Honda Motor is to offer US drivers the first petrol-electric hybrid vehicle priced at under $20,000 as it seeks to draw recession-hit buyers away from the segment- leading Toyota Prius.
Honda's Insight, which will go on sale in the US this month, has already scored an early success in Japan, where 18,000 people placed orders for the car in the three weeks after it went on sale on February 6.
That was more than triple Honda's monthly sales estimate of 5,000 units, and came in spite of a drop in Japanese car sales of 24 per cent in February.
Honda published the Insight's US sticker price for the first time this week. At $19,800 for the basic model, the car will be $2,200 cheaper than the least expensive Prius.
The fully loaded LX model will cost $23,100, compared with $27,765 for the top-end Touring version of Toyota's car.
Honda, Japan's second-largest carmaker, has staked its reputation on the success of its hybrid programme, one of the areas it has spared from deep cost costs amid the motor industry slump.
The five-door Insight succeeds a three-door model of the same name which Honda discontinued in 2006.
Honda executives believed at the time that the pool of drivers willing to pay as much as $5,000 extra for a hybrid powertrain was too small, only to watch Prius sales explode as petrol prices hit record highs two years later.
“Honda absolutely cannot afford to fail with this car,” Masatoshi Nishimoto, analyst at CSM Worldwide, a motor industry research group, said.
The company is targeting sales of 200,000 units a year once production hits full stride, with most demand expected to come from the US, the biggest hybrid market.
Honda hopes planned hybrid versions of several other models, including the Fit subcompact, will push sales to 500,000 units early in the next decade, a volume equivalent to about 10 per cent of its current production.
Honda has reduced costs by engineering a simpler version of the dual engine-and-motor system that powers the car.
The Insight is less fuel-efficient than the Prius, in spite of being a slightly smaller car, generating 41 miles per gallon of petrol according to its US specifications compared with 46 mpg for Toyota. A planned upate of the Prius this year is expected to raise its efficiency further, to as much as 50mpg.
参考译文：
本田汽车(Honda Motor)将向美国驾车者提供首款价格低于2万美元的油电混合动力汽车，寻求从占据市场主导地位的丰田普锐斯(Toyota Prius)手中抢走受到经济衰退冲击的消费者。
本田Insight本月将在美国上市销售。该款车已在日本获得初步成功，在2月6日上市销售以后的3周，获得1.8万份订单。
这一数字是本田月销售目标（5000辆）的3倍多，而且是在日本汽车销量2月份下降24%的情况下取得的。
本田本周首次公布了Insight在美国的定价：基本款1.98万美元，比最便宜的普锐斯低2200美元。
顶级配置的LX车型定价将为2.31万美元，而普瑞斯高端导航版的定价为27765美元。
作为日本第二大汽车制造商，本田将自己的声誉押在了混合动力汽车的成功上。混合动力汽车是汽车业衰退之时少数没有大幅削减成本的领域之一。
5门Insight是从3门车型发展而来，后者在2006年已停产。
当时，本田的管理人士相信，愿意多花5000美元购买混合动力车的人太少，但两年后，随着油价创下历史新高，他们却看到普锐斯的销售出现爆炸性增长。
汽车行业研究集团CSM Worldwide的分析师Masatoshi Nishimoto表示：“本田绝对承受不起这款车的失败。”
本田希望在完全投产后实现每年 20万辆的销售目标，预计多数需求将来自最大的混合动力汽车市场——美国。
本田希望，包括飞度(Fit)微型汽车在内的其它几款汽车计划推出的混合动力车型，能够推动销量在2010年达到50万辆，相当于当前产量的约10%。
通过设计出更简单的双引擎-发动机动力系统，本田降低了成本。
Insight车型略小，却没有普锐斯节油——根据美国标准，Insight每加仑汽油可行驶41英里。普锐斯为46英里。普锐斯今年计划进行的升级，预计将进一步把油耗将至每加仑50英里。
（转载）
