulatory affairs, Mary Beth Stanek, said in a report that “shifting the company's focus away from less fuel-efficient trucks and sport utility vehicles is part of GM’s overall strategy.”

“The green aspect has been coming along for some time.  Naturally, we want to make sure we have alternatives to petroleum as well.

“Our business doesn’t want to be dependent on one particular type of energy source.  So it moves us as a company to make sure we have a lot of offerings and that we kind of ride out the instability of petroleum pricing,” Stanek said.

It is said that the demand for compact cars is re-opening shuttered facilities, and bringing jobs back to an industry that shed tens of thousands of workers in the last decade.