Insight, Shortsight (Honda Insight SE)

Member Name: upton66

Product:	Honda Insight SE
Date:	21/07/09 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonable economy

Disadvantages: Major design faults

I had the opportunity for an extended test drive of the new Honda Insight, use of it over a long weekend. I drove down to Devon and back from London, so it had a fair test of different roads, traffic, driving styles and conditions.

I do already own a Honda Civic Hybrid so have had experience of the hybrid technology for the last three years, so I could put that experience to use on this vehicle. So the Insight is actually Honda's second modern hybrid vehicle to reach the UK.

List prices are now from £15,990 to £18,990 for the top of the range with all the gizmos. It is cheaper than the Civic Hybrid at £17,990 to £20,450 but I think has missed a great opportunity to compete head on with the new Toyota Prius, which is priced from £18,390 to £23,280

To me there are two disastrous design faults that mean I would never consider it or recommend it. The rear view is dangerously obstructed by the strut between the two halves of the split rear windscreen. The other is that no one much over 5ft 10in can sit upright in the rear seat without sitting with their neck bent to one side, the head room is ridiculously bad, all for the sake of giving the car the fancy design of a sloping rake towards the rear.

The rear view visibility is serious, if a car behind is at a certain distance and same relative size as the strut then it just disappears. The dealer rather alarmingly said, well you only really use the rear view mirror for parking anyway!

Driving position is just right, sitting quite high on a comfortable snug seat, excellent all round front visibility, corner posts not too thick and aided by huge wing mirrors that do not distort rear view estimate of distances behind. Plenty of legroom for both driver and passenger. Legroom in the back is worse than some charter aircraft. Plenty of adjustment in the front seats with lumbar support adjustment for the driver, (don't understand why they can never give front passengers the same adjustment).

Being a hatchback gives you the flexibility most of us now take for granted, versus the Civic Hybrid, which is a saloon. Quite good space with the seats down and not too high tailgate for lifting bags over.

Small thing - they have similar door locks to my Civic. I tend not to lock the doors when driving because in an emergency, to push the fiddly knobs with no grip I guess would be next to impossible when in a panic.

The high level speed indicator is good, a good discipline for those not used to one, it does make you more aware of your speed without having to take your eyes off the road, though is quite small. A good point is that it glows green as you drive more economically and red when less so. The rev counter is the main feature of the main dial together with the automatic gear position indicator (Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Slow) that illuminate with your current gear position. The petrol level indicator is to the right and the battery charge vs assist indicator to the left.

Driving feels like any mid size car, good road holding, feels stable, pleasantly quiet, nice seats, and it goes and should never give you any problems because it's a Honda, renowned for build quality and reliability.

Those who are not used to the hybrid technology will notice three main differences from an all petrol car. When accelerating, especially up hills, the combination of the relatively small engine, only a 1.4, and the extra drive from the electric motor push the car into high revs which make for a pretty raucous sounding strain on the engine, no problem but no doubts critics would find this a problem and say it is vastly under-powered. Next difference is if you gently decelerate with the intention of stopping, the engine cuts out at 8mph and effectively goes into freewheeling, which can be alarming for the un-initiated. The other novel feature is that this engine cut-out is pleasantly quiet and relaxing when driving in traffic, and gives the eco-friendly driver that feel-good factor (apparently, according to the adverts), the engine hardly noticeably fires up again when you take your foot off the foot-brake.

I believe the Toyota Prius can be driven in electric mode only in town so long as the battery lasts, Honda have never gone for this ability. You can really only drive on electric only when on a flat road at steady speed, decelerating or only very, very gently accelerating, and of course when coasting below 8mph.

There is knack you learn to improve your economy which is to reach your desired speed, anything up to 70mph (or more if you are so inclined) and then just, only just, lift your foot off the accelerator pedal to maintain speed, this engine to electric on and petrol off. With this technique we can get 65mpg plus fairly regularly on long drives and have reached a record of 70mpg on a long flat, warm weather drive over about 150 miles in my Civic Hybrid. Basically all cars including Honda Hybrids are more economical out of town rather than in-town. Only because of the constant stop-start and need to accelerate. I have no experience of the Toyota Prius as to whether the opposite is true.

The really annoying feature Honda harp on about is the Insight's "Multi Information Display". This potentially more interesting and useful indicator is relatively small and low down over the rev counter. Whilst the useful parts are odometer, trip meter, miles till next fill-up, outside temperature, current mpg etc etc the choice to display these is interspersed with all the absurd eco options. You switch between them with one of the four sets of steering wheel controls.

To me the classy elements of the car are blown away by this childish idea of growing bloody trees and building an eco score. Concentrating on watching trees grow and adding leaves or watching a bar move to the left or right to reflect your acceleration skills is madness. To help you in general there is the ECON button, but being an overall fairly economical car why would you turn it off.

The heating controls are the largest feature on the dashboard, but strangely split between a huge dial for temperature control and buttons for front, rear, footwell, windows etc but then a smaller separate display with internal temperature and the a/c button.

Radio/CD controls, cruise control and blue-tooth mobile phone controls are steering wheel based, together with the usual sticks for lighting and windscreen wipers. The satnav on the car I drove is well placed, but to insert CD's you dropped this down and inserted them in a single slot behind, before pushing the satnav back up into position - strange, but maybe that is normal. Another oddity is the cable to plug in a music player using an usb cable looks like an after-thought - it is actually a loose wire emerging and lying loose under the front armrest.

On the 500 mile weekend trip we achieved an overall average 62mpg. That was extensive 70mph motorway driving, a few main road traffic hold-ups and a lot of hills around north Devon. Certainly that is nothing startling but this was with making every effort to drive as economically as possible using my experience of already driving a Honda hybrid car. I had the incentive to drive it economically as possible as they gave me a free full tank of petrol and I got there and back without having to fill it up! Surprising my mpg figure was almost spot-on with the manufacturer stated mpg of 62.8mpg for this top spec car on the extra urban cycle.

As this was only a loan car for a short time I can't comment on ongoing economies. However based on the fact that you should up to an additional 20 miles per gallon over the some petrol cars, only £15/year car tax (going down to £10 from April 2010) and it being only a 1.4 engine it should be cheap to insure. From experience servicing at Honda garages is not un-reasonable at around £150

Would I buy it? - no, for the rear-view visibility problem and lack of headroom and legroom for rear passengers.

I do prefer my Civic Hybrid or the Jazz.

Summary: Good effort, but missed opportunity

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