Is that the Toyota Prius? Is that a Honda FCX Clarity? No and no. This new arched white beauty is the 2010 Honda Insight. Read more after the jump!

While it looks a lot like the Toyota Prius (see below), it looks much better than the original version of the Honda Insight (see below) from the early part of this decade. The 2010 Honda Insight looks like a cross between its rival Prius and brother FCX Clarity (see below). The nose of the Insight is adopted from the FCX Clarity while the overall curves of the body resemble the Prius. With a $18,500 price tag, the Honda Insight is already more attractive than the Toyota Prius in my eyes. While the pictured Insight is still a concept vehicle, Honda has stated that the production version will retain 90% of the features of what you see above. Hopefully that unadopted 10% doesn’t include the extremely stylish wheels or the LED headlights. If the Prius were a woman, it would definitely be a cougar. It just looks older and more conservative. The Insight would be the newly-graduated sorority chick you’ve always dreamed of test driving but couldnt’ (mainly because it/she didn’t exist). Well, in about a year you can have your pick, and the sorority Insight will cost you less.

If the Insight is to sell well, it had better get at least 40mpg. For $18,500, I’m willing to take a slight hit in the MPG stat compared to the Prius (46 mpg). If it can get anywhere near the 70 mpg rating some Japanese sources stated, Toyota had better be worried. Even a 50 or 55mpg Insight would essentially give all the momentum Honda needs to takeover the hybrid market. The Prius is a very good complement to the Camry Hybrid and Honda should think about using the Insight to help sell a new Accord Hybrid. Let’s face it: the first Accord Hybrid was a joke. It got a bout the same fuel economy, was more powerful, an cost about 5 grand more. Folks aren’t buying Honda for the power. Honda’s game is to sell geat value and reliability. Leave Nissan to rev out excessively powered compact cars and let Lexus churn out performance “hybrids”. The base Accord also wasn’t as big as the current Camry. The new Accord, however, would make for a great base for a hybrid.

The white coupe in the very back is Honda’s value hybrid of the future. It most closely resembles the Honda CR-Z and could land at your local showroom floor in late 2010. The long, red rover in the middle is none other than the hydrogen fuel-cell Honda FCX Clarity which saw a limited release this summer in Santa Monica, California. Santa Monica is one of few cities nationwide that offers a large enough presence of hydrogen fueling stations. The Shell station I always go to is equipped with a hydrogen pump and flat panel TVs for each station. Unfortunately, I have yet to spot an FCX Clarity in the wild. At $600 a month for 3 years, it sure isn’t a cheap car to lease.

Please excuse me while I check my calendar to make sure it’s 2008 and not 1999. My science teacher in middle school used to drive a red Insight. That’s how boring the original Insight looked. No offense, Mr. Posada. In your defense, the first generation Prius looked worse than the Insight.

The current Prius (pictured above) is the standard for all future hybrids. $23,000 for 45mpg is a pretty snazzy deal. Hopefully the cost of hybrids will lower while the fuel economy increases as more hybrids hit the market.