New Model Enters Hybrid Race

  • The Honda Insight Concept (Photo courtesy of Honda)

Next spring car buyers will have
another choice if they’re looking for a
hybrid car. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Next spring car buyers will have
another choice if they’re looking for a
hybrid car. Lester Graham reports:

The very first electric-gas hybrid car to hit the dealership showroom was the Honda
Insight back in 2000. But the small two-seater never took off like the bigger Toyota
Prius.

Now a re-designed Insight will be on exhibit at next month’s Paris Auto Show.

Csaba Csere is the editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine. He says the new
Insight will seat four or five.

“The profile looks very much like the current Prius, but it’s going to be a less
expensive car. It’s probably going to start at about $19,000, still get nearly 50-miles
per gallon, and it’s going to go on sale on Earth Day next spring.”

The Honda Insight will get to the dealers’ lots more than a year before a next
generation Toyota Prius and GM’s Chevy Volt are expected to go on sale.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Demand Is High for Hybrids

For the first time, demand is high for an environmentally friendly
car. Honda’s new Insight now has a two-month waiting list. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has the story:

Automakers Accelerate Toward Greener Cars

In the next few months, Honda and Toyota each will launch a
new type of super clean car, called a hybrid. The fact that the
Japanese
are
first to market hybrid vehicles concerns some environmentalists.
They’re
worried that domestic auto makers aren’t moving fast enough on this
promising technology. But in an unusual move, environmentalists are not
chastising the big three. Instead, they’re lending a helping hand. The
Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Edelson Halpert files this report: