Honda plans to sell 500,000 hybrid cars a year and today revealed the new Insight, which will account for 200,000 of those sales by being the cheapest hybrid car on the market.
Though taking its name from the cool 1999 two-door Honda coupé, the new Insight looks more like the Toyota Prius it intends to rival and it will seat five passengers too. To assist with practicality, the purpose-built platform sites the electronic control unit and battery pack underneath the boot floor at the back of the car.
Honda has not yet divulged the car's technical specification other than to say that the Insight will feature a new technology to reduce fuel consumption in real-world driving.
In its bid to sell a half a million hybrid vehicles, Honda has admitted that it will roll out hybrid versions of the new Jazz and Civic, as well as building a production version of the two-seat CR-Z concept to line-up alongside the new Insight.
The Insight will debut at next month's
Paris Motor Show in concept format, with the production ready car likely to be revealed at either the LA Auto Show at the end of the year or the Detroit Auto Show in January.
Shane O' Donoghue - 4 Sep 2008