I love the changes that Honda made to the new Civic Hybrid and think it's a great car. However, I believe that Honda is creating a shortage for their vehicles so they can sell at MSRP. Every dealer stated that Honda is not making enough of them and that is what they do. They did the same thing with the Odyssey when it came out. The Gov. gives tax breaks so consumers can afford to go green and then the dealers exploit this and charge top dollar explaining that the tax discount will be your discount. Boys and girls the Civic is a nice car but it's not worth 22,700 for a base car, imho. Some dealers are charging fees on top of that to bilk even more money from our pockets. In less that a year there will be 14-15 hybrid cars to choose from. It'll be interesting to see if the Civic is still selling at MSRP. I just have a hard time swallowing the cost for a civic when I can buy an regular Accord for about the same price or a Maxima. In NY my wife can get into the HOV lane or I wouldn't even consider the Civic. Does anyone agree.

 

I don't think it's a rip-off (although, I do agree with your frustrations) but I do see it as demand/supply. There's a cross-over point in which producing MORE of an item raises it's production costs. Perhaps, and I'm not saying this is the case, Honda is operating at their "equilibrium" production/cost and the public just wants more than they can produce? Look up the cost of guns versus butter on the internet. You'll get a good explanation of what I'm talking about.

 

I don't think this is the case. For one thing, Honda doesn't own the dealerships. The dealers pay a flat fee for the cars, not a percentage of what the final sale price is. So Honda doesn't care whether the dealers are getting MSRP or not.

My guess is that its not as easy for them to scale up production on hybrids as much as we would like (I've heard the big bottleneck is the battery manufacture), and they're probably afraid of making too many civic hybrids only to have them sit on the lot as people decide that its better to just buy a non-hybrid civic, or decide they want a hybrid but they'll go for an Accord or Explorer or whatever. I'm sure they don't want to make too many HCHs and have them sitting on a lot somewhere.

 

The new Chevy Impala starts at 20,600 or thereabouts. And the Prius routinely goes for near 27 or 28,000 when you start to get into those option packages usually purchased on each car starting at option 3 or above.

Looking in the newspaper, Ford Expeditions are selling for like 8000 off of MSRP and smaller cars arent budging much on price ( in Houston.) A visit to the Honda lots show a handful of newly delivered non-hybrid civics, a Fit or two, no civic hybrids, and 100s of everything else.

The other hybrid released models and many of the soon to be released hybrids dont get very impressive gas mileage. I do believe that eventually GM will have a competitive hybrid.

Until the past year or two, hybrids and Fuel Efficiency werent a major emphasis like now, and production lines take some pre-planning that can take 3-4 years to introduce a model and volume.

So how much is 50 MPG and less time looking for gas stations and a whole lot less pollution worth to you...or me??

Well, the answer for me is a whole lot. The car is underpriced clearly in its market. Its comfortable, reasonably quick, looks decent, somewhat spacious ( about a BMW 3 series side to side and front to back) and kicks butt on fuel efficiency. Honda doesn't even fully realize what they have yet. When they set up a plant in the US and start churning them out, there will be more volume.

 

Honda has always been-good,many say too good-at matching supply to demand.Same story with the Civic and Accord in the early 80's;same with the 1st "good' Odyssey in 2000;same with the Pilot. Consumers want them, they don't see many on the lots, the dealers take advantage by showing "waiting lists" etc.However, there is usually one on the lot, and you usually don't see a line of folks with $22000 stuffed in their pockets waiting in line.
Widen your search.A new HCH went for $21087 on Ebay last week.It was in Ohio,I forget the name-search finished auctions $20000-$22000.Ohio has quite a few Honda discounters;I searched there a couple of years back for my Pilot.Luck,Charlie

 

There aren't any on the lots in San Antonio, Houston, and Austin right now, the waiting lists exist and the cars are pre-sold, often going for above sticker one way or another. There are TONS of folks in Houston with 22K "stuffed" in their pockets wanting the car. I doubt it will be that way in a couple of years however.

You can get a Prius much more easily though. Your analogy is correct for the higher volume Prius.

Cars on Ebay....hmmm.

 

The Hybrid is by no means a "base car" anyway. That would be the not a Hybrid Civic DX. The Hybrid is an EX without the sun roof, but with automatic climate control and a spoiler. I was going to get either the EX or the Hybrid. Was always thinking more on the hybrid, but thought it would be too expensive. Turns out the Hybrid was cheaper than the EX. There's no sales tax on Hybrids in Connecticut where I live and bought my car. That's 6% extra on 22400 that I didn't have to pay. I'd have had to pay the 6% on the 19000 and change EX. Then there's that nice Federal tax credit. I'll get most or all of my Fed taxes I'll pay this year back because of it. And the Hybrid has the spoiler I wanted that I'd have had to add on the EX. And then there's the modest fuel savings. Probably nor more than 500 per year, but hey it's 500 more than I had. Add 'em all together and the Hybrid was worth it. Buy the car in a state which also rewards drivers who buy Hybrids, and all of a sudden, the Hybrid may be more cost effective after all. Assuming you want the EX model level, of course. The DX and LX are still cheaper than the Hybrid even with the tax breaks.

 

There is no way to prove if the shortage is cause or effect.

You can believe whatever you want to believe.

It gets around to what kind of person you are.

 

phoebe: I saw that auction go off on Ebay. In my area the car is going for 22,700 without Nav. You have to be careful with dealers. I wonder if he will try to throw on a destination fee, document fee, etc. If there wasn't any hany panky then someone got a nice discount. I have a dealer in Upstate NY who quoted me 23,700 with Nav which is a good price for my area.

 

Don't you just love capitalism?!?