Japanese carmakers, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. are still going green. All the while, GM and America’s car makers have their hands out.

In separate events -

Nissan announced it was redesigning its Cube subcompact in hopes of moving in on the Japanese fetish for small cars that save on the miles. Nissan will sell the car around the world, not just in Japan as before. North America will see the car in spring of ‘09 ad Europe will see their version later in the year. The price – $14,000ish.

Meanwhile – Honda is debuting a gas-saving drive support system for its hybrid Insight coming out next spring also. With the flip of a switch, the driver can:

  1. switch to Econ mode to ease the burden on the engine,
  2. extend the time of the “idling stop,” which halts the engine when the vehicle stops,
  3. incorporate a function that turns down the air conditioning,
  4. boost the efficiency of “regeneration”.

The Insight’s speedometer will indicate fuel conservation – green for high efficiency and blue for high fuel consumption. Problem that those in Japan can identify with – blue is green.

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