Toyota Developing Rival for Honda Insight
Mere days after Honda announced pricing for its 2010 Insight — billing it as the first hybrid on the market to come in below $20,000 — a Japanese business daily is reporting Toyota will fire back by developing its own cheap hybrid.
Toyota’s goals for the vehicle are to keep the price 20% to 30% cheaper than the Prius, and to get the car to market by 2011. Toyota presumably wants the vehicle to come in below $19,800, which is the price of Honda’s hybrid.
No one’s talking about expected mileage yet, but for comparison’s sake the EPA rates the Insight at an impressive 40/43 mpg city/highway, while the 2010 Prius tops that with 51/48 mpg city/highway. We’d expect Toyota’s new model to fall short of the Prius but stay competitive with the Insight.
