Honda's New Hybrid One of Several Green Cars Set to Bow at Paris Auto Show

Honda's New Hybrid One of Several Green Cars Set to Bow at Paris Auto Show

By John O'Dell August 25, 2010

Paris isn't very green this year - the October 2-17 Paris Motor Show, that is.

The whole think looks to be pretty subdued, and there's just a handful of green - and greenish - vehicles slated for introduction.
One of the biggies will be the Honda Jazz Hybrid (its the Fit Hybrid in Japan), which we told you about when the Japanese version was announced earlier this month.  Now the company is trickling out a bit more news:

• The production version of the Honda Jazz Hybrid for the European and other markets outside of Japan, China and the Americas will be unveiled next month at the 2010 Paris Auto show;
• One of the colors will be a vivid electric green;
• Fuel economy and pricing will be disclosed at the show, but in Japan the premium if $4,000 more than the standard Fit and Honda says fuel economy will be about the same as the Insight hybrid (which is rated at 41 mpg overall in the U.S.);
  
• On-sale date outside of Japan hasn't been set (it's October in Japan for the Fit Hybrid) but it will be "early" in 2011.

Otherwise, all's the same. The Fit/Jazz hybrid gets a new grill, headlights and bumpers and will use the same Honda 1.3-liter Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system that's used on the new Insight hybrid, and there's no plan (yet) to bring it to the U.S, where, Honda says, the Insight fills the same market space (although we think a Fit hybrid might do better here than Insight, with its  looks-like-a-Prius design).

Other green vehicles debuting at the Paris show include:

• Hyundai's Veloster: A conventionally powered, 140- horsepower sporty hatchback that Hyundai says will use lots of advanced engine and light-weighting technologies to achieve hybrid-like fuel economy of at least 40 mpg.

• The Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4: A hatchback the French automaker is billing as the world's first production diesel-electric hybrid (a necessary distinction as several diesel-electric concepts have been shown in the past year or so). It features a conventional diesel engine up font and an electric drive system powering the rear wheels, with control logic that will enable the powertrains to work independently or as a team.

• Ford 's the 2012 Focus, finally being built on the same chassis in North America as in Europe. That's good for us North Americans, as the European chassis is a whole world of sportiness, handling and ride quality ahead of the present North American Focus' underpinnings. We mention the Focus not because it is fairly fuel efficient all by itself - which it is - but because Ford will be bringing out a battery-electric version in 2011. The Focus BEV won't be shown in Paris, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to write about it again.

• The Kia POP concept: A futuristic, 3-seat battery-electric vehicle representing the latest look at the South Korean automaker's idea of what a small "city" EV could be,

• And Lotus Cars is expected to announce a new game plan that could include a number of electric-drive cars.

• We''ll keep you posted during the show's press days, Sept. 30-Oct. 1.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.