Honda Insight revealed - Introduction

Price: £15,000 (est)
On sale: Spring 2009
You'll like:... Saving the planet...
You won't: ...but only a bit

Honda plans an onslaught of petrol-electric hybrid cars within the next three years that will change the way many of us drive.

The company aims to expand its global sales of hybrids from a paltry 11,000 in 2007 to around half a million a year by early in the next decade. Four new models, targeted at buyers in all the world's developed markets, will spearhead the assault.

Key to the company's ambitious strategy is the first of those cars, the Insight – a five-door, five-seat Ford Focus-sized hatchback that will be launched simultaneously in Europe, the USA and Japan next spring.

Honda expects to sell 200,000 Insights a year. To put that into context, its total sales of hybrids since entering the market in 1999 are around 200,000.

The bait Honda will dangle in front of would-be buyers is price. The Insight will cost ‘thousands less' than current hybrids such as the Toyota Prius (£18,000 and upwards) and its own Civic hybrid (£17,000-plus), Honda says.

Our information is that pricing will start at around £15,000 – that's roughly the same as the cheapest diesel Focus.