Honda Insight Web Chatter Highlights Rival Toyota Prius' Strong Position
Like a kid with an overachieving cousin, the Honda Insight can't seem to escape the shadow of the Toyota Prius.
Since Honda started selling its new compact gas-electric hybrid (bottom, right) late last month, about 61 percent of the people who held online discussions about the car also mentioned the Prius (top, right), the Nielsen Co. reports in a comparison of recent Web chatter about the two hybrids.
In contrast, Nielsen found, only about 27 percent of the people who wrote about the 2010 Toyota Prius on the Web mentioned the competition.
And like that kid with the superstar cousin, the Insight often comes out second-best to the Prius in these on-line hybrid comparisons, at least when looks are considered.
There's a perception that the 2010 Honda Insight's design "is too similar to that of the Prius," the Nielsen report notes. The problem is that the similarity serves to highlight "the belief that the Prius is the gold standard to which all other hybrids must aspire," the report says.
Online discussions also showed the Insight to be more polarizing -- which also means less bland -- than the Prius.
Discussions generated a higher percentage of positive reviews for the Honda -- 31 percent liked it -- than for the Toyota -- 28 percent -- but the Insight also generated far more negative reviews than its rival -- 15 percent versus just 7 percent for the Prius.
More than half of all Prius chats were "neutral" on the car's merits versus a 38 percent neutral rating for the Insight, according to Nielsen, and 9 percent of Prius discussions gave the Toyota hybrid a mixed review, compared to 16 percent mixed reviews for the Honda.
Honda is looking to use the Insight's lower price -- the base model is $19,995, or about $1,000 cheaper than the no-frills version of the Prius -- to chip away at the leadership position Toyota has established in the hybrid market.
But Toyota, whose 2010 Prius is rated at 50 miles per gallon compared to 41 mpg for the Insight, has appeared to generate strong demand for the extensively redesigned hybrid, which will go on sale in the U.S. at the end of May.
Toyota reportedly is boosting production of the new Prius through next March by 25 percent to 50,000 cars a month because of better-than-expected pre-orders.
Perhaps most telling is the Nielsen finding that about 12 percent of those talking about the new Prius online say they are considering buying, while only about 7 percent of Insight discussions involve purchase intent.
Danny King, Contributor
- Posted by
- John O'Dell April 28, 2009, 9:20 AM
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- Honda, Hybrid, Toyota
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- 2010 Honda Insight, 2010 Toyota Prius, Hybrid Comparison, Insight Versus Prius
Maybe it's just me, but I thought the first-gen Insight was more creative.