[elhigh]

According to Wikipedia, the first gen Insight sold for about $19K, which is crazy steep for an unfamiliar two seater economy car in North America. Honda may have sold it at a loss, but there was no subsidization coming from the government.

Derating the price at 80% as you have done yields a per-piece actual value of $23,600 - not far from where the price stands now, which makes sense considering Honda has gained considerable experience and expertise with the materials, economies of scale as the market has expanded, etc.

Your numbers are not making sense. If you looked it up in an old buyer's guide, I would strongly suggest you corroborate those numbers with another source. It looks like a simple typo to me, a 4 that should be a 1 - if that's the case, then your Insight example should cost $18,990, which would be exactly in line with North American prices, which at the time I think would have been almost the same as Australian prices.