The Honda Insight was the first hybrid in the U.S. market in 1999. Now, it is of course discontinued, beaten along with it’s brethren the Civic and Accords hybrids, by the Toyota Prius models of which outsell all the Hondas by 5 to 1.
Honda wont go down without a fight, and is now planning a new comeback breakthrough car. Details are non-existent, but the new car code-named “Global Smal Hybrid” is expected to hit the streets in 2009, and have the highest fuel efficiency of any car on the road.
You can read the whole Newsweek article here.
It’s pretty clear the hybrid/electric market is going to be heating up faster than your laptop’s lithium-ion battery pack, so let’s hope we get those Volts on the road!
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 8:40 am and is filed under Competitors, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Aug 30th, 2007 (9:19 am)Looks like the rice burners got their tires flattened by a VOLT of lightning and they have no car jack. Go get em VOLT, let’s help keep those good old U.S. green backs here in America. God Bless America !!
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Aug 30th, 2007 (10:10 am)Man, that article highlights one of the things I hate about ‘environmentalists’:
“Owning a hybrid is all about saying ‘Look at what I’m doing for the world’,” says auto analyst John Wolkonowicz of Global Insight. “If you can’t say that, the whole purchase is a waste of time.”
Most of the ‘green’ movement, IMHO, is about posturing. It’s about making ‘green’ people making themselves feel better. And they have the need to show it off. They want that ‘look at me, I’m cool, I’m saving the planet and you’re not! I’m better than you!’
It appears modesty is not a commodity.
I owned an Insight for a while, not because I wanted to say ‘LOOK AT ME!!’. I drove it because I thought it was hella cool to get 550-700 miles out of 10 gallons of gas!
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Aug 30th, 2007 (10:21 am)Matt986:
you’re totally right on that. there is even a guy on this site who never passes up an oppotunity to let us know he will be charging his Volt with solar panels.
i appreciate his commitment, but he should be doing it for the environment, not for his ego.
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Aug 30th, 2007 (1:58 pm)Wow, according to the article, Toyota will have 3 models of Prius including the popular crossover by 2009 and Volt will not have “any” hybrid or EV until 2010. I think GM comes late into the game again.
If the the Toyoya Hybrid Grossover can do 50mpg, I’ll definitely buy it. Personally, I think GM talks big. By contrast, Toyota, they don’t talk, they do big. I’d like to trust the guys who do more than the guys who talk.
My 2 cents
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Aug 30th, 2007 (2:26 pm)[quote comment="5580"]I think GM comes late into the game again.[/quote]
I think you need to look a bit closer, this is a different game, while the prius line still gets 50MPG town and 35-40HWY, the volt will get infinite MPG in town if driving less than 40 Miles, and should get closer to 50MPG on the HWY. Where the prius still uses gas as primary source of energy (the electricity stored is created by gasoline) the volt will be using electricity from the grid as the primary pwoer source for first 40 miles. Also GM currently does have the Hybrid Saturn Aura and Vue and are planning the release of the Plug in Hybrid Vue in 2009. Also the Volt will run on E85 as well as gasoline. As someone who said that they would never buy another GM vehicle after buying tree of them, and a current toyota driver, i can Say that GM is leading the game in the PHEV market if they release on time, and I will most definatly be returning my business to GM.
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Aug 30th, 2007 (6:16 pm)Todays hybrids all suck!
I don’t think the majority of the people buy hybrids for the “hey im green” aspect of it. They buy it because they THINK they are getting some great energy saving car.
Todays hybrids don’t get any better gas milage than regular gas powered cars. Well not significantly better. Heck my dad had a Honda CRX that got about 60 miles to the gallon many years ago. When a car can get at a minimium of 90 miles to the gallon then we are talking improvement. Then and only then will it be worth the added cost, the added dead battery hanging over your head, the added number of moving parts all ready to put you dead on side of the road. More moving parts is sucks!!!!
GM may not have any hybrids right now but at least when they make there first one it will be the RIGHT one! Serial is the ONLY way to go! It is just so much more superior than hohum parallel hybrids.
To me todays hybrids are much todo about nothing.
Nail on the head quote: Most people don’t even know that Honda sells hybrids.
Prius success has more to do with marketing and PRICE than any thing else.
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Aug 30th, 2007 (6:20 pm)The volt is FINALLY a car to get excited about. A Future vehicle!!!
person 1: How many miles to the gallon does it get!
volt owner: Usually it doesn’t use any gas!!! About 30 gallons a year I guess.
person 1: eye popping out wow look
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Aug 30th, 2007 (8:44 pm)I bought my Honda Civic hybrid five years ago precisely because I didn’t want to be out there pretentiously advertising my “green cred” … I just wanted a car that did it.
My wife and I just bought her a Toyota Camry hybrid because the car does the job better than anything else currently available in its class. The Aura Green Line isn’t out for 2008 yet, no one knows when it will be, and it isn’t quite as good anyway.
Get the Volt out there and I’ll buy it presuming it does the job too … unless Tesla beats them to it or does it better.
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Aug 31st, 2007 (2:58 am)People! Stop and think for a sec!
You are all missing the most important part of the article!
Honda is building a hybrid that seats 4-5 and gets bettery mileage than any other car around and sell it for $22K !
Now, either Honda has figured out a way to make dirt cheap carbon fiber and plans of cutting the weight by 50% and installing a tiny engine, OR
they will make this new hybrid a PLUG IN!
Think about it!
GM keeps making progress on the Volt, and advertising every step!
Toyota desperately tries to fight back with redesigned Prius, a whole Prius brand, and their own plug in.
The whole world is enraptured as the two biggest car companies battle for supremeacy of the future, meanwhile no one really notices Honda, the 7th biggest company.
Then during the 2008 Detroit Auto show, Honda unveils a PLUG IN HYBRID (desgned for the last 5 years in absolute secrecy) that gets 100 mpg on average and has a 50 mile all electric range!
And announces it will go on sale in late 2009!
Suddenly all the hype surrounding the Volt dies, Toyota crawls into a corner, curls up into a ball and weeps, while Honda takes the mantle of enviro-king!
First run is 100,000 cars and they start taking deposits 6 months before hand, and sell out before the first car hits the showroom floor!
Oh what a wonderfull dream!
But it may happen! After all, how else co
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Aug 31st, 2007 (12:15 pm)$22K aint so cheap if you keep it basic. The Prius (see here http://www.autospies.com/news/Toyota-Prius-price-drops-by-1-225-for-2008-18359/) starts at under $21K. Now of course most people don’t buy the base model so your price may vary … Small battery or weight improvements over the Prius state of the art and you are there for mpg.
I’m just surprised that they are getting back into the hybrid fray as real contenders at all. After they announced the dropping of the hybrid Accord and the intention to replace it with a diesel version as their low mpg/low ghg emission contender I thought that they were ceding hybrids to others.
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Sep 4th, 2007 (4:41 am)Honda had the worst hybrid powertrain. Most people concede that the Insight’s mileage had more to do with it being a radically light and aerodynamic 2-seater than a hybrid.
So I would be really surprised if these new hybrids were plugins. Not only that, I think we’d hear some stirrings about their battery supplier. Would Honda possibly go with NIMH for a plugin rather than the heir-apparent of lithium? I seriously doubt it.
Since this article is so light on details of the actual specs of these hybrids I have to assume they will continue to be the mild parallel hybrids of before, but just with more radical stylings.
Time will tell.
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