Elantra LPG-hybrid!

[niky]

Yup... retail is somewhere in the 1.6 million peso range, exclusive of government duties... duties which all cars above 700k pesos have stuck to them, anyway.

For "green" fleets, taxi services might want to look at the Accent, which starts at around 600k (with fleet discounts) and consumes very little diesel. Compared to the Prius, it's a tinny little thing, but if economy is all that matters...

But... the government has a poor record of backing alternative fuels... look at all that they've sunk into CNG, and the refueling architecture never took off, leaving the early adopters (bus companies) with dozens of white elephants on wheels... where LPG, which hasn't been promoted by the government, took off like wildfire.

Or their giving of tax rebates for hybrid parts for locally built hybrids... which hasn't exactly resulted in a boom of locally produced hybrids... Personally, I think they should be courting US start-ups in battery and ultracapacitor production to set up here... offer them tax-breaks if they'll sell their products to local producers at a low price. Some US operations are already setting up in China doing just this, providing high-tech electrical storage for Chinese electrics.

I was hoping Honda's Insight, with its promised $15k price tag, would finally bring hybrid technology in at near-mass-market levels, but as it's stuck at $19-20k US dollars, it's unlikely to ever sell here for less than 1.5 million pesos.

Which leaves us with diesels and LPG-hybrids... I wonder if Hyundai will bring it in... their diesel Elantra hasn't proven to be the hit that the Accent is (whether nobody is willing to pay the price for the indent units or they're having trouble getting stocks... I don't know)... maybe an LPG Elantra will be a bigger ticket, with a lower price.

But I doubt it. The Elantra already starts at 900k pesos for the basic model... where you can get a Sentra with an LPG kit for around 300k less.

[ghosthunter]

Or their giving of tax rebates for hybrid parts for locally built hybrids... which hasn't exactly resulted in a boom of locally produced hybrids... Personally, I think they should be courting US start-ups in battery and ultracapacitor production to set up here... offer them tax-breaks if they'll sell their products to local producers at a low price. Some US operations are already setting up in China doing just this, providing high-tech electrical storage for Chinese electrics.

Even with all the incentives the RP government can afford, we can't beat what China can offer. China offers both an industrial based to manufacture and a customer base of recently wealthy population who is more than willing to buy the latest consumer goods on the market including new cars.

I was hoping Honda's Insight, with its promised $15k price tag, would finally bring hybrid technology in at near-mass-market levels, but as it's stuck at $19-20k US dollars, it's unlikely to ever sell here for less than 1.5 million pesos.

The best we could hope for would the the Honda Civic EMA (i think it stands for electric motor assist) to hit our shores soon. Although not a true hybrid since it cannot run on solely on its electric motor, it offers most of the advantages (fuel economy) while costing less than a true hybrid.