http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2010/08/honda-canada-rumored-to-drop-insight-civic-hybrid.html
http://monvolant.cyberpresse.ca/dos...se-la-vente-des-civic-et-insight-hybrides.php
http://monvolant.cyberpresse.ca/dos...se-la-vente-des-civic-et-insight-hybrides.php
Il fallait s'y attendre un jour ou l'autre. Avec des ventes n'excédant pas les 175 exemplaires depuis le début de l'année, au Québec, l'hybride Insight était devenu un fardeau au lieu d'une source de fierté pour Honda. Est-ce sa trop grande ressemblance avec la Toyota Prius, ses places arrière peu invitantes ou je ne sais trop quel autre avatar, mais une chose est certaine, Honda entend ralentir considérablement la commercialisation de ses voitures hybrides sur le marché canadien. Cela comprend non seulement l'Insight, récemment rénové, mais aussi la Civic hybride.
Honda may drop both the Civic Hybrid and the Insight from its lineup in Canada. According to a recent report by Monvolant, the two hybrids will be eliminated from the product plan – likely in response to dismally poor sales. This would then leave the new CR-Z as the only hybrid in Honda Canada’s lineup.
When the Insight launched over a year ago, Honda Canada projected sales of 10,000 units. But poor press, a high-dollar asking price and competition from the third-generation Toyota Prius may all be contributing factors to the fact that just 748 Insights have been sold so far this year. Worse still are Civic Hybrid sales, with just 643 units moved in 2010.
With such low Honda hybrid sales you’d expect the Prius to be conquesting a lot of buyers, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with just 2,272 third-gen Prius models sold in Canada so far this year. While there are no hard facts surrounding why Canadians are turning away from hybrids, possible factors include the higher price of the cars in Canada, the lack of large urbanized cities (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal stand out as exceptions) and the colder climate often means hybrids don’t perform up to their lofty MPG targets.
