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.
參考譯文：
本田汽車(Honda Motor)將向美國駕車者提供首款價(jià)格低于2萬美元的油電混合動(dòng)力汽車，尋求從占據(jù)市場(chǎng)主導(dǎo)地位的豐田普銳斯(Toyota Prius)手中搶走受到經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退沖擊的消費(fèi)者。
本田Insight本月將在美國上市銷售。該款車已在日本獲得初步成功，在2月6日上市銷售以后的3周，獲得1.8萬份訂單。
這一數(shù)字是本田月銷售目標(biāo)（5000輛）的3倍多，而且是在日本汽車銷量2月份下降24%的情況下取得的。
本田本周首次公布了Insight在美國的定價(jià)：基本款1.98萬美元，比最便宜的普銳斯低2200美元。
頂級(jí)配置的LX車型定價(jià)將為2.31萬美元，而普瑞斯高端導(dǎo)航版的定價(jià)為27765美元。
作為日本第二大汽車制造商，本田將自己的聲譽(yù)押在了混合動(dòng)力汽車的成功上。混合動(dòng)力汽車是汽車業(yè)衰退之時(shí)少數(shù)沒有大幅削減成本的領(lǐng)域之一。
5門Insight是從3門車型發(fā)展而來，后者在2006年已停產(chǎn)。
當(dāng)時(shí)，本田的管理人士相信，愿意多花5000美元購買混合動(dòng)力車的人太少，但兩年后，隨著油價(jià)創(chuàng)下歷史新高，他們卻看到普銳斯的銷售出現(xiàn)爆炸性增長(zhǎng)。
汽車行業(yè)研究集團(tuán)CSM Worldwide的分析師Masatoshi Nishimoto表示：“本田絕對(duì)承受不起這款車的失敗?！?/SPAN>
本田希望在完全投產(chǎn)后實(shí)現(xiàn)每年 20萬輛的銷售目標(biāo)，預(yù)計(jì)多數(shù)需求將來自最大的混合動(dòng)力汽車市場(chǎng)——美國。
本田希望，包括飛度(Fit)微型汽車在內(nèi)的其它幾款汽車計(jì)劃推出的混合動(dòng)力車型，能夠推動(dòng)銷量在2010年達(dá)到50萬輛，相當(dāng)于當(dāng)前產(chǎn)量的約10%。
通過設(shè)計(jì)出更簡(jiǎn)單的雙引擎-發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)動(dòng)力系統(tǒng)，本田降低了成本。
Insight車型略小，卻沒有普銳斯節(jié)油——根據(jù)美國標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，Insight每加侖汽油可行駛41英里。普銳斯為46英里。普銳斯今年計(jì)劃進(jìn)行的升級(jí)，預(yù)計(jì)將進(jìn)一步把油耗將至每加侖50英里。
（轉(zhuǎn)載）
