Blame the ongoing recession along with the fairly low gasoline prices at the pumps and strong competition from Toyota's revamped Prius hybrid, but Honda's execs are quite pessimistic about the prospects of the Insight meeting its 2009 U.S. market sales target of around 90,000 units. "Given some dramatic change in things, I don't think we'll get to 90,000. At 50,000 to 60,000, we will be just fine," American Honda Motor Executive Vice President John Mendel told Bloomberg news.

For its first year on the market, Honda has projected worldwide sales of around 200,000 units for its new dedicated hybrid model, with nearly half of those sales coming from the North American market. Despite the gloomy outlook in the U.S., Reuters reported that a spokesman in Tokyo said there has been no change in Honda's sales forecast for 2009.

In Japan, the Insight climbed to the top spot of the sales chart in April with 10,481 units but fell to third place in May with 8,859 cars after the domestic launch of the new Toyota Prius that finished first with 10,915 units registered.