The sticker price of the Honda Insight may be under $20000 when it rolls out to the US market this April. The Japanese car maker is also looking into the possibilities of building the car in the United States if it will hit the goal of 100K units per year.

The five-passenger 2010 Honda Insight has a tough set of goals to meet as it meets its Toyota Prius competition. Aside from the surging Japanese Yen which will stretch the vehicle’s price, the falling prices of gasoline will also have an impact on the response of the market towards hybrid vehicles.

There was a 9.9% drop in sales for 2008 in the hybrid segment of the automotive sector. The US car manufacturers were only able to sell around 315761 units or just around 2.4% of the total market.

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The Los Angeles Auto Show became the ultimate event to be as Toyota unleashed its natural gas concept for its own Camry series.

With all the consumer hype on the rising costs of gasoline, Toyota offered an alternative through its Camry hybrid concept. The automobile company’s brainchild fell into the second category at the said auto show last Wednesday.

The hybrid edition of Toyota Camry runs on a 2.4 liter Toyota Hybrid Synergy four-cylinder engine. Instead of using the traditional system for gasoline engines, Toyota replaced the engine’s compression system with the one that uses Compressed Natural Gas or CNG. Despite the change, the unit still boasts off a 170 horsepower rate.

The concept amazed participants when they learned that the unit does not even use a drop of gasoline to work. The hybrid Toyota Camry recorded a 33 mpg fuel economy rating.

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