Honda's Next Hybrid Will Beat Toyota Prius MPG

In brief: The new mileage-sipper will likely be a newer iteration of the Insight, which some think Honda raced to production too early to compete with the Toyota Prius.

Vehicle in the news

Make/Model: ? Hybrid
Manufacturer: Honda

The word

The CR-Z, shown above, is Honda's sporty resurrection of the much-loved model, this time in hybrid. The CR-Z, however, will not even come close to the Prius' EPA rating of 50mpg, but promises to be a sportier coupe that Toyota will have to compete with to hold market share.

Honda, in the mean time, is working on a better gas-sipper to compete with the Prius. While the first iteration of the Insight hybrid failed to gain much market share or even good reviews, it did force Toyota to reconsider Prius pricing for a while.

Honda will likely follow up the stumbling beginnings of the Insight with another, updated version that gets much better mileage and (hopefully) shows better performance on the salesroom floor.

Meanwhile, both companies, of course, are racing towards 2015 as the release date for their hydrogen fuel-cell offerings. In that game, Honda may have a distinct advantage, having already fielded hundreds of FCX Clarity fuel-cell cars in small production runs while Toyota is still prototyping.

And so ...

The two largest Japanese automakers are definitely going head-to-head, having little competition from their American counterparts in the small hybrid sedan market.

Photo credits: Honda

This site follows the emergence, application and development of transportation innovation. Reference to manufacturers, makes and models, and other automotive-related businesses are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement by FutureCars.com.