Honda Insight and Clarity Sales

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Viking79

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Looks like Honda Insight did very well in the first month of sales. Great to see given this is a similar powertrain to the Clarity. Now we just need a PHEV version of the Insight.

Insight: 1,972
Clarity (all): 1,615

My guess is 90% of those Claritys are PHEV, so probably similar to last month.
 
The Insight is actually pretty sweet. No surprise to me..

If I was single and no kids, would have liked that. Like the clarity size and plug in side.

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Likely Prius sales are affected. I assume most were cross shopping the Prius and decided on the Insight instead. It's better in every way IMO.
 
Prius (regular) sales are just sad this year (and for the last 39 months, where it has seen year to year declines). Sales this month are down like 60% from 2015. However, the Prius did sell more than twice as many as Insight (but given low insight supply I wouldn't be surprised to see it catch up to the Prius).

What it means to us is more similar powertrain cars the easier it is for the dealers to work on them.
 
jdonalds said:
We sat in an Insight. Nice looking inside and out. Certainly better looking than a Prius. I think many will be disappointed it isn't a hatchback.
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I was hoping my 4th Insight would continue the hatchback tradition. Unfortunately, all Civic hatchbacks are manufactured in the UK and Honda decided to make the new Civic-based Insight in Indiana.
 
insightman said:
I was hoping my 4th Insight would continue the hatchback tradition. Unfortunately, all Civic hatchbacks are manufactured in the UK and Honda decided to make the new Civic-based Insight in Indiana.
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I've heard and have the impression that Americans prefer sedan over hatchback, while other parts of the world prefer hatchback, probably smaller footprint but more useful trunk space. They probably think making Insight a sedan will set it apart from Prius and attract sedan-preferred customers.

Have owned both hatchback and sedan, I wish Clarity came as hatchback too.
 
I'm with you on wishing the Clarity as a hatchback. The same dealer we bought our Clarity wants $2000 extra "Market Adjustment" for the Insight.
 
I was interested in the Insight and drove one; it's a nice car but having just driven the Clarity it was not really in the same league, and since the regular hybrids aren't eligible for the PHEV rebates, the net cost wasn't all that different. My biggest issue with it was that it seemed to work really hard getting up to speed on the highway - closest thing I've heard to "angry bees"! Still, if the Clarity hadn't existed (or hadn't had the associated rebates) then I think it would have been a contender. Interior was nicer than the Prius/Prius Prime and the Civic-like look is classy. I hope Honda is successful with both the Clarity and the Insight.
 
Every single person that I mention the Clarity, the first reaction is 'you only can go 50 miles??' That's why, the Insight is selling like hotcakes while some Claritys sit on the lot..
 
su_A_ve said:
Every single person that I mention the Clarity, the first reaction is 'you only can go 50 miles??' That's why, the Insight is selling like hotcakes while some Claritys sit on the lot..
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But Prius prime can do less than 30…………
 
su_A_ve said:
Every single person that I mention the Clarity, the first reaction is 'you only can go 50 miles??' That's why, the Insight is selling like hotcakes while some Claritys sit on the lot..
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Seems like most of my conversations about it start with "I get at least 50 miles on battery then it runs as a regular hybrid", which seems to summarize the basic premise of the car pretty well. But clearly Honda has some sales challenges in helping people understand just what this vehicle is.

I do think that in my area people are becoming more familiar with PHEVs in general; there's a lot of Prius Primes around here...
 
BrettB said:
But clearly Honda has some sales challenges in helping people understand just what this vehicle is.
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The first challenge will be : teach dealers to charge the car before any test drive.
Without any charge, the performance sucks, the noise sucks. With a level 2 station, they would sell much more Clarities.

Only one out of five dealers I visited in Seattle area knows that, as of March.
 
If the Clarity looked as good as a Model S, or even as good as the new Insight, I believe it would be a much more popular car. I believed the Volt and the Prius Prime would break down the barriers to understanding PHEVs, but it doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to Clarity Plug-In Hybrid sales. Honda should have a traveling PHEV education team visiting all their dealers rather than counting on the dealers watching Honda's online dealer videos that explain the car.
 
I liked this description from another thread earlier this year....

dstrauss said:
I realized this morning that I am a TERRIBLE ambassador for the Clarity. I stopped at a drive through to pick up breakfast, and the young man (early 20's?) said "Hey, do you plug this thing in?" and of course I said yes, and he asked - what kind of mileage and I said 50 miles on battery.

He then scowled a bit and said that won't get you very far and I told him it handles all my in town driving and I haven't put gas in in since March. He then said I guess you have another car for longer trips and my light bulb finally came on and realized I hadn't explained it was a PHEV so I told no, it has a gas engine and can do another 300 miles on gas alone like a hybrid - and that's when he said "So it's kinda like a Tesla meets the Prius thing?"

Folks, when the chance comes along, be sure to explain from the beginning that a PHEV is kinda Tesla meets Prius...
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So, I usually go with the it's a Tesla then a Prius explanation.

geo
 
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