Clean Green Cars: Honda: Insight "too small," likely to miss sales targets, Fit Hybrid a 'struggle'

Honda: Insight "too small," likely to miss sales targets, Fit Hybrid a 'struggle'

2010 Honda Insight - Click above for high-res image gallery

Honda Executive Vice President Koichi Kondo doesn’t seem to think that the automaker will hit its worldwide sales goal of 200,000 Insight Hybrids in its first year on the market. Why? “I think we compromised too much on size in pursuing fuel efficiency” for the U.S. market, he said.

In total, Honda sold 130,445 Insights worldwide by the end of last year. The car was first introduced in Japan in February and then in the U.S. in March. Here in the States, the car’s second-largest market, Honda sold just 20,572 units in 2009 - a far cry from the 90,000 it hoped to sell here in the first year.

Further, in reference to the long-expected Honda Fit Hybrid, Kondo said:

There are plenty of people who think that the current Fit meets their needs already [when it comes to fuel efficiency]… A hybrid version might seem expensive. Our engineers are really struggling.

It remains to be seen whether the upcoming CR-Z can bolster Honda’s sketchy hybrid positioning.

Gallery: 2010 Honda Insight