MINNEAPOLIS - Marc Miller bought a Honda Accord a year ago, but with his 50-mile round-trip commute and ever-rising gas prices, even his Accord's 26-miles-per-gallon average hasn't been cutting it.

So a few weeks ago, he started thinking about buying a hybrid. His employer, Tile X Design, offers incentives to workers who buy one - $3,600 toward the price of the vehicle - and with gas nearing $4 a gallon, the time seemed right.

Until he started calling dealers. Nissan doesn't sell its Altima hybrid in the Midwest, and Honda dealers report low supply. Even Toyota, the hybrid king with its Prius and Camry models, has few on lots. Part of that is by design. A Toyota spokeswoman said Prius sales are down 2 percent in its Midwest region that includes Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago, because of lack of availability. But that comes as Prius production has increased over last year and sales are up nearly 23 percent nationwide during the first four months of the year.

"We just didn't have enough vehicles to provide to the consumers," said Mona Richard, adding that Prius production is at capacity.

Particularly not to Midwestern consumers.

Sales of hybrid vehicles in the Midwest region have always lagged significantly behind the national average, according to data from J.D. Power and Associates' Power Information Network. In March and April, hybrids accounted for 3.6 percent of all vehicles sold nationwide. In the Midwest they comprised just 2.5 percent of sales.

Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis for J.D. Power, said most auto manufacturers allocate vehicles based on historical sales data.

The allocation system is "sort of a Catch-22," he said. "The more you sell the more you get, but you can't sell more until you get them."

Libby also said despite the recent surge in interest, shifting production to accommodate that would take longer than with a nonhybrid because of the technology. And that technology, which typically adds thousands of dollars to a hybrid's cost, won't get any cheaper until they're mass-produced.

"It's a nonsensical decision for the consumer," Libby said. "So the consumer's not going to buy them in high quantities, but the price can't come down until they make them in the high quantities."

"I think there will be shortages (of hybrids) for the foreseeable future," he said.

Barbara Jerich, president and chief of staff for the Denny Hecker Automotive Group, said she wasn't surprised to see the increased demand for the Prius and Camry Hybrid.

"The wait has gotten longer in the last six months," she said of hybrids. "We're seeing a very marked movement away from trucks and SUVs."

Chuck Schifsky, spokesman for American Honda, said gas prices are a universal issue for Americans, as opposed to things like home heating costs that tend to mostly affect people in Northern states.

"No one is immune to the gas prices," he said. "The interest is equal across the board."

The Honda Civic Hybrid, which accounts for about 11 percent of all Honda Civic sales this year, has also seen an increase in demand in recent months.

Minnesota and Wisconsin have "traditionally been pretty good for Civic hybrids," Schifsky said, which may account for their extremely limited availability in the Twin Cities. Other areas are able to keep "a handful of days' supply" of the hybrids in stock, he said.

Jessica Caldwell, manager of pricing and industry analysis for Edmunds.com, said the recent storm for hybrid vehicles isn't unique to the Midwest. Nor is it just hybrids that are popular.

Other small, fuel-efficient cars, such as the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit, have been in high demand through the spring as well, doubling or tripling their usual sales rates, she said.

Of the typically strong summer months for car sales, Caldwell added, "I think it's definitely going to be an intense summer to get a car, and a fuel-efficient car."

For Miller, even finding cars to test drive proved to be difficult. He said he called about a dozen Saturn, Toyota and Honda dealers before lining up test-drives. Even when he did find a Toyota Camry Hybrid to try, the dealership called him the night before his appointment to tell him they had sold the vehicle.

"What they're telling me is within the last four weeks, they may have had some on the lot, until the price of gas started spiking," said Miller, who commutes about 30 miles each way between the Twin Cities suburbs of Eagan and Plymouth. "They went from having a few on the lot to having nothing."

Once he finally got in to some to drive, the Prius "blew me away," he said. The wait time though: three to six months, depending on options.

Ultimately he probably would have settled on the Honda Civic - "I'm partial to Hondas," he said. But this year it's not meant to be.

"At this point, the big boss - my wife - says 'no,'" he said. Maybe the couple will revisit the purchase in a year. Her resistance might change, he said, "when gas hits $5 or $6 a gallon."