Toyota Prius Hybrid Wins 2010 Car of the Year in Japan

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hybrid, insight, prius

Published Oct. 23, 2009 at 3:32 p.m.
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Photo: Flickr, CC Battle of the Hybrids: Prius Narrowly Beats Honda Insight It's not just Japanese consumers that seem to like the new Toyota Prius (we wrote about the huge increase in sales). The jurors for the Japan Car of the Year award also selected the hybrid, though it was a close race compared to the previous 30 editions; the Honda Insight finished in second place with 391 points (co ...

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Toyota Kills Most Inexpensive Prius Model, Raises Price $400 on Others

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hybrid, insight, prius

Published Sept. 28, 2009 at 4:25 p.m.
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Image: Toyota Supply & Demand A few months ago, Toyota was quite afraid of the new low-cost Honda Insight hybrid. It even went as far as to make a $21,000 version of the 2010 Prius (aka Prius I) to try to compete with Honda on price. Well, seems like Toyota isn't too scared anymore, because it has announced that the Prius I will only be available in a limited way to some fleet buyers (in practice, this means you can't get one anymore). It is also making changes to the base price of the other

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Toyota to Sell a Yaris-Based Hybrid for Around $15.7k in Late 2011

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Published July 29, 2009 at 12:50 p.m.
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Photo: Toyota Should have Better MPG Than Prius There's a new kind of arms race on the road, except that this one doesn't involve bigger vehicles and more horsepower. Instead, the goal is to make hybrids with higher MPG and/or lower prices. The cheaper-than-the-Prius Honda Insight was the first salvo, even outselling the Prius in Japan in February, and coming down the pipeline is the even cheaper ...

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“The Insight is the most disappointing Honda Consumer Reports has tested in a long time”

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Published June 30, 2009 at 12:12 p.m.
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Photo: Honda They Really Didn't Like It ... Consumer Reports is highly respected and used by many car buyers to decide which models to even consider. So it's a pretty big blow to the Honda Insight hybrid that CR is publishing a pretty negative review, ranking the Insight hybrid 21st out of 22 small hatchbacks and wagons. Why is the Insight getting a thumb down? Read on to find out ...

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Move Over Insight, Prius is Best Selling Car in Japan in May

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hybrid, insight, prius

Published June 4, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.
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Photo: Toyota Battle of the Hybrids In April Honda was quite happy to report that its new Insight hybrid was both the best selling car in Japan for that month (outselling the Toyota Prius) and the first hybrid car to have that honor. But Toyota now has released its all-new 2010 Prius hybrid in Japan (on May 18th), and it looks like there was lots of pent-up demand even in these difficult economic times, because despite the incomplete month, the Prius shot to #1 in sales, above the Honda Fi

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Honda & Toyota Making About $3,100 in Profits Per Hybrid

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hybrid, insight, plug-in, prius

Published April 29, 2009 at 5:05 p.m.
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Hybrid Cars: Not Exactly a Loss Leaders According to Japan's Nikkei, Toyota and Honda are making about ¥300,000 (US$3,100) on each hybrid they sell, a number similar to what they are making on gasoline-only cars. Of course, this doesn't take into account the investment in R&D that had to be made, but since that can be spread over many vehicles, over a long period of time, and since it can help automakers future-proof (a lot of hybrid tech will probably be useful in plug-in hybrids and electr

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Ford Fusion Hybrid Gets 81.5 MPG in Hypermiling Challenge

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hybrid, insight

Published April 28, 2009 at 12:51 p.m.
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Photo: Ford 1,445.7 Miles on One Tank of Gas As a way to demonstrate the fuel efficiency of its 2010 Fusion hybrid, Ford created the 1,000 Mile Challenge. The goal was simple: To drive 1,000 miles or more on a single tank of fuel (17.5 gallons) in an unmodified Fusion hybrid. The route used sounds like it was pretty varied, with one part of it in Washington DC that had about 30 light signals (so it wasn't just highway driving). The results were pretty impressive, though not quite the 124 MPG

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Honda Changes Its Mind, Will Invest More Into Advanced Hybrids

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Published April 24, 2009 at 1:17 p.m.
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Only Fools Never Change Their Minds Honda is one of the pioneers when it comes to hybrid cars. The original Insight (not to be confused with the new 100% redesigned Insight hybrid) would still hold the hybrid car MPG record if it was still in production, and hypermilers have been getting averages of over 120 MPG with it. But until recently, Honda seemed to think that hybrids were just a "short-te ...

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Toyota to Cut New Prius Hybrid Base Price to $21,000, Offer 5 Trim Levels

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Published April 21, 2009 at 1:22 p.m.
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Photo: Toyota Competition is Good: Thank You Honda Here's something that should have happened years ago: Actual competition for the top spot in the dedicated-hybrid market. Thanks to the new Honda Insight which undercuts the Prius in price, Toyota is announcing a $1,000 price cut on the upcoming 2010 Prius, bringing the base price to $21,000, or $1,200 more than the ...

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Toyota Claims Over 20,000 Pre-Orders for 2010 Toyota Prius Hybrid

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Published April 20, 2009 at 1:32 p.m.
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Photo: Toyota A Number that Should Reach 40,000 by the Time the Prius is in Dealerships Well, the celebration at Honda didn't last long. They were quite happy in February to announce that the new Honda Insight hybrid had outsold the Toyota Prius, but as we predicted, it seems like Prius buyers were just waiting for the new model to come out. In 2008, Toyota sold 73,100 previous-generation Prius hybrids, so the claim of reaching 40,000 pre-orders before the car is even available is pretty

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