Honda's Insight has scored over Toyota in Japan's ongoing hybrid car battle. The Insight, billed as the cheapest gas-electric car on the market, ranked as the top-selling vehicle in Japan for April - the first time a hybrid has clinched the top spot.

Honda Motor Co has pitched the Insight as an affordable hybrid, though such vehicles carry a bigger price tag than gasoline engine cars. The Insight starts at 1.89 million yen ($19,000) in Japan, where it went on sale in February, and $19,800 in the US, where it is starting to arrive in showrooms.

Honda sold 10,481 Insight cars in April in Japan, according to data released today by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.

That marked the first time a hybrid model was Japan's monthly best-seller, excluding minicars limited to an engine size of up to 660 cc, Honda said. "The all-new Insight has been very well received by a wide range of customers due to its excellent environmental performance, easy-to-use packaging, light and comfortable driving and affordable pricing," the Tokyo-based car maker said.

But Honda will face tough competition from a revamped version of the world's top-selling hybrid, the Prius, from rival Toyota Motor Corp. The revamped Prius is set to be introduced next week and Toyota executives have made clear they are aware of the challenge from the Insight.

Toyota is expected to be aggressive with its pricing, although the Prius is a bigger car than the Insight and would be expected to carry a higher price tag.

Japan has been no exception in seeing its domestic auto market languish because of the global slowdown and credit crunch. But interest in ecology-friendly cars is growing because of government incentives for green technology.

Advertising wars
With sales of hybrid vehicles actually shrinking, a green-advertising battle is erupting between Toyota's Motor's new Prius and Honda's new Insight.

Beginning on Monday, Toyota, the world's largest auto maker, is rolling out a major US ad push for its 2010 Prius, the third generation of the world's top-selling hybrid vehicle. The car hits dealerships in the coming weeks.

The Prius television ads - heavy on the special effects - feature a utopian landscape made entirely of people; the sun, clouds and ocean are depicted by humans moving in unison. The new slogan: 'Harmony between man, nature and machine'.

The Prius campaign also will deploy some outdoor-marketing gimmicks, including transforming certain bus shelters in cities such as Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles into cooling stations that use solar panels to power fans. It's a way to demonstrate how solar panels on the Prius's 'moon roof' keep the car cool. However, it makes no mention of the car's price.

In another of its outdoor gimmicks, Toyota will head to some big parks, where it will set up 8- to 12-foot-tall flower sculptures equipped with solar panels that can be used as cellphone and laptop recharging stations. In August, the company will have billboards in California made of flowers.

Toyota's ad push will go head to head with a campaign for the Insight. Honda has been blanketing the airwaves with ads since March. Its pitch carries the slogan 'A hybrid for everyone', an allusion to the price, which is just under $20,000. The Prius is more expensive, with a starting price of $22,000, unchanged from the base price for the 2009 model.

Moreover, the allure of hybrids has waned with the decline in oil prices. Prius sales have fallen about 50 per cent from 1 January to 30 April. It's a change from last summer, when consumers were clamouring for fuel-efficient cars as gas prices topped $4 a gallon. And for all their earth-friendly cachet, hybrid cars represent only 2 per cent of the light-vehicle market, according to IHS Global Insight.