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N0KFQ > TODAY 06.02.12 21:41l 51 Lines 2364 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 17361_KB0WSA
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Subj: Today in History - Feb 6
Path: IZ3LSV<IK2XDE<DB0RES<DK0WUE<7M3TJZ<JK1ZRW<JE7YGF<F6CDD<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 120206/1914Z 17361@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.48
Feb 6, 2009:
Honda Insight debuts as Prius competitor
On this day in 2009, the Honda Insight, billed as "the world's
first affordable hybrid," goes on sale in Japan. Honda took some
18,000 orders for the car within the first three weeks, pushing
Toyota's Prius, known as the world's first mass-produced hybrid
vehicle, out of the top-10-selling cars for that month, according
to a March 2009 report in The New York Times.
The Insight, a five-door hatchback, went on sale in America on
March 24, 2009, and carried a price tag of just under $20,000. In
1999, a three-door hatchback version of the Insight became the
first-ever gas-electric hybrid vehicle sold in the U.S. The
Toyota Prius, which debuted in Japan in 1997, arrived in America
in July 2000 and went on to outsell the first-generation Insight,
which was retired in 2006. By the time the second-generation
Insight launched in 2009, Toyota controlled 70 percent of the
hybrid market in the U.S. (the planet's biggest market for hybrid
vehicles). Between 2000 and February 2009, Toyota had sold upward
of 700,000 Priuses, or more than half of the 1.2 million
purchased worldwide, in America. In March 2009, Toyota announced
it had sold more than 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in
the U.S. under six Toyota and Lexus brands (which in addition to
the Prius, include the Highlander SUV and a hybrid Camry sedan,
among others).
American automakers trailed behind the Japanese when it came to
developing hybrid vehicles. The same week that Toyota announced
it had sold its 1 millionth hybrid in America, Ford Motor Company
reported that it had built its 100,000th hybrid vehicle in the
U.S. As the Times reported in March 2009: "Unlike their American
counterparts, Japanese automakers have long made energy
efficiency a priority, teaming up with Japan's electronics
conglomerates to develop high-powered batteries."
In 2008, Toyota passed General Motors to become the world's
largest automaker, a title the American company had held since
1931. GM, which at the time had been hobbled along with the rest
of the auto industry by a global economic crisis, received
criticism for being the home of the gas-guzzling Hummer and for
failing to develop a hybrid vehicle when Toyota first launched
the Prius.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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