Honda rewards Hybrid drivers with priority parking
May 8, 2009 by Matt Brogan
In a bid to reward environmentally conscious drivers, Honda is rolling out the red carpet for hybrid owners, providing priority parking at various high-traffic centres around the country.
Honda’s Hybrid Priority Parking is an Australian-first and will make its debut at Melbourne Central Shopping Centre in May, with plans for rollout at other locations in the coming months, including Sydney and Melbourne airports.
With Honda offering a range of Hybrid vehicles, the chance to reward drivers seemed a natural progression in Honda demonstrating its commitment to the environment.
“Honda is an industry leader in producing low emission vehicles, dating back to the original Civic in 1972 with its ultra-clean CVCC engine,” said Honda Australia’s Senior Director, Mr. Lindsay Smalley.
“Since then, Honda has introduced hybrid and natural gas powered cars all over the world and recently launched its 100 per cent emissions-free car, the FCX Clarity. Due to our long history in hybrid technology, it is only fitting that Honda is first to reward our hybrid drivers.”
Honda’s Hybrid Priority Parking will complement its Civic Hybrid display – on show at each location – and is available at Melbourne Central from Monday 11 May to Saturday 23 May.
Tags: Honda Hybrid
Well that won’t get abused!! What a waste of money, how many able bodied people do you see parked in disabled spots. Your going to need Hybrid Parking Police to stop V8 owners having a laugh and parking in these spots.
And the traffic cops will ignore it as its not a standard parking spot, and how are they to know if a car is hybrid or not… could be a Hybrid under the bonnet.. with no external indications .. I’m guessing more prius owners will be using these spots and pissing off honda hybrid owners haha
Waste of money “honda” … they are better off selling the car for less! then doing things like this
NOW I KNOW WHY HONDA AUSTRALIA JACKED UP PRICE AGAIN EARLY THIS MONTH. THEY NEED MONEY TO FUND THE PRIORITY SPECIAL PARKING SPOT FOR HONDA BYBRID.
Time to get some Hybrid rims for your Civic!
This is of course the great irony of hybrid car ownership. Trundling around the carpark the hybrid car is running purely on battery, while the rest are guzzling the fuel at higher than average rates trying to find that elusive parking space and manoeuvre in.
It would be lovely if they took the front row of parking out all together and let the bus stop there. Then we’d see who’s most environment concious.
I don’t think it’s specifically Honda’s doing, but in Sydney City’s Entertainment Center Carpark, they have some bright green painted hybrid spots to the right of just driving in the main entrance.
So while i struggle to find a parking spot at the malls in my tiny car – that consumes 6L/100Kms in the city; Hybrids like Lexus 4wd and bigger cars will be able to park in these spots even tho they consume more fuel than my car!
NICE!!!
In Aust, Honda has one Hybrid . honda Civic and even that does not live upto its claimed fuel average of 4.7L/100Kms … my friend usually gets 6-6.5L/100kms …
My 250cc motorbike uses less fuel than a hybrid. I should be able to part there too.
This is total s**t. Basically, they’re punishing people for driving something else. Why can’t Mini Ds have priority parking? They have lower Co2 and better economy than any Honda hybrid. With the added plus that they won’t make you look like a massive tw*t. When the Insight came along, I thought wow, finally something that is recognisable as a hybrid but isn’t as unnecessarily smug about it. Well, that’s just changed and as of now, I almost hate it as much as the Toyota Prius.
What would be better and also more typical Honda is if they had parking for cars of all brands that put out less Co2. So not only the Insight could park in there, but so could the Mini D, the Smart and others.
I just think this is extremely unfair, especially in a world where people in wheel chairs still have to go looking for a park sometimes and most diesels are greener than hybrids.
We should also get government funded schools to ban 4WDs from being parked in their carparks. Also, the government should force shopping centre owners to charge 4WDs 2x the parking fee of normal cars. Mwah ha ha ha ha!
Take that you evil 4WD monsters!
Hybrid cars are only marginally (or may be not) better for environment.
* It depends which country or which part: Countries who use coal to produce electricity –> Honda hybrid will produce green house gas as any other equivalent, just that it doesn’t do that through its ass
* Hybrid car owner tend to drive more (any research on the odometer on them vs others?) –> that’s my guess though.
* The battery production and disposal costs environment a lot
So I am disillusioned with these hybrid cars. It’s just another gimmick. (Well bring something that runs on wind and sun, then OK)
its easy to police this, ever noticed those little green diamond shaped ‘hybrid’ indicators labelled on the cars number plate? not dissimilar to that of the LPG powered vehicles..