Bloomberg. Honda begins selling the Accord hybrid in December and has a sales target of 20,000 units annually in the US. This should bring Honda’s total hybrid sales in the US to some 45,000 next year. Honda will build the Accord hybrid only in Japan.

Earlier in the year, Honda had said that the Accord hybrid would deliver better than 240 hp; now the company is getting specific. The hybrid version will deliver 255 hp, while increasing fuel economy 43% in the city, 23% on the highway. That works out to 30mpg /37mpg city/highway, or a combined 33mpg—even better than described in the G6 post below.

The Accord hybrid is also the first production hybrid to use cylinder deactivation, called Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) by Honda.

Honda may be underestimating the demand for the car; we’ll see if any pre-order momentum builds.

Toyota is tracking to sell some 50,000 Priuses in the US this year, and is boosting production to meet ongoing demand.