Honda Canada to Discontinue Hybrids

According to various reports, Honda Canada has decided to pull the plug on the Insight and Civic Hybrid. This has yet to be confirmed by Honda Canada, but I also have it on good authority that this is the case.

The two mild hybrids haven’t exactly been a hit around the world (except for in Japan), but sales are particularly bad here in Canada. Canadians love the regular Civic however as it has been the best selling car for years with over 31,000 units sold. Honda Canada claims they don’t keep track of which specific trim levels were sold so they can’t say for sure how many of those units were Civic hyrbids. That’s bullshit. If they don’t track it, how do they know Civic Hybrids aren’t selling? They just don’t want the public to know just how bad the Civic Hybrid is selling. Luckily since the Civic Hybrid is build only in Japan, and the rest of the gas models are built in Canada, we can easily find out for ourselves. Over 600 Civics sold here were built in Japan. Therefore, since the only Civic built in Japan is the hybrid, likely that those 600 Civics were hybrid models. That means the hybrid Civic represents only 2% of Civic sales!

Likewise, and admittedly I’ve known this for a while thanks to some inside info I got from a local Honda dealership, the Insight is going to get the axe as well. The Prius wannabe never caught on here despite strong sales in Japan. Although I’ve never driven the Insight, most reviews are not favourable. In fact, Jeremy Clarkson called it “biblically terrible” adding “It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.” God, I love Clarkson.

Anyway, good try Honda. Maybe you’ll have better luck selling the CR-Z here. Probably not though.

[Monvolant]

And The Cheapest Hybrid Award Goes to…

The Honda CR-Z.

Previously Honda themselves held the honour with the very unimpressive and underwhelming Insight which starts at $24,900. Honda even scared Toyota with that price and had them scrambling to make a hybrid version of their Toyota Yaris so that they could take the cheapest hybrid crown. But I’m sure that idea took the back burner when the results were in on the Insight. Just terrible.

Well Honda has just released Canadian pricing and the supposed successor to the CR-X will start at $23,460 for the six speed manual or $24,290 for the automatic making it the cheapest hybrid available in our market. The CR-Z is also the first ever hybrid available with a manual transmission. Sweet!

But the numbers don’t seem so sweet on paper. I mean, being the successor to the CR-X means that you gotta hold your own in the performance department. And with a 1.5 litre four cylinder engine making 126 horsepower and 136 pound foot torque, well, it just doesn’t seem possible to be fun to drive.

But at least it will be really efficient, right? Nope. While its 5.6 L/100 kms city (6.5 for the automatic) is nothing to sneeze at, this is a hybrid! There are regular gasoline cars that can do those numbers.

So, basically the new CR-Z is going to be nothing special in either performance or efficiency. Way to go, Honda. Let’s just hope it’s better than the Insight.

Oh and by the way, I’m fully aware that the pic above is not the production version of the CR-Z. It’s just I think the concept looked so much better.

[Honda Canada]

How Are Car Makers Doing With CO2, Anyway?

Overall they’ve improved…slightly.

While most car companies have been focusing on fuel efficiency and pushing money savings as the main benefit to the public, the reality is they are all being forced to make better vehicles to cut back on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions as well.

The overall improvement is 2.8% over the 2008-2009 year for the U.S. The study was performed by British Consulting Firm JATO Dynamics.

Any improvement is all well and good, but there needs to be significantly more change in this area.

Can you guess the car company that improved its CO2 the most? Find out which one after the jump.

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