It seems like every day there are new headlines about automakers closing plants, losing sales, and shutting down dealerships. Still, about every other day, we here about another new economy car breaking even optimistic sales targets and getting huge amounts of pre-orders.

In the case of the 2010 VW Polo that certainly makes sense. Back when the VW Polo was still on sale in Europe is was easily one of the most desirable cars in the world. It was ahead of its time with great diesel fuel economy, a start-stop system, and overall attention to economy first and everything else second.

Unfortunately VW kicked it out of the lineup, but like so many other cars these days (think Insight, Fiesta…) it is making a comeback to combat fuel prices and dwindling crude supplies.

To that end VW has already secured 13,000 pre-orders for the new Polo, which will come with 7 different engine options and a 7-speed DSG transmission. The BlueMotion version is the most fuel efficient model and was rated at 62 mpg (US) in the European test cycle.

Source: ABG

About six months ago, we ran a story on the persistently strong resale values of most hybrid vehicles. However, like many things in this economic climate, even that has come to change. It stands to reason that as less people buy new cars there will be less of a premium put on used cars with prices nearly that of new cars, but gas prices have also been a factor.

According to the KBB prices have all but plummeted:

Used hybrid values are down 23.5% since their peak last summer, says Juan Flores, director of vehicle valuation for Kelley Blue Book. Just since the beginning of 2009, they’ve fallen 4.5%, while used vehicle prices overall are going up as more buyers opt for used over new.

With wallets tightening and gas prices nearly half of what they were last summer, this is to be expected. However, no one expects gas prices to stay low, so it may be in your best interest to take advantage of the buyer’s market to scoop up some deals before prices go back up when demand increases.

Recently, we talked about how the hybrid Honda Insight was beating sales expectations in Japan. As far as orders are concerned, that hasn’t changed, with Honda taking in over 15,000 orders in a month when they wanted only to sell 5,000 cars.

Unfortunately for Honda, they could only deliver on 4,900 of these vehicles, meaning they missed their goal slightly, but are still on track to exceed sales expectations with ramped-up production.

However, for the first time ever, Honda sold more units of its Insight in Japan than Toyota did of its Prius. The Prius sold just a few more than 4,500 units in February in Japan, a sales decline of 20% from last year.

While it’s true that many people will be waiting for the third generation Prius to hit the market, it’s obvious that the Insight has gotten off to a strong start.

Source: Treehugger