Honda Motor Co. wants to challenge the eco-supremacy of the Toyota Prius and bring hybrids to the masses with the dirt-cheap gas-electric Insight hatchback it unveiled today at the Paris Motor Show.

Honda isn't saying what the Insight will cost when it rolls into showrooms next spring, but it's widely expected to go for as little as

$18,500 and no more than $20,000. That's significantly cheaper than the

Prius, which starts at 22 grand but goes for an average of $26,672 when you can find one. "This new Insight will give more people the chance to get behind the wheel of a high-quality hybrid vehicle," Tekeo Fukui, Honda's president and CEO, said in Paris.

Although the Japanese automaker was the first to sell hybrids in America when it rolled out the original Insight in 1999, it's been choking on Toyota's dust since the Prius arrived in 2001. The green set has bought more than 1 million of them, and Toyota holds 79 percent of the global market for gas-electric vehicles. Honda bets it can get a bigger piece of that pie by taking hybrids into what Fukui called "a new era of affordability." Considering Toyota can't build the Prius fast enough to meet demand, auto industry watchers expect Honda to clean up by undercutting its competition.

"Anyone who says 'We've got a car that does what the Prius does and it's several thousand cheaper' will sell every car it builds," Aaron Bragman, an industry analyst with Global Insight told Wired.com. "People will beat a path to their door."

For all the attention they get, hybrids are still just 3 percent of the domestic market. Their relatively high price is one reason they've been slow to catch on, Mike Omotoso of J.D. Power and Associates told Wired.com. The Insight could provide the price breakthrough the technology needs to take off.

"The new Insight is a good idea for Honda and for the hybrid market in general," he said. "It undercuts the Prius by about $5,000 and is within reach of the average car buyer, especially in these tough economic times."

Honda says the car it unveiled in Paris is just a concept, but the production model we'll see at the Detroit Auto Show in January is not expected to look significantly different. The Insight bears more than a passing resemblance to the Prius – although the front end was clearly inspired by the FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle, the general shape is reminiscent of the car Honda hopes to unseat as the darling of the eco-conscious set. That is, to a certain degree, unavoidable, as General Motors discovered while designing the Chevrolet Volt. Aerodynamic efficiency is the name of the game when going for maximum fuel economy, and the laws of physics and aerodynamics give designers only so much leeway. Still, the Insight has sharper lines and a more aggressive look than the Prius, and it isn't so funky as the car it's named for.

"The new Insight should do a lot better than the original because it will look more like a normal car and less like a toy, and it will be bigger, more comfortable and more powerful," Omotoso said.

Look for it to do better than the Civic and Accord hybrids, which looked just like their gasoline counterparts but for the small "hybrid" badges on their rear ends. One reason the Prius has out-sold Honda's hybrids four to one is because it all but screams, "I care about the environment!" Honda executives have said the company reevaluated its strategy of building hybrid versions of existing models and decided a dedicated model would sell better.

The Insight, like all of Honda's hybrids, uses a "mild" hybrid system where the primary source of power is a gasoline engine assisted by an electric motor. The Prius, on the other hand, is a "full" hybrid system that uses battery power at low speeds and switches to gasoline at higher speeds. Honda hasn't released any specifics on the Insight's drivetrain or performance but says it will use a 1.3-liter gasoline engine an an updated version of the Integrated Motor Assist system found in the Civic Hybrid. Like Toyota, Honda is sticking with nickel-metal hydride batteries because it doesn't think lithium-ion technology is ready for prime-time. No word yet on fuel economy, but Honda says it's expected to top the Civic Hybrid's 45 mpg. That puts it in the same ballpark as the Prius, which gets 48 mpg city/45 highway, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Insight will arrive in showrooms on April 22 – Earth Day – and Honda expects to sell 200,000 of them annually.

Photos and video by Honda.

Post updated 2 p.m. PST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKLlN7E9Wms