Honda Motor Co., the world's second-biggest maker of gasoline-electric autos, is redesigning its Civic Hybrid and improving the small car's fuel economy to try to win U.S. sales from Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius.
The revamped Civic "will be a stronger competitor," John Mendel, sales chief of Honda's Torrance-based U.S. unit, said in an interview this week. "I think you'll see a vehicle that from a performance standpoint will be spot on or better than Prius. Better packaging, better safety."
Honda got an early lead in hybrid sales when its two-door Insight debuted in 1999, six months before Toyota brought the Prius to the U.S. The companies' annual sales of gas-electric cars were similar until 2004, when the revamped Prius outsold the Civic and Insight hybrids 2 to 1. Prius monthly sales this year averaged 8,737 through May, four times the hybrid Civic's 2,156.
"Prius is a unique car. It tells everyone you're driving a hybrid," while the gas-electric Civic looks like the gasoline-only version, said Brett Smith, an analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Honda made a complete, utter commitment to making the hybrid Civic a normal Civic. In that sense, they made a mistake."
