The new Honda Insight medium sized five door hatchback has price and size on its side. Not only is it cheaper than its main rivals, the Toyotas Prius 1.8 Hybrid and Honda Civic 1.3 Hybrid, it also has a pricing advantage over most conventional diesel powered ‘Eco’ models of a similar size.
There is the choice of VTi and VTi-L specifications and technically they are the same, petrol/electric hybrid power with a CVT automatic transmission. I tested both versions, preferring the VTi-L. It is highly ‘specced’ and the equipment levels are relatively high. These items range from Sat Nav to auto lights and wipers.
Being a roomy five-door hatchback means maximum load carrying options with a boot capacity of 408-litres or 584-litres with the rear seats folded.
The Insight has conventional Japanese domestic market car handling, comfortable on motorways but a bit sloppy and lazy on other road types. The suspension does not happily cope with the potholed and rippled roads found in Oz.
With an overall length of 4.4-metres it easy to drive and park although no parking sensors with a reversing camera in the VTi-L took a little getting used to. There is a steeply raked tailgate with the upper which annoyingly reflects the white lines on the road and lower rear windows divided by joining bar which limits rear visibility..
Honda’s IMA hybrid system is now over 10 years old – having made its debut in the original Insight back in 1999. IMA stands for Integrated Motor Assist, which means that an electric motor sits alongside the petrol engine it supports and in front of the CVT auto transmission.
The 1.3-litre petrol engine is new, but is based heavily on the old 1.4-litre unit. However, the really clever part happens during deceleration when combustion in all four cylinders is stopped and each pot is sealed shut. This means the engine is not working as hard to pump fuel or air, so it’s immediately more efficient.
The technology used to shut the cylinders, VCM (for Variable Cylinder Management), is also used to shut all four cylinders when only little torque is required – during low speed cruising for example. In this mode the Insight is powered by the electric motor only, with the pistons running idle.
On its own, the engine produces 72kW and 167 Nm of torque, but the key to hybrid systems is the support given by the electric motor that can help boost performance as well as keep emissions and fuel consumption to a minimum.
As well as a new petrol engine, the Insight gets a new, improved and more compact electric motor which uses coils with high-density windings and high-performance magnets to produce up to10Kw and 78Nm.
The recovery speed of the battery has also improved, meaning that with power from regenerative braking, it can charge more quickly and therefore deliver power to the electric motor more regularly.
When combined, the motor and engine produce enough performance for urban environments, with good throttle response but on the open road the acceleration is dull and the petrol engine noisy under load. Using a CVT transmission in a hybrid provides smooth and predictable gear transitions and helps keep the IMA system operating at its peak efficiency. The Insight reaches 100km from a standing start in 12.5 seconds, and has a top speed of 180km/h.
The instrument panel for the new Insight is crammed with informative dials, lights and a pictogram showing your economy after you have turned the motor off and pulled the key out.
Overall I managed average fuel economy for a week’s motoring was just over 5.0l/100km. If I was taking part in an economy run no doubt I could have achieved close to 3.3l/100km, but whom in real life drives like that. As with all cars it is the driver that really has the most influence over the final performance.
To assist the driver the background lighting for some of the instruments changes from blue to green as the car performs in a more fuel efficient manner depending on how the driver is behaving. Cleverly the Insight teaches the driver how to drive economically, but it is visually intrusive.
Best to press the ECON button and that assists with driving methods because it dials in a more fuel friendly setting for the air conditioning (stops cooling when the engine is off, so beware on hot days), it adjusts the throttle response to a softer setting and it will allow cruise control to be more natural, not keeping the car at the dialled in speed going up steep hills and letting it over-speed slightly going down hills. More like a real driver actually.
Some buyers, retail and business, perhaps some of advanced years, will find comfort in owning a hybrid and sending out the right message for them of eco-friendly motoring.
I am yet to be convinced hybrids are really much better than the latest sub 2.0-litre fuel efficient petrol and diesel engines when you consider the carbon footprint of just developing such hybrid technologies and the usage of some pretty nasty components that are needed to make batteries work.
However the Honda Insight doesn’t cost the earth.
Andrew Koch
