As Hyundai finishes preparations for its first hybrid, the automaker has released the model’s pricing rundown. No surprise here: It’s going to underprice the competition.

The 2011 Hyundai Sonata hybrid has only one trim, and it will start at $25,795, excluding a $750 destination charge. By contrast, the 2011 Toyota Camry hybrid starts at $26,575, and the Ford Fusion hybrid starts at $28,240. The Toyota Prius technically is a midsize vehicle, according to the EPA — and it’s cheaper and more fuel efficient than the Sonata hybrid at 50 mpg combined and $21,650 — but that vehicle is smaller nonetheless.

The Sonata hybrid gets an EPA rating of 35 miles per gallon city, 40 mpg highway and 37 mpg combined. The base trim comes standard with 16-inch aluminum wheels, LED headlight accents, LED taillights, front fog lights, heated side mirrors with integrated turn signals, push-button start, remote keyless entry, dual automatic climate control and a 4.2-inch LCD screen in the gauge cluster. For $30,795, you can add the Premium Package:

It includes a panoramic sunroof, 17-inch wheels, navigation system, backup camera, premium stereo, leather seats and auto-dimming mirrors.

Hyundai has confirmed that the hybrid will go on sale in January instead of December. This means Hyundai’s previously stated $1,300 federal tax credit no longer applies as the credit program expires Dec 31.

SOURCE: DriveOn

Honda Motor Co Ltd announced Dec 20, 2010, that it will start field tests of its electric vehicle (EV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) in Japan.

On the same day, the company showed prototypes of an EV based on the Fit minicar and a PHEV based on the Inspire sedan.

Honda announced a prototype of the EV and the platform of the PHEV at the Los Angeles Motor Show, which took place in November 2010. And the vehicles announced this time were their new versions designed for the Japanese market.

“For expanding the use of EVs, the balance between price and performance is important,” Honda President Takanobu Ito said. “It is still difficult to achieve the balance. But there may be markets in specific regions such as rural areas where there is no service station.”

Honda will conduct the field tests in Saitama and Kumamoto prefectures in Japan. For each field test, five EVs and five PHEVs will be used. And the company will conduct similar field tests in Torrance, the US, by using three EVs and three PHEVs.

It is also planning to conduct field tests in Stamford, the US, by using the “EV-neo” electric two-wheeled vehicle and the “Monpal ML200″ electric cart in addition to EVs and PHEVs.

“Though we have not determined a specific period of time for the tests, it will be about two years,” the company said.

In Saitama Prefecture, the vehicles will be tested in various areas depending on their characteristics. For example, in Saitama City, Honda will examine how the EV and the electric two-wheeled vehicle can be selectively used in the areas around train stations.

In Kumagaya City, Honda will test the “Park & Ride” system, which combines EVs, PHEVs and trains in the area around the Kagohara Station. In Chichibu City, the company will establish a system by using the Monpal.

This time, Honda also disclosed a charging station equipped with photovoltaic batteries developed by Honda Soltec Co Ltd. The station has a rapid charger manufactured by Kyuki Corp, a subsidiary of Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc, and three normal chargers manufactured by Nihon Unisys Ltd.

“Supposing that an EV travels 40km per day, we would like to supply electricity to four EVs by using only solar batteries,” Ito said.

As for charging technologies, Honda developed a system to monitor the use of chargers, etc in real time by using car navigation systems and smartphones. The system utilizes the company’s “Internavi Premium Club” telematics service, which uses a dedicated communication device equipped in the Fit.

Moreover, Honda mounted another communication device on vehicles to collect data on the use of automotive batteries.

SOURCE: TechOn

When Toyota unveiled its gasoline-electric Prius hybrid in Japan in 1997, car executives here scoffed that the car was little more than an expensive novelty. When Honda began selling the first hybrid in the U.S. market in 1999, the two-seat Insight was derided as cramped and impractical.

OPPOSING VIEW: Subsidies? Just say no

Eleven years later, more than 2 million Priuses have been sold worldwide, and there are about 1.5 million hybrids on the roads here, including models from the U.S. automakers. That’s still a tiny fraction of the 250 million vehicles in America, but they have helped cut gasoline use.

Now comes Round 2, as General Motors and Nissan begin delivering their first new electric cars to buyers amid some of the same sort of skepticism that dogged the early hybrids. Americans should hope the skeptics are wrong again.

The two new cars, due to be followed by models from other automakers, are promising fuel savers. The Chevy Volt can go 25 miles to 50 miles on battery power alone; after that a gasoline engine kicks in to power a generator for a total range of about 350 miles before fill-up or recharge. The more limited battery-only Nissan Leaf can travel an estimated 62 miles to 138 miles before it needs a recharge.

It’s easy to deride the new electric cars, just as it was the early hybrids. The batteries take hours to recharge, and when the Leaf is out of juice, it had better be at a plug. It presumably would be useful only to short-range commuters with no other need for the car. Both cars are small, though the Volt is no smaller than many sedans, and automotive writers say it’s as quick and responsive as a gas-powered car.

The biggest drawback, and the one critics have made much of, is the cost, and not just to buyers. The Volt lists for $41,000 and the Leaf for $33,000, so the federal government, eager to jump-start a market for electric cars, is helping with the sticker shock by shelling out up to $7,500 per car in tax credits for the first 200,000 cars an automaker sells.

There’s a downside to this. The tax code would be far better if it weren’t riddled with tax breaks such as this one. In addition, the tax credit spends money the government doesn’t have.

But those are bigger, more important issues in which the credit is a bit player. The benefit comes if electric-car technology gets cheap enough to stand on its own, providing a way to trim U.S. dependency on foreign oil, now two-thirds of our use, some of it from countries hostile to us. There’s plenty of skepticism, but the automakers are optimistic enough to invest in the technology, betting that rising oil prices will boost sales, as they did with hybrids.

One of the best arguments for tax breaks is that they helped get the hybrid market where it is today, along with gas prices and the fact that some states allowed hybrid drivers access to HOV lanes.

Those hybrid tax breaks have been phasing out as the law required — just as the tax breaks for electric cars are required to do. Electric cars must eventually live or die without government help.

As the writer of the opposing view argues, there are compelling arguments against the new cars — but there are equally compelling arguments against every other alternative to the status quo as well. Nuclear is too dangerous, coal too dirty, solar and wind too unreliable, offshore oil drilling too risky and so on.

But the most compelling argument is that the status quo — more and more foreign oil — is unsustainable. Electric cars might not be the answer, but they are an answer, and that makes them worth a try.

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