Quote:
Originally Posted by TaffetaWhite
And neither should Honda. Seems like a no-brainer. And all they had to do in the hybrid market was drop a hybrid engine in the Fit. Make it a line like Civics and Accords. Because the Fit works.
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I do agree with your insights (pardon the pun).
I can't back this up with any numbers, but I remember reading that the problem with Honda's hybrid strategy before was there was too little differentiation between their hybrids and their normal cars. Not enough set apart the, say, Civic Hybrid from the run-of-the-mill Civic, and the same went for the Accord.
Apparently people wanted to "shout" to the world that they drive a hybrid, and the Civic and Accord Hybrids weren't doing enough in that direction. That's supposedly why people bought Priuses. Sure it was a flawed car but it screamed "Hey lookie here I'm driving a hybrid!"
With this in mind...perhaps Honda doesn't want to go back to their old strategy of spinning off a hybrid from one of their mainstream models, no matter how successful. A GE Fit Hybrid has been announced though, so what I've said up to this point may as well be moot.
Then again Honda also decided to test the waters again with the 2nd-gen Insight. This time they're pitching it as a Prius clone for less money outlay. Buyers could get themselves screaming "Hey I'm driving a hybrid!" for less. That said, the GE Fit is currently flying the small-car flag proudly for our Tochigi-based automaker, and Car and Driver seems to think it's the car the Insight should've been...
Just some food for thought on the issue :)