Electric Vehicle Forums - Kill off Insight, Insight going away, and new plant in US

ironically, as i was sitting in the dealership waiting for delivery of my new insight, i was flipping through the paper and encountered the article about honda discontinuing the insight. i was bummed and relieved that i already got mine.

but i disagree with honda's claim that the insight wasn't popular. it wasn't popular because of honda's policies about it. i had a *lot* of trouble trying to buy my insight. no dealers have them on the lots, so unless you have friends with them, you cannot test drive them. (fortunately, i have 3 friends with insights). secondly, the dealers don't want to be bothered with the insight. they are much more incented to sell civics. the first dealer i walked into, i said "how can i buy an insight?" to which he responded "you don't want an insight." the second, third, and fourth dealerships i walked into told me they couldn't even order one, and politely tried to steer me to the civic hybrid. finally, i went on autobytell.com, and only 3 dealers in the entire bay area responded. the real truth is that it is difficult for them to even order insights, and they don't make very much money on them, so they don't like to bother with them. dealers would much rather sell the civics.

if honda kept these cars stocked on the lots so that people could test drive them, and if they didn't take nearly 4 months to purchase, i think their popularity story would be much different.

i was told that by 2009, honda would replace the insight with a hybrid Fit. honda is trying to get the hybrid Fit to get the same mileage as the insight.