Auto Knight

Toyota To Make Honda Insight Competitor

by Darren

Toyota has announced they plan on constructing a cheaper hybrid to compete with the new Honda Insight, which will debut in June with a street price of $20,800. The Toyota Prius is $4,000 more expensive, so Toyota is foreseeing a problem.

Honda has already released the Insight in Japan and has already seen strong demand. They said yesterday that the Insight was selling at three times their expected rate.

Toyota said their new model would be offered at less than 2 million yen or $20,510 in order to be price competitive with the Insight.

Toyota is looking to launch the new brand by 2010 and they said it will be 20 to 30% cheaper than the Prius. The car will be a subcompact that will have a smaller engine than the current Prius which uses a 1.5 liter engine.