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

thats great news, the cheaper the hybrid the more people will buy! the less we end up using fossil fuels!!!

 

They say the size of it is smaller than the Civic, so it sounds like a different audience. I already feel claustrophobic trying to sit in the driver's seat of a Civic. All that wrap-around plastic. And the windshield and visor seem right in front of my head.

 

Exactly! This is excellent news! Just imagine if every Fit and Civic that you saw on the road today was instead a 60mpg hybrid !

For those that think the current 30-35K for a Prius is too expensive, ... it will be interesting to see how much more affordable the prices of pre-owned Priuses become when this Honda hybrid hits the dealer lots.

"Honda Motor Co Ltd announced that the development of its hybrid-only model slated for release in early 2009" -We seem to be receiving conflicting news on this. Some articles say "late 2009, as a 2010 model" and some articles say "early 2009." I hope the author of this article is right that Honda's VP actually said this, but since this article does not directly quote Honda's VP on this, we still don't know the official goal.

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Continuing to educate about the difference between ASSIST hybrids and FULL hybrids would be beneficial.

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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.

That being said I am 100% in favor of expanding the hybrid penetration to a more price conscious buying segment. It's less fuel being used and that's good for everyone.

As to Toyota's reaction I guess that we will have to wait for Watanbe-san's presentation in Detroit in Jan. I'd expect a new Prius sedan at some time soon in the future.

 

Honda's record with hybrids shows they aren't exactly on top of it, i.e. the Accord. As noted by others, yes, we hope for the planet's sake that it gets great gas mileage, but it sounds like another placeholder.

That's not to say that it's their fault exactly. The timeline for new models means they have been planning this car since gas was around $2 a gallon. And Toyota's problems moving Sequoias and Tundras for some reason (!) show they got caught with their pants down too.

And some Americans still don't get it. I had a coworker tell me yesterday that with the price of oil down to $125 gas should be dropping to $3 any day. If I told him what I thought about that, I would be tempted later to say "I told you so." Not good to say to your coworkers.

 

Agreed. This has also been the remaining hurdle as far as many, many people are concerned: the current hybrid vehicle offerings are still too expensive for the vast majority of folks who are looking for an environmentally conscious hybrid vehicle.

So what do many looking for a "high FE" vehicle do? A Yaris or Fit often tops their short list.
Not that there's anything terribly wrong with the choice, but I would rather see folks buying a AT-PZEV or Tier-2/Bin2 hybrid vehicles from Toyota or Honda than yet another gas-only vehicle.

Regardless of Honda's pace or progress with their newer platforms, Toyota will definitely rise to the challenge with flying colors and despite of what they may end-up doing to a lower cost variant of the HDS system it is still a massive benefit to us all.


Cheers;

MSantos

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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

 

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