Honda Insight price point

That would give the green Honda a substantial $10,000 price advantage over the Toyota Prius, its only real competitor in the Australian market.  “It is going to depend on the strength of the Australian dollar when we start importing the Insight,” Honda Australia senior director Lindsay Smalley says. “That was our original price plan when we first looked at the car and it is still our intention now.”

However, plans to get the four-seater Insight to Australia by early 2010 have been shelved and the new schedule will not see an Insight in an Australian showroom until closer to the end of next year.

“It’s a question of supply and the popularity the Insight is enjoying in markets around the world,” Smalley, speaking in Los Angeles this week, says. “We are just going to have to be patient until we can get supply.  “At the top of the list is Japan, followed by the United States and Europe … and then us.”

Smalley says the marketing plan will include two trim levels — both with stability control as standard — although he says it is too early to confirm what other inclusions each model will have.  “They will not necessarily be the same as the two levels of Insight available in the United States. We will have our own model specifications but I can’t say exactly what they will be just yet.”

It is the same “too early to say” comment about sales expectations although Smalley does believe that acceptance of hybrid technology is growing in Australia and buyers will be ready to embrace it … “if the price is right”.

The Insight’s hybrid system  — the fifth generation of the company’s integrated motor assist (IMA) technology — is less powerful and less complex than Toyota’s series parallel hybrid which allows the Prius to drive short distances on electric motor alone, something the Insight can not do.

In the Insight the 1.3-litre 4-cylinder engine produces 98kW and 123Nm which is supplemented by electric motor’s 10kW of power and 58Nm of torque under heavy load and hard acceleration. The car’s efficiency is aided by a CVT transmission, aerodynamic shape and regenerative braking to recharge the nickel metal hydride battery.