Dare to dream !

As of today, the only hybrid car available to Malaysians is the Honda Civic Hybrid, which used to cost around RM 162k. After the announcement of Budget 2009, the import duty has been removed and the excise duty has been reduced for hybrid cars…..this is to help promote the usage of hybrid cars and also to help boost the hybrid car market in Malaysia.

After the Budget 2009, the RM 162k Honda Civic Hybrid will cost around RM 120k. That’s quite a huge reduction and I personally feel that this will definitely help increase the sales of the model (Honda only sold 16 units since its launch in August 2007).

And just recently, Proton has suggested that they, too, will come out with a hybrid car – Gen 2 Hybrid.

Seems like the hybrid car industry is starting to show some promises in Malaysia….and that can only be good news for all of us since fuel price is not that cheap here (for now).

But will the price reduction really increase the sales rate of hybrid cars? Will the “discount” tempt a customer like me to buy a hybrid car?

It will, but not now. Here’s why.

• It is still very expensive. Not many people can afford a RM 120k car. Furthermore, people who really want to save petrol would normally go for cheaper and smaller cars.
• Possible future price reduction? The 16 person who’ve bought the car earlier must be feeling the “sting” now. And who knows, maybe after I buy this RM 120k car…it might be reduced again?
• Thus, brings us to the next point – no second hand value.
• It’s quite a new technology……..and a very new technology to Malaysians. CBU is good since it’s fully imported but I do have one doubt…….our local service centers, can they handle the maintenance and the servicing? Some of the Honda service centers cannot even handle normal cars like Civic and City (there ARE few very good ones…but the same question, can they handle the new technology’s maintenace?).
• Honda normally gives free service for 1-3 years. What happens after that? Will the service fees be very very expensive? I don’t think I dare to pass the Honda Civic Hybrid to a local mechanic for servicing.
• What if there’s a problem with the car? Do I have to import the parts all the way from Japan? Are the parts very expensive? And can the Honda mechanics here repair/replace those parts?

Those are few of the major concerns that I could think of. For myself, the fuel price now is not THAT BAD yet…not to the extent that it’ll convince me to spend RM 120k to buy a hybrid car.

Last but not least, I believe that hybrid cars will be quite popular in the future…but just like other trend setting stunt….the process will take a while. It’s not easy to ask us, the customers, to replace something (the cars with current technology) we’ve known for decades with something that we hardly know (the new hybrid technology).

But that’s just my opinion. What about you? Or is RM 120k still very expensive for you (it’s a fully imported CBU)? I know it is still quite expensive to me.

p/s…….. I’ve put Honda as an example here because they are the only car company with a hybrid model. Same will apply to Proton (if they managed to come out with GEN 2 Hybrid) and Toyota (I thought I’ve heard from somewhere that they are planning to come out with a hybrid model as well?).

p/s…….. some of the information above was retrieved from here – “Slow start seen for hybrid cars“