Honda announces pricing for their Prius, er, Global Small Hybrid

[MSantos]

Originally Posted by robbyr2

Honda's record with hybrids shows they aren't exactly on top of it, i.e. the Accord...

Yes, the Accord was a blunder. But some of us will not forget the Lexus's hybrids and their similarly mis-guided emphasis on performance either.


Cheers;

MSantos

[jhinton]

Originally Posted by DeadPhish

The basic comparo I do with the hybrids is to eliminate the 'hybrid premium' and then compare the vehicles.

In the case of the Pkg 2 Prius take away ~$3000 and you are left with a $20500 ICE vehicle. In the case of the new Honda Hindsight ( good name ) take away their ~$2000 premium and you're left with a $17000 ICE vehicle.

There's just more vehicle in the Prius vs the Hindsight. That's why I think that when it hits the streets it will appear to be something less than the Prius or the HCH; i.e. being smaller, features or lack thereof, ride quality, performance, etc.

You made my morning. We have no idea what Honda's new hybrid is going to be like besides pricing and some photographs of a camouflaged test vehicle and people are already bench-racing. You may want to wait until Honda at least releases the specs before claiming that the Prius is "just more vehicle" than the Honda. It's a little early to be claiming victory.

[jhinton]

Originally Posted by freshmtt

This question is not really for the new Honda Hybrid in this article, but rather a question since I came back from Hybridfest.

Why did Honda stop producing the Honda Insight?, I had never heard of it before and from what I learned at Hybridfest, this Insight is very cool, and was produced from 2000-2006 only and not widely available. Since this car gets such great MPG why did they stop making it and start all over with the production of another Hybrid so many years later? Granted it is a much smaller car than the Prius, but for many people this car is perfect. I just don't understand what the reasoning was for Honda to stop production of it.

It didn't sell very well, Honda only sold 18,000 Insight's world-wide from 1999 to 2006.
It was expensive to build because it was sold in low volume, built on it's own chassis platform and was made of aluminum.
In 2007 it would have no longer meet emission requirements.
Honda sold every one at a loss.

So instead of redesigning the Insight, Honda chose to focus on the Civic and Accord hybrids.

[MSantos]

Originally Posted by freshmtt

...this Insight is very cool, and was produced from 2000-2006 only and not widely available. Since this car gets such great MPG why did they stop making it and start all over with the production of another Hybrid so many years later?

Yes, it looks that way to many but the Insight was never meant to be produced in very large numbers.
Instead, it filled its primary mission as a "Halo car" quite well for all those 6 years even though it constituted a capital loss for Honda to produce it.

Its too bad the gas prices were so low while the car was in the dealer show-rooms... and I bet many folks were busy buying and driving SUV's while Honda was hashing out the plans for their upcoming new hybrids for the last 5 years.

Cheers;

MSantos

[tbirdhs]

This is great news, and yes Toyota will rise to the occasion. This will put Detriot even farther behind. And the coming diesels are over priced and at $4.75 a gallon!!! sales will be limited to hi mileage hi-way cruisers.

[etyler88]

Motor assist equals no chance for plugin PHEV. If the car gets over 50 mpg then certainly it is a great car but having no EV only range makes it yesterdays news. I can't get excited about it. Honda makes great cars so I am really disappointed that they are not pursuing some EV.

[MJ77]

Originally Posted by etyler88

Motor assist equals no chance for plugin PHEV. If the car gets over 50 mpg then certainly it is a great car but having no EV only range makes it yesterdays news. I can't get excited about it. Honda makes great cars so I am really disappointed that they are not pursuing some EV.

This is a good point. But I think it's clear that Honda's long term strategy is Hydrogen, and they are hoping for advances there. I don't think EV fits into what they are trying to do long term, but it should.

Cars with high MPG - Past
Hybrid's - Now
Plug in Hybrids with pure EV - 1 or 2 years
Hydrogen and 100% EV 5-10 years away

[Derek]

I love both Honda and Toyota cars, preferably Toyota. I think it is great the Prius has yet another hybrid rival and will continue to have more of them as the rest of the Japanese and German companies play catch up.

We could all hope that Toyota would nicely compete against the sub $20K pricing, but we may just be stuck with different packages that have a new pricing structure.

[Ron Dupuy]

They stopped making the Insight because nobody was buying it. Too small to be practical.

[DaveinOlyWA]

the insight was too expensive. for most of the time it was offered, it was the same price as a Pri... much less room, manual tranny, etc... it was a significant step down for transportation at the same price.

plus, Honda never made any attempts to market the car or increase sales. it had limited availability... it was never meant to be a success