Hybrid Car Review

The new Insight, which is set to sell for several thousand less than the Prius, is built in Japan at a plant in Suzuka, Japan.  Reporters were invited in to see the production and how streamlined it has become even over the way they did things when they started with the Civic Hybrid.

The plant is set to produce 800 vehicles a day , including the Civic Hybrid.  Around 600 of the vehicles coming off the line each day are the new Insight.  About half of those have the steering wheel on the left side, which means they're coming to North America.

This is the only plant Honda has to build hybrids right now. 

At around 300 a day, that means Honda could produce around 9000 or about 100,000 a year.  Which is just what their stated goal for North America was.  It's sort of surprising to hear they are still producing those numbers given what's happened to the car marketplace over the past year, but it's also not surprising.

Sales in Japan have been great, with 21,000 orders in the first month and a half of sales (Feb 6 to Mar 23).  That's way over their stated goal of 5,000 a month in Japan.  If sales start off that strong in the US, we could really see a true competition begin for the Prius. 

To put that 100,00 number into perspective, there were reportedly just over 300,000 hybrids sold last year in the US, around half of which were the Prius.  Let's assume the Insight does make its numbers and the hybrid car market were to remain static otherwise.  That means Honda Insight will take over 25% of the hybrid market, the Prius will take 38%, and the other dozen or so hybrid models will pick up the rest.

No wonder Toyota is going to continue selling the second generation Prius as a 'cheaper option' to combat the new Insight in Japan.