Prius-killer alert: The new Honda Insight could be thousands less
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The hybrid scene has suddenly become hotter. This is Honda’s much-talked-about ‘Prius fighter,’ the Insight. Ten years on from the first vehicle to bear the name (that odd little two-seater), this is a proper five-door, five-seater model — just like the car it’s going up against.
The car pictured here is still officially a concept vehicle and will be unveiled at the Paris Motor Show next month. But with production happening so soon, the streetable model shouldn’t differ that much, if at all.
Honda now realizes that people like their hybrids to look like hybrids, so the 2009 Insight has a distinct design (does that make it ego-friendly?), although the styling does echo the company’s flagship ‘green’ car, the FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle. The Insight is said to be a tad smaller than the current Civic, but thanks to reductions in the size and weight of Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system — the high-tech part of the hybrid equation — the package still offers plenty of room.
There’s also another benefit to the IMA makeover. It’s cheaper. So Honda is promising that the Insight will cost no more than equivalent conventional models when it goes on sale next spring — effectively undercutting the Toyota Prius. The Prius currently starts at $22,000 and figures in the region of $18,500 have been bandied about for the Insight. If that’s the case, it would be the cheapest hybrid on the market. Honda is looking to sell 200,000 Insights a year, with the United States buying half that number.