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AB: Honda Canada discontinuing Insight and Civic Hybrid

2K views 18 replies 10 participants last post by  Jegan_V 
#1 ·
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/23/report-honda-canada-discontinuing-insight-and-civic-hybrid/
It's no secret that the revived 2010 Honda Insight has been a huge sales disappointment in North America. The once-robust sales of the Civic hybrid have also evaporated in the last two years. Apparently, things are far worse for Honda's hybrids in Canada where higher fuel prices typically cause people to buy more efficient vehicles.

An unconfirmed report from a Canadian web site indicates that both the Civic hybrid and the Insight are being discontinued there. Checking the Canadian sales charts, the Civic as a whole is one of the top-selling cars in Canada with 31,604 units sold in 2010 through July.

While hybrid sales are not broken out by Honda Canada, we can do a little educated guessing. Since only 643 of those Civic sales were imports and the hybrids come from Japan, we can figure that those 643 were the hybrid models. Similarly, Canadians only bought 748 Insights in the same period. When it launched, Honda projected 10,000 annual sales in Canada. Evidently Canadians just aren't taken with hybrids – even the mighty Prius has only found 2,272 Canadian buyers this year.

Honda hasn't yet responded to a request for comment on the cancellation of these two models. Apparently, Honda Canada will still proceed with the launch of the CR-Z there, maybe leaving it as the company's only hybrid.
Prius only selling 2K? that's such a drop in the bucket compared to US sales.
 
#6 ·
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/23/report-honda-canada-discontinuing-insight-and-civic-hybrid/


Prius only selling 2K? that's such a drop in the bucket compared to US sales.
It costs about $30,000 to buy a Prius, and the government rebates...are not that big for hybrids...you also get a rebate for buying small cars like the Yaris making the Prius...not as economically sound. Camry hybrid and the Prius seem the be the only decent selling hybrids here, there are poor selling niche cars that are more common than the Civic hybrid and Insight here.
 
#8 · (Edited)
So no more Accord hybrid, no more Civic hybrid and no more insight. Hmmmm.....Honda basically gave up on Hybrids.

I have been maintaining the samething for a long time that Hybrids are now a thing of the past. They are gradually evaporating.

All of Lexus hybrids have been sales disappointment, Prius sales have plummeted in recent years and now Civic hybrid is also history. Tesla roadster sales have been completely flat and it is simply a mystery to economists/analysts as to why Toyota would invest in a failing company?

Just goes to show (being an Engineer myself and applies to both rotary engines and electric hybrids), some concepts are great on paper and make perfect sense. However, in real world with all the variables, they just don't stand the test of time.

Internal combustion engines are not going anywhere.
 
#9 ·
#11 ·
Personally, I think it's a joke. electrical vehicles have their place in a US market, much like kei cars. In cities. the problem is, electric cars just do not have the battery technology yet to be worth the initial investment. The fact you can only go some 40-100 miles (Depending on model) is useless to someone like me who has to drive 40-50 miles round trip when I got to a major city. The whole "batteries not included" concept Nissan is putting out will do nothing but discourage sales. You can spend $30k on the Leaf but Nissan owns the battery which the car is useless without? Is any normal person going to buy into that? Hell no! The lease cost on the battery will blow away your fuel costs on the year for a car with an ICE engine.

This not mentioning electric vehicles don't pollute less because the more electric cars you have, the more power stations you need. And no one wants a nuclear plant next door so everything else (coal, oil, natural gas) puts out more pollution, not solving the issue. Wind energy is useless, and solar panels require too much land to be effective and their useful life span is barely over 45 years.

I think hydrogen is the solution, but an effective means of transporting it, a cheaper way of extracting it en masse, and problems with safely storing are probably going to limit it's usefulness and cost effectiveness for another decade.

And at the end of the day I'll still want a gasoline engine :lol:
Key word in large bold print. ;)

Gotta start somewhere. Look how far battery technology has come in just last 5-10 years.

No, there is currently no single way to produce electricity cleanly and efficiently, but that too can be developed over the next couple decades.
 
#12 ·
Key word in large bold print. ;)

Gotta start somewhere. Look how far battery technology has come in just last 5-10 years.

No, there is currently no single way to produce electricity cleanly and efficiently, but that too can be developed over the next couple decades.
Nuclear is probably the best, but in reality very few companies can afford to build, even with the tax breaks.. The red tape is a bigger issue than anything related to the plant. Newer designs are light years ahead of anything currently operating in the US in terms of both safety and efficiency.

But wasn't this about cars? :lol: One bright spot for batteries is I read Toshiba recently design one that could be charged 50,000-60,000 cycles from empty which is a vast improvement and charge to full within 10 minutes. But it doesn't really hold more juice based on what I read. to get me into one though you still need a battery that is going to do all that and have a range of over 300 miles while providing decent power.
 
#13 ·
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/23/report-honda-canada-discontinuing-insight-and-civic-hybrid/


Prius only selling 2K? that's such a drop in the bucket compared to US sales.
Prius not selling well in Canada? How is the Camry Hybrid selling -- more than the Prius? I read that the Camry Hybrid sells in greater numbers in Canada than the Prius. People seldom go shopping only for a hybrid car, but they will go in shopping for a Camry and come out with the TCH.

It may be very difficult to determine TCH sales, since Toyota does not break out TCH sales numbers separately from overall Camry sales. It would be equally difficult to determine exactly how well Lexus hybrid sales are (with the exception of the hybrid-only HS 250h), since sales numbers of the GS, RX and LS hybrid models numbers are not broken out of the total model sales numbers.

I believe that we need a good mixture of different drivetrains right now: internal combustion engine-powered vehicles, pure electric vehicles and hybrid ICE-electric vehicles. They act as incentives to continue research on all new technologies -- new ICE technologies, and new EV and battery technologies. If hydrogen is the ultimate answer, it could be used as a fuel in an ICE or as fuel in an electricity-producing fuel-cell, so research on both ICEs and batteries needs to continue. Denying that one or the other technology is dead now is hiding your head in the sand.

Toyota is keeping its options open. They are continuing to develop the ICE, hydrogen fuel-cell and batteries for EVs and HEVs/PHEVs. They bought into Tesla (an EV company, not a HEV company) because Toyota is interested in Tesla's claims about its battery technology, which seem to be better than Toyota's own Panasonic batteries.
 
#14 ·
Toyota is keeping its options open. They are continuing to develop the ICE, hydrogen fuel-cell and batteries for EVs and HEVs/PHEVs. They bought into Tesla (an EV company, not a HEV company) because Toyota is interested in Tesla's claims about its battery technology, which seem to be better than Toyota's own Panasonic batteries.
Not just Toyota, they all are. Well, all of the big players anyway.


http://www.gm.com/vehicles/innovation/?evar10=gm_com_HPVehicleRollover_InnoT

http://www.gm.com/vehicles/hybrids-and-electric/
 
#17 ·
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/25/update-honda-canada-not-canceling-insight-civic-hybrids-will/
Remember the report from Quebec that suggested Honda Canada would be discontinuing the Insight and Civic hybrid for the 2011 model year due to poor sales? According to company spokesman Richard Jacobs, the two hybrids have not in fact been discontinued. Instead, Jacobs tells us that Canadian dealers currently have a six month supply of the Insight and Civic so it hasn't ordered any new cars from the factories in Japan.

"Honda Canada will listen to the voice of our customers and will bring the products they want," says Jacobs. Both hybrids will remain available and Honda will be monitoring inventories and customer demand to determine when to order more units. Perhaps the launch of the CR-Z will get customers to reconsider its siblings as well.
OK, they're not going anyway, but still...
 
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