2009 Honda Insight SE. How does cheapest Hybrid stack up? (Honda Insight SE)

Member Name: Steve80

Product:	Honda Insight SE
Date:	19/05/09 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fuel economy, low tax band, comfortable

Disadvantages: Engine has to work hard on motorways, poor visibility out of rear window

Honda Insight SE

On the Road Price : £15490

The new 2009 Honda Insight is the first of Honda's new Eco range of cars to go on sale in the UK, with the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car, and CRZ hybrid sports coupe not available until 2010.
The Insight has come into the Hybrid sector of the car market which has been dominated in recent years by the Toyota Prius. So does the Honda have what it takes to take on every Eco drivers favourite, the Prius?

Looks:
On first impressions the Insight is quite a hansom car, and although many of the styling features on the car have been around for a while, it still manages to look fresh.

The front end is virtually the same as the FCX Clarity, the rear end harks back to the classic Honda CRX coupe of the 1980s, which is no bad thing, but the side profile is almost exactly the same as the Toyota Prius. However given it's similar profile to that of the Prius, the Insight is the much better looking car, it's lower and sleeker.

The 15 inch alloys fitted to the SE model although not very sporty looking, don't look out of place and fit in with the look of the car very well.

Interior:
The first thing that the eye is drawn to upon entering the car is the large rev counter with it's LCD information display which is eye catching to say the least. The multi function steering wheel will be very familiar with modern Honda drivers and is good to hold. You soon notice that all the major controls are directed at the driver which gives you the impression of being cocooned in a cockpit, much like the Civic, although not quite as extreme. It all looks very attractive and the switches and controls have a nice feel to them too.

However over on the passenger side of the car you get two air vents and a glove box, and lots of cheap looking plastic. I'm glad I'm going to be driving the car as it's quite a boring sight for any passenger in the Insight.
Passengers in the back have plenty of room, although anyone over 6 foot 2 may feel a bit cramped, and the seats are very comfortable too. The middle seat also has a proper 3 point belt.

Finally the boot. The Insight is a Hatchback and has a very useful 408 litres of boot space which is increased to 584 litres with the rear seats folded flat, and considering the hybrid battery pack is located behind the rear seats it doesn't effect the practicality of the boot as much as you might think. There is also very useful storage under the boot floor too.

Driving:
Now for the important part. What's it like to drive and just how economical is it in the real world.
Now for a few years I have always thought that people who buy Hybrid's were just trying to make a statement rather than make an effort to be green. I have read reports of the Prius only being able to deliver 45mpg in the real world which is vastly down on it's 65mpg official figures. I always said that people would be far better off with a small diesel Hatch. So I already had negative thoughts about this Insight before I got in it.
I started the engine and was greeted with a nice green tree symbol in the top left of the instrument display. This told me that the car was in Eco mode. This mode detunes the engine slightly and prevents the engine from using the higher end of its rev range. But even in this Eco mode, I was immediately impressed with the drivability. Despite having only an 88bhp 1.3 litre petrol engine and a 14hp electric motor, the Insight felt surprisingly nimble in town traffic. It always impressed me with how quickly it seemed to get up to 30mph, and lets face it, with real world every day driving this is far more important than 0-60mph figures. The electric motor gives the Insight a good dollop of torque when you need it too.

The first seven miles of driving in the Insight was in heavy stop start traffic, lots of traffic lights, roundabouts and junctions to negotiate, and in this sort of environment the Insight was in its element. The CVT gearbox is very smooth and your left leg doesn't have the heavy workload of a manual car in such conditions. It was actually quite relaxing.

The other thing that immediately impressed me was the Insight's Idle Stop system. It works very much like Stop Start in other cars where the engine cuts when you come to a stop. But in the Insight the engine switches off when the speed drops below 10mph, so you can cruise to a stop at a set of traffic lights with the engine already off and not burning fuel. In other cars fitted with Stop Start, you have to have come to a complete stop and put the car in neutral with the hand brake on before the engine turns off. Then all you have to do to fire the engine back up is to release pressure on the footbrake, and no matter how fast I tried to get my foot from the brake pedal to the accelerator, the engine was up and running and ready to go.
After about seven miles of this kind of driving I found the screen on the rev counter that shows you your average mpg. I just couldn't believe my eyes! In these stop start driving conditions which normal cars would be burning fuel at an alarming rate, I'd averaged 88mpg!

All of a sudden this car started to make very good sense. I then moved the display to the "tree" display which shows you how economical you have been driving. When I started all five trees were bare, but now all five trees had grown leaves! Now I know this is all a bit gimmicky, but I found myself feeling really pleased with myself. So then I started to really pay attention and try to drive as economically as possible to see just how high I could make the mpg go. You have help from the speedo too which glows green when you are not using much fuel, but starts to glow dark blue when you put your foot down. I got really good at just stroking the accelerator pedal which helps you to keep moving with just the use of the electric motor, and every time you lift off, the battery packs get recharged.

My town driving came to an end at a roundabout with a long stretch of duel carriageway ahead. A quick glance at the mpg readout, 89.7mpg!
For the rest of my time in the car I put it into Sport mode and turned the Eco button off. I then did 70 miles of duel carriageway, fast twisty B roads and a bit of town driving. I really tried not to drive the car economically, with hard acceleration and later braking, and the mpg figures soon started to tumble. By the end of my drive, despite my best efforts to kill all the trees on my little screen, the car still managed to average 56 mpg. This was much better than I had expected.

Also on the twisty stuff I felt the car handled rather well. It did feel a bit top heavy, but it didn't roll or wallow too much in the corners. The steering although lacking in feel, was light, precise and quick to react. A bit more feel would have been nice though.

When driving the car hard the engine with its CVT gearbox is quite noisy and drones a bit. It's under this type of driving conditions that you really do notice that you only have about 100bhp. The engine has to work hard to keep the pace up. On Motorways, although it can cruise at 70mph quite happily, any uphill gradient also asks a lot from the engine.

So to sum up. If more than 70% of you driving is in built up areas then the Insight makes a lot of sense. Easily more the 70mpg and it will keep pace with traffic no problem. It's comfortable and relaxing to drive, and practical too.

Although it can achieve around 50mpg on a motorway, this is where diesel is still King. Most average sized modern diesels can better 60mpg on a long motorway run, and with the torque a diesel produces, uphill sections of the motorway are no problem and overtaking is a breeze. So if you do a lot of motorway miles then diesel is still the way to go.

Other benefits to the Insight are £15 per year road tax, and 10% company car tax.
I have been completely won over by the Insight, it has performed so much better than I ever though it would, and considering that the vast majority of my annual mileage is spent doing short journeys in towns during busy times of the day the Insight makes a lot of sense, and you can quite happily drive it in Eco mode 99% of the time, as lets face it, how often to you actually get to drive along a fast twisty road without being stuck behind a tractor, caravan or grandad in his Honda Jazz!

Stats:
Model driven - Honda Insight SE
Standard Equipment includes:
15" alloys
ABS, EBD, Brake Assist
Front, side and curtain airbags
Electric adjustable, heated and folding door mirrors
Automatic Climate Control
Front Central Arm Rest

Summary: Great car for people who do mostly urban driving, 70mpg+

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