[ericbecky]

Is anyone going to the Honda Insight gathering in Anaheim, CA? It sure seems tempting, although it would be a week-long excursion for me, coming from the mid-west.

[HybridDriver]

Went, saw, kicked A$$. About 44 Generation I Insights showed up, all in one lot. All looked brand new, even though many were close to 10 years old. You would have thought it was a dealer's sales lot. The public just walking through wanted to buy them! Had to explain they were out of production, and had been for some time. I wonder if Honda of North America ever had 44 in one place before. Probably not! CooL!

It was also the product launch of the new Insight II.

[hongjingjingxzb]

Hybrid car sales are falling in the San Francisco Bay Area, a key market and a bastion of environmental consciousness. After peaking in 2007, they were down 36% last year and haven't perked up. Of course, the weak economy could factor in that as well.Gasoline prices are generally stable at less than $3 a gallon in much of the country, mitigating a lot of cocktail party boasting about how many miles per gallon a particular car gets. And the word is out that even higher mileage electric cars are just over the horizon, with the first due to go on sale by the end of the year.
But the hybrid sales issue could be bad news for automakers such as Hyundai, which is about to launch a hybrid version of the Sonata sedan, or Infiniti, which has a hybrid M class on the way.