A greenie grudge fight is brewing, with Toyota’s hybrid supremacy being challenged by a determined Honda. Byron Mathioudakis is your referee
Amid the woes of the big American carmakers at the Detroit Auto Show in January, two Japanese hybrids stole the limelight. Their debuts were two of the most critical going into the next decade. Since then, the Toyota Prius III and Honda Insight II have begun to draw up battle lines that will set the stage for a new ‘green’ world order.
Now completely redesigned, the Prius aims to be the ultimate environmental expression of affordable family car motoring while the Insight is engineered – and priced – to be a stepping stone between the regular internal combustion cars of today and full-series hybrids.
Local sales of the third-generation Toyota Prius commence in July, but the Insight II has been delayed from a late-2009 Australian debut until the early months of next year.
But on their home turf in Japan, the first salvos have already been fired, with some unexpected consequences. Since going on sale in February, orders for the Insight II have exceeded Honda’s forecasts, by 400 per cent.
With the Japanese economy described by some analysts as being in “deep recession” the reason for the Honda’s success is elementary – it costs significantly less than the Toyota. In Japan, the Insight II kicks off from about $A26,000 compared to $A32,000 for the base-model Prius. This is because the Honda is fundamentally less expensive to build than even the outgoing Prius, let alone the latest version.
Smaller than its Toyota nemesis, the Insight II shares some of its platform architecture with various other high-volume Honda models such as the latest-generation Jazz light car. This brings very real economies of scale to production and a cheaper base for the car to built upon.
Furthermore, the Insight II employs a “power assist” parallel hybrid powertrain, meaning that the 1.3-litre single-cam i-VTEC four-cylinder petrol engine (another Jazz-sourced mainstay in the Honda range) is almost always in operation when the Insight II is running, while its Integrated Motor Assist electric motor device simply provides back-up power during times of acceleration. Pure electric motivation comes in very briefly when cruising on a flat surface at about 50km/h.
Honda has also designed the engine to partially shut down its cylinder effort during deceleration to decrease resistance when the IMA generator is providing electricity to charge the battery. Applying the specially developed brakes diverts kinetic energy into the battery pack, while an automatic start-stop function cuts the engine completely when the car is idle under normal operating conditions.
With its front wheels driven via a CVT (or Continuously Variable Transmission), the Insight II’s combined power is rated at 73kW and torque tops out at 166Nm, while the combined average fuel consumption figure is in the vicinity of 4.6L/100km. The carbon dioxide emissions rating is pegged at 101g/km.
In contrast, Toyota’s ‘Hybrid Synergy Drive’ set-up allows the Prius to be powered by the petrol engine (a 1.8-litre Atkinson Cycle unit) or an electric motor, or both at certain lower speeds, to deliver approximately 100kW and 207Nm. More importantly, economy and emissions are cut to 3.9L/100km and 89g/km respectively. But with more costly components, including the need for a larger Ni-MH battery pack and electric motor, the Prius price gap disadvantage is unavoidable.
However, despite this, Toyota has recently taken the unprecedented step of slashing the price of its new entry-level Prius III model in Japan by about $4000, as buyers vote with their wallets over there. The same is expected to happen in Australia once the Insight II lands here. Australian versions are now expected to start from around $37,000 – the same as the outgoing Prius II. It was previously thought that the new model would commence at a price above $40,000.
Honda revealed to Australian Business Auto that it hopes to achieve “mainstream sales volumes” with the Insight II next year, and so is aiming at pricing it at, or even under, the $30,000 mark – but only if the Australian dollar holds up above 70 Yen.
This pricing would significantly undercut the Prius, as well as the continuing $35,990 Honda Civic Hybrid, which uses an earlier, larger, heavier and less efficient version of the Insight II’s parallel hybrid powertrain.
Fluctuating exchange rates mean that, if the Australian dollar sinks to where it was late in 2008 against the Japanese currency (about 57 Yen), the Insight II could then just as easily become a $40,000-plus proposition.
“The exchange rate will determine the price of this car,” says Honda Australia senior director Lindsay Smalley. “But every other importer is facing the same issue. So if this comes in at $40,000, equivalent product out of Japan
(read: Toyota Prius III) would have to come in at $40,000-plus also.”
With petrol prices poised to rise significantly over the next 12 to 18 months, and the European-sourced Civic Si hatch small car constrained by its $38,990 pricing, Honda is banking heavily on the Insight II scoring a home run with middle Australia. After all, with only the Civic sedan representing it in the leading small-car class, Honda is effectively excluded from the 50 per cent of buyers who prefer hatchbacks in this segment.
And the Insight II is not just against the Prius either, since the company hopes keen pricing will lure buyers from up-spec versions of the Mazda3, Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback and Toyota Corolla. European diesels offering low fuel consumption like the Volkswagen Golf TDI, Peugeot 308 HDi, Citroen C4 HDi and Ford Focus TDCi are also in the Honda’s sights.
“It is the most important new model in Honda’s future,” is how Honda Australia managing director and CEO Yasuhide Mizuno puts it. “The Insight will be the mainstream model for Honda Australia in the future, because of the increase in fuel prices,” he says.
“The Australian public’s intentions are as much an environmental issue as an economic one, and if we succeed in bringing it in at a reasonable price, like in Japan, then it will be in the mainstream.”
But the hybrid war won’t end there. Honda has already made it clear that the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show CR-Z Concept – a spin-off from the Insight II program – will introduce a sports car element to the hybrid equation.
Its job is to ‘sex up’ the image of green cars, as well as Honda’s line-up, since the brand has lacked an affordable sporty car since the demise of the Integra some years ago.
Out later in 2010, pundits are predicting that the production CR-Z hybrid will be marketed as a modern take on the CRX coupé of the late 1980s – but with the enviro twist, of course.
Prius Derivatives
Not to be outdone, the Prius III is expected to yield its own derivatives beyond the single five-door hatch style heading Australia’s way. In typically understated Japanese fashion, Prius III chief engineer Akihiko Otsuka told ABA that
“in the future, it is possible” with the new hybrid vehicle.
Widespread speculation suggests that a more formally designed four-door sedan and a youth-baiting two-door coupé (to take on the Honda CR-Z hybrid) are on the cards.
Also in the not-too-distant future is the Prius III Plug-In, using all-new Lithium-Ion batteries instead of the massively cheaper and tried-and-tested Ni-MH packs used since the nameplate was introduced in Japan at the end of 1997.
Mr Otsuka revealed to ABA that the trials – involving about 500 vehicles to be leased to fleet companies and government agencies later in 2009 in Japan and North America – should reveal data as to how and when the “regular” petrol-electric hybrid Prius can switch to more experimental Lithium-Ion batteries from the reliable but relatively inefficient Ni-MH packs.
Toyota says that, operating purely on EV Electric Vehicle mode, the Prius III Plug-In Hybrid should give about 16 kilometres of range before charge is completely depleted and the petrol engine kicks in.
“The range is much better than it was before,” Mr Otsuka adds. “It depends on the battery condition. In the future, capacity will increase within the same volume [of today’s batteries].”
At the other end of the price scale, both Honda and Toyota are also preparing light car hybrids based on their respective Jazz and Yaris. The Jazz is closer to market, with an on-sale date scheduled for about 2011. At under $25,000, it could very well be the cheapest of its type on the market.
And you shouldn’t expect Toyota to take this price pummelling sitting down. Development of the next-generation Yaris light car is well advanced, and now Toyota insiders are whispering about a hybrid derivative that will borrow Honda’s idea and have a “power-assist” parallel Hybrid powertrain rather than the Prius’s full series Hybrid Synergy Drive system, to keep costs at bay.
However, Toyota may go one step further than Honda by designing a bespoke body style that will sit on top of the 2012 Yaris hybrid platform, in an effort to steal a march on the Jazz Hybrid.
More hybrids from both carmakers are in the pipeline too, with Toyota planning to include one in every model line-up by the middle of the next decade. Honda is hedging its bets somewhat as far as Australia is concerned, sticking with hybrids in its smaller models up to Civic, and then going for the diesel option in some of the larger future models.
Yet, despite all this hybrid activity, both companies agree that – ultimately – it will probably be left to the hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles from about 2020 that will truly lead us into the zero-emission vehicle age. But that is a battle for another decade to host...
