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This morning at another forum, I saw a pasted article of Honda planning a sixth US plant to be built in Indiana or Ohio and shutting down Insight production in July. Google has not revealed anything concerning Insight production, except Honda management wants hybrid production to be higher volumn and more cost effective.

So Honda's plans are still somewhat mysterious. Will the Insight be killed this summer? Will it continue until they offer newer hypermiler hybrid?

Well, the article stated that demand for the Insight is very low. This would indicate that they may not feel the need to fill the niche back in. Nobody competes directly against the Insight so the odds of losing market share are pretty minimal. Buyers will move over to a Prius or a HCHII.

What I wonder about is what this theoretical high-volume "dedicated hybrid" will look like. No doubt they will stick with the IMA blueprint since it is so simple. But how it will be tuned is a mystery. They want it to cost less than the Civic, indicating that it will fit into a smaller market segment. But if they really want to sell 100,000 units a year it will have to do very well on gas, even by that small car standard, for it not to be labelled a waste of money.

Wild speculation: The Fit will be redesigned, and built only as a hybrid. Why would they bring the Fit to the US and then put another car right in its market segment?

It's still not clear what Honda will do.

I'm disappointed with what I've seen on the Fit so far - it's FE does not compare to the Insight, even allowing that it's got a steel body.

Yoshi sent me these links. It appears to be true (although I can't read Japanese). :mad: Here is what he said..

Yes, it's now official.

There is only one in Japanese web site...
http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/main/20060517AT1D1705P17052006.html

Honda's site does not say the termination, instead they says they
will introduce new hybrid family sedan in 2009.
http://world.honda.com/news/2006/c060517MidYearCEOSpeech/

Hmm...maybe there's hope for the Accord Hybrid, then.

honestly just lower the price of the insight by 5000 or so and they will sell like hotcakes.

Why keep the same price 5 years later?

honestly just lower the price of the insight by 5000 or so and they will sell like hotcakes.

Why keep the same price 5 years later?

Wayne was telling me that Insights are custom production. Over the 6 years in production only 5000 have been made. My guess is that Honda looses $ on each one they sell.

I think it's more like 15,000 but it's definitely low volumn

I just home the Fit will approach what the Insight does and eventually offer a hypermiler version.

Hi Chuck:

___Boy did I steer Dan wrong on that one!

1999 – 2002 Insight Sales (http://www.insightcentral.net/KB/sales.html) = 10,730.
2003 Insight Sales (http://www.hondanews.com/CatID1007?mid=2004010944909&mime=asc) = 1,168
2004 Insight Sales (http://www.hondanews.com/CatID1007?mid=2005010455134&mime=asc) = 583
2005 Insight Sales (http://www.hondanews.com/CatID1007?mid=2006010454040&mime=asc) = 666
2006 Insight Sales YTD (http://www.hondanews.com/CatID1007?mid=2006010454040&mime=asc) = 320

10,730 + 1,168 + 583 + 666 + 320 = 13,467 Insight’s from initial import back in 1999 to last months total.

___Dan, Sorry as I thought it was 4,000 total.

___As for the Fit w/ IMA, I highly doubt we will see Insight like numbers from that pig :( Honda was talking about $16K like numbers for a Fit Hybrid however so we shall see?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Sorry guys, it's no longer a rumor
http://hybridcars.about.com/od/news/a/insightdead.htm

If you have an Insight, consider yourself lucky. After September, there won't be any more produced.