Tuesday 24th February 2009

The second-generation Honda Insight, billed as “the world’s first affordable hybrid,” went on sale in the United States. The Insight, a five-door hatchback, carried a price tag of just under $20,000. In 1999, a three-door hatchback version of the Insight became the first-ever gas-electric hybrid vehicle sold in the U.S. The Toyota Prius, which debuted in Japan in 1997, arrived in America in July 2000 and went on to outsell the first-generation Insight, which was retired in 2006. By the time the second-generation Insight launched in 2009, Toyota controlled 70 percent of the hybrid market in the U.S. (the planet’s biggest market for hybrid vehicles).