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Nearing June, and nary a 2010 Honda Civic Hybrid has landed on our (Vancouver) shores. Kind of odd though: I'm seeing a lot of non-Hybrid Civics with the trademark hybrid rims. Discounted, surplus?

Mendel, they have 4stud pie plates on the Fit. So I believe they just like these wheels. My daughter has them on her Fit. I wish they would have saved these as a Hybrid specialty item. Now all we got is a badge and a black antenna. H

Yes, I'm always on the look-out for Civic Hybrids, looking for the trademark emblems. For me a very common recognition pattern is: "pie plate wheels, uh: but no antenna, black door handles, etc. Nope, not a hybrid".

They are pretty rare, especially compared to Prius. I do think though they're one branch on Honda's "tree" that's on the verge of death of late. I hope something is in the pipeline.

We were parked on the street maybe 3 weeks back: came back to our car, and there was another gen. II Civic Hybrid parked directly behind us. What are the odds! Of course there's some "birds of a feather flock together" factor, but still.

Hi Mendel & Harold;

Agreed. As you may recall, a couple of years back Honda had some trouble with the ecoAuto program and on the account of a fraction of a liter that cost them a fair bit of publicity as well as a $1000 to $1500 loss for each fit and Civic sold.

Well, to move up one class they had to perform some optimizations on the Civic and FIT line in order to gain a few decimal points and borrowing the rims from the HCH was just one of the many tricks they resorted to.

I agree that with that move they made the HCH-2 wheels much less unique. I too have more trouble spotting an HCH-2 nowadays even though Winnipeg may be the Canadian city with the most HCH-2's (per capita).

I look not only for the harder to see antenna but also for turning signals on the mirrors... other than that, its literally a guess from the distance. :(

On a similar note: We're going to be hitting some of the dealers around the country with an onsite hybrid training seminar. Although minor, the identification issues is just one of the topics covered on the slide deck. ;)


Cheers

MSantos

Hi msantos;
If I wrecked my HCH2 and had to purchase another one, I can't even get a 2010 HCH2. This is pretty sad. I hope they come up with a Prius beater soon and it is identifiable as a hybrid.
Cheers'
H

Hi Harold;

Yes, they're pretty hard to come by nowadays mainly because Honda wants to push the sales of the Insight more agressively. To give you an idea: If you buy an Insight EX in Manitoba you get to save up to $6000 (includes $2000 hybrid rebate from the province).

Unfortunately, purchase incentives of this magnitude are being offered only for the Insight. :(

Cheers;

MSantos