Honda's Prius-Killer Resembles Road Kill 4 Months After Entering U.S. Market
By Scott Doggett July 30, 2009
Honda had hopes its retooled Insight (right
) would eventually overtake the Toyota Prius as America's top-selling hybrid when it began selling the model last March.
But four months after entering the U.S. market, it's not even a close race.
Nationwide, Americans bought 2,079 Insights in June, bringing total sales of the streamlined hatchback since March to 7,524. At that rate, Honda will sell less than a third of its goal of 90,000 in the first 12 months.
By comparison, the higher-priced Prius was snapped up by 12,998 drivers last month. Since March, Toyota has sold 40,398 of the gas sippers.
And reviews of the Insight have been dismal. Typical of them is last month's Consumer Reports review, which decided that the new Honda fell short in ride quality, handling, interior noise, acceleration, rear-seat access and visibility.
America's rejection of the fuel-efficient model must be all the more humbling because Honda was the first automaker to bring hybrids to the U.S. It did that a decade ago with an earlier version of the Insight.
And get this: The Ford Fusion Hybrid is selling as well as the Insight in the U.S. even though it costs nearly $10,000 more.
It'll be interesting to see how the Honda CR-Z -- the automaker's next hybrid -- competes when it comes to America next year. As a two-seat sport coupe, it will be entering one of the smallest-volume segments of the market.
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Click here to comment on this entry.Honda should have targeted "best in class" instead of "cheapest in class".
I still don't know why they developed a 10kw IMA for this. They should have used the Civic's 15kw setup and called it a day.
And the price came up almost $2k from the original (and admittedly rumored) entry price that had us all excited about it. There isn't enough hybrid there to justify a price that's this close to the Prius. For what you get, it needs to cost even less.
Reviews has been dismal? Edmunds review was not dismal. The only bad review in the US is really CR. Car magazines all loved the Insight.
But regardless it's a success in Europe & Japan. Partly due to gov incentives but in Europe because the Prius costs 5K more.
So I think the Insight would sell much better in the US if Honda would lower the price and add VSC to the base Insight and use 4 disc brakes (like in Europe).
I think the biggest failing of the Insight is it's limited in it's ability to drive on electricity alone.
I used to catch a ride to work with a friend who had a Prius. In the endless stop and go on one part of the route the Prius would glide along with the engine off burning no gas. The distance was only a km or two but it could take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes.
That's the one feature of the Prius that really impresses me. When gas cars are at their worse, it's at it's best.
So when Honda came out with the Insight and left out the one feature I liked on the Prius I knew it wouldn't do well.
I feel bad for Honda when it comes to the Insight. If you ask a person on the street, "What was the first hybrid car?," 99% of them would say "Toyota Prius." It's sad because Honda doesn't get any credit. I wonder if they had just focused on making a Prius competitor vs. being cheap, if the car would have succeeded.
carfreak8394: I think you need to qualify your question. It's already understood in today's vernacular that "hybrid" means "gasoline-electric hybrid", so I won't address that. But the first hybrid car offered for sale was indeed the Toyota Prius, which beat the Honda Insight by two years (1997 vs 1999). Let's not forget that the US isn't the only country in the world. So Honda doesn't deserve credit for making the "first hybrid car", just the first hybrid car for sale in the US.
I think the biggest mistake was Insight's lack of imaginative/eye catching advertising. Their "hybrid for everyone" campaign is decent, but doesn't come close to the third gen Prius spots that are constantly all over TV. Considering how similar the body styles on these vehicles are, Honda really needed to have stepped up their ad campaign. Not even local Honda dealerships seem to be focusing on the Insight.
The inability to drive on electricity doesn't matter if mpg is good. In all reviews including CR they found real-world mpg to be fairly close to the Prius. I doubt that's the key reason.
Another reason I saw earlier in an article argued that in the US most Hybrid buyers bought the Prius before and: #1 they are loyal, #2 they don't care to save only 1-2K off car price. I think that makes sense and Honda wanted to get new non-Hybrid buyers but with current gas prices not that many are that interested. And those are interested typically buy something more exepensive and bigger anyway.
Something not mentioned yet that's a problem in the Insight: the interior! It was a mistake to go downmarket with this car. Aside from the gauges, the controls look like they came from a car 10 years ago -- especially compared to the Civic's high-tech looking cockpit.
I think in the long run Honda will be just fine. The current Honda hybrids are going to sell pretty well and the next generation of hybrid system is already speculated to be much like the Hybrid Synergy Drive system, maybe it'll even be a plug-in system without Honda's having to go through the growing pains that Toyota is currently going through.
Despite what anyone, including all the bandwagon Prius owners out there, wants to think Toyota did in fact learn a lot of lessons from Honda's real world hybrid research and development (talking about the 1st generation Insight) so it seems only right that the tables could be turned for Honda's favor in the future.
By the way I'm 100% positive Honda didn't ever try to sell the new Insight as a Priuskiller. That's unfair bias on the part of the original poster.
Interesting that Honda did not want their Insight to be a Prius killer yet they designed it to look so much like a Prius. How about some design ingenuity??
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