Honda Aiming For New Insight Hybrid Sedan Price Under $20,000 - Reuters

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co said on Thursday it wants to price the new Insight -- its first real attempt at selling gas-sipping hybrid cars in big volumes -- below $20,000 in the U.S. market.

Japan's No.2 automaker on Thursday priced the new dedicated gasoline-electric car to start at 1.89 million yen ($21,140) in Japan, where the car goes on sale on February 6 ahead of other markets. It had said in the past the selling price elsewhere would depend on exchange rates. "We want to sell it for below $20,000," Executive Vice President Koichi Kondo told a news conference to launch the car.

The Insight, a production version of which debuted at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last month, will have listed highway/city mileage of 40/43 miles per gallon in the United States. Honda has said the five-door, five-seater Insight, which it is marketing as the first model under a new "Honda Green Machine" campaign, was its first true attempt to mass-market hybrid cars.

"Along with the Accord and Civic, we are positioning the Insight as a global car," CEO Takeo Fukui said in Tokyo, repeating Honda's aim to hybridize about one-tenth of its car sales by 2015.

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