Hybrid price war fizzles

Honda and Toyota had been set for a petrol-electric punch-up in the second half of the year but runaway prices and Japanese demand has meant a delay on the dream match-up in Australia.

Toyota will still get its third-generation Prius into showrooms, but the price pressure from the new Insight will not arrive until early in 2010.

Until then, Honda Australia will have to soldier on with its under- done Civic Hybrid against the might of the new Prius.

It is still planning a sub-$30,000 starting price for the Insight - the second Honda hybrid to wear the badge, but a vast change from the original - but arrival is so far in the future that nothing is confirmed.

"The plan is to introduce it as soon as possible. We are still hoping and planning for the first half of 2010," says the managing director of Honda Australia, Yasuhide Mizuno.

"There may be a delay. The reason is that it went on sale in Japan on the sixth of February and in the first four weeks they have taken 18,000 orders. That's against a target of 5000 for the month."

Honda has taken aggressive price point in the USA, setting the Insight at the equivalent of $31,256, and Mizuno says he still wants it below $30,000 in Australia.

"In terms of pricing, we've always said our goal is below $30,000.

Depending on exchange rate, obviously," he says.

"But at the moment the exchange rate would not allow that. Still, we will be pricing it below the Civic hybrid. And volume will be determined by price."

While Honda is still battling to get a plan for the Insight, Toyota is much closer with the new Prius.

"Prius is coming in July. That's always been the timing," says Mike Breen, spokesman for Toyota Australia.

But he cannot comment, yet, on how it will be priced.

"Anything we would say now would be premature. It's too early to say.

"We want to be competitive. That goes for everything we sell, obviously, but that's true with the Prius."

The current starting point for the Prius is $37,400 and Toyota had hoped to undercut it, but that was without the uncertainty in the Australian dollar.

But Breen rules out any chance of Toyota going with a two-Prius strategy to cover the price point for the Insight.

Toyota is going to run the old and new cars side-by-side in Japan but has ruled out any copycat strategy in the USA or America.

"There is no plan for that. And there is no plan in the USA, so far as we are aware," Breen says.

So, while Australia waits the Prius is being primed and Honda is still waiting.

"We are delighted with the acceptance of the car into the marketplace, but if that popularity continues in America and Europe that could mean a delay for Australia as they satisfy demand," says Mizuno.