I recently spent a few days in the new Insight. I drove about 420 miles in it, and covered all sorts of driving conditions. I have been wondering how to write this road test, because this car is like nothing else I have previously driven. It's unfair to dive into the conclusion (however tempting), because I don't want you to miss the positive elements.
So I have elected to divide up the car into good bits and bad bits. And the really bad bit. Then put together a conclusion and discussion of this interesting technology.
Firstly, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
Good Looks 
The Insight, in the flesh, is a pretty good looking car from the outside. Keep a few feet away and you'll get an old-Honda feeling from the rear and a modern-Honda feeling from the front. Despite obvious comparisons to the Pious, the Insight is less dumpy, lower and sleeker.
IMA The
IMA is satisfying. I wasn't sure how I would get on with this, but ultimately it seems to be a set of regenerative brakes. When you lift off the throttle, the
IMA motor/generator gently charges the battery. This adds an artificial engine braking effect (a bit more than you get in a diesel) but is just about right for normal traffic speed changes. And then when you brake, the generator uses all it's might to charge the battery. So you are coiling up a spring - saving your energy rather than wasting it. Accelerate again, and the battery power you have stored boosts the engine (a little) with the electric motor. The effect is small, you never get electric-only driving (well, below 50 mph you can press the throttle about half a millimetre and you can maintain a speed using electric-only, but the engine still runs so the only way to tell is by gazing at the gauges).
When the electric motor helps you out, you normally can't feel it. But when you accelerate from stationary to about 20, the car does pick up well and this is down to the instant torque of the electric motor.
Lights The car has projector headlights (albeit regular halogen) that work well. Maybe these will filter down on to regular Hondas.
Other The luggage space in the boot is sort of moderately OK, but clearly not as good as a regular hatch.
The steering wheel felt good in the hand.
Bad I'm not sure how to structure this, so I'll work from the front to the back.
Engine The engine. Where do I start? The engine is a wretched little 4 cylinder 1.3 that has been tuned to make an unpleasant grating/screaming noise. On top of this it sounds like it has a hole in the exhaust, and no air filter. It makes very little power, but it makes a whole load of noise. More than you can ever imagine. Much more even than the really loud road noise (road noise that makes a Civic feel like an S Class). Taking a peek under the bonnet, the offensive little thing is surrounded in no sound insulation, and if you look carefully at the bulkhead, you'll see no sound insulation there either.
The air intake in modern cars is silenced and ducted (normally into the front wing). The Insight has no such arrangement; just a single bit of rubber with an opening - inside the bonnet. It's like someone was going to finish the job, but got distracted. Revving the engine with the bonnet open showed that there is a lot of mechanical noise from the top of the engine and a bit of noise from this intake.
Transmission Honda have decided to use the
CVT (continuously variable transmission) on the Insight. As an engineer, this is always the dream solution. You demand an acceleration, and a computer sets a constant revs and throttle setting, and the car simply accelerates. So you can have maximum power all the time, or ride the torque curve as you accelerate - and there are no irritating gear changes to interrupt the flow.
Sadly, this does not suit the dismal engine in this car. The engine is quiet enough (but totally gutless) at very low revs, but as soon as you ask for some normal acceleration then the
CVT drives the revs right up and you have this seriously loud, awful wail fill the car. Think of this: get a 1978 Ford Fiesta 1.0. Make a small hole in the exhaust. Open the bonnet and all the windows. Start the engine, and while in neutral, floor the throttle. Stay like that until you can take no more. Welcome to the Insight!
Here's a video of the car accelerating on the motorway. There's already plenty of road noise at this speed, so the effect in the video seems less than in real life:
There are more problems with the drivetrain too. Because the revs languish at about 2,000 when you are holding speed, it takes a while for them to rise when you want to accelerate. It's like turbo lag on a massive scale, and makes overtaking a daunting prospect (and I'm thinking 30 mph tractor here). So Honda have fitted some flappy paddles.
You pull the "-" paddle and the revs jump up ready for the overtake. A little "gear" indicator displays a number, but of course this is all fake. So you jump the revs up, have a look, and.. Oh. The revs have dropped again after just a couple of seconds. It's back in Auto. So you have to sit there, constantly pressing the "-" button. Not clever.
After a while you realise that the only way forward in this car is slowly. The engine is so bad you just don't want to hear the banshee again, so you just dribble along at the speed of the slowest vehicle.
Brakes The issue here is the crossover between the
IMA recharge and the disk brakes. Initially as you slow down the
IMA does as much braking as it can. But at low speed the disks take over and the
IMA disconnects. This can be jerky, and occasionally the brake pedal can move around under your feet. Then, as you approach stationary, the engine turns off. Fine - this is "Auto stop", but you don't quite stop and then it almost immediately starts again, with a jerk. If you do stop, the engine remains off for a few seconds, then starts again. If you go when the engine is off, it starts with a small jerk but the
CVT makes a big clonk as you get going. The overall result is clonky and jerky progress.
Steering Most of this car is cheapened up Jazz running gear. But they made a special effort with the nastifying process for the steering. Anyone who has driven an old Jazz will know how poor the steering is - but the Insight is at a new level. Naturally it is dead, with not a single bit of feedback. The lack of self centering is annoying, fatiguing and sometimes dangerous. But the Insight has a new characteristic - a huge dead zone. So you can waggle the steering around and nothing happens. Or... the car moves naturally and you go to correct it but nothing happens. The result is constant steering, followed by a little anger and ultimately driver fatigue. It is one factor that makes the motorway such a nightmare (I'll come to the other one later).
Economy If this car did 70 mpg, then you could forgive it a couple of minor flaws. But I did 6 journeys of between 50 and 80 miles, on dual carriageways and motorways. At 70 mph (cruise off) I got 55, 56 and 52 mpg. In the Accord I get 57 mpg. With the cruise on (and the cruise oddly couldn't hold a speed to within 4 mph) it did 49 mpg. On the dual carriageway runs (slower, with roundabouts), I got 48 and 46 mpg. The trip computer when I picked the car up showed an average of 47 mpg over 2,200 miles. The same as a diesel, and worse than a new eco-diesel.
The car is fitted with a green Eco button. I soon discovered that this should be disconnected by the dealer. It made a poor car poorer, by breaking the air conditioning, crippling the engine power and torque and introducing a "smoothing" effect on the throttle. This was just more lag, on top of a lag-ridden transmission attached to a repulsive engine. Avoid the green button!
The car is fitted with a tiny fuel tank (8 gals), so you have a hopeless range. I can do 4 commutes in the Accord, but just 2.5 in the Insight.
Interior When you look around inside, things get worse again. I recently had use of a Kia Rio 3 - a cheap car that was no better in all departments than OK. But the £8k Kia had a better interior than the Insight (and better engine, steering, ride, power and more or less the same economy). The Insight plastics are spartan, hard and shiny. The design appears unfinished, with the satnav just thrown into a random space at a jaunty angle.
The seats are terrible - one shade of cheap cloth on a hard, badly shaped frame. An old Jazz is several leaps ahead in terms of quality and appearance. The new Jazz is ahead yet another step.
The door cards are thin and rattly and the A pillar is wide.
Look behind you (and you'll be doing that a lot) and you can see... well, not much really. The lower screen is obscured by a net, the middle bar obscures the whole queue of cars behind you, and the wiper keeps the upper screen clear so you can see a small section of sky.
The first picture is focussed on the bar, the second has a van in it.
Moving to the child seats in the rear you can see that the rear seats are as cheap and nasty in the rear as they are in the front. They are sitting on the fuel tank so are quite high - hence you can't get adults in the rear at all. Both me and my friend tester couldn't get our backs on the upright parts of the seat before our heads wedged against the roof.
The boot is half the size you'd hope for, because it's full of battery. But it's better than a Boxster.
Equipment The radio quality is even poorer than a Civic. Tinny, boxy and cheap.
Smugness I was going to write a long rant here about patronising displays. A speedo that glows different colours. A "well done" collection of trees at the end of a drive. A bad boy acceleration gauge. A glowing green tree on the dash and a green tree button. And a game of "growing" trees bit by bit.
I am not 5, and I have an IQ of more than 20. I'm sure you can imagine the rant.
Ugly Only one item here, and it's a biggy:
Suspension The car is astonishing. It is rock hard. So hard, your keys will jangle on a smooth motorway surface. So hard, you'll beg for the comfort of a Type R (I'm not joking now). It bounces and shakes and vibrates like it is suspended by bricks. Of course it's got more road noise than anything you have tried before, but that's irrelevant. Predictably it crashes over the tiniest of bumps, but again, that is a minuscule problem compared to the ride.
As you go down the road, everything is transferred to the cabin. My head shook constantly with the surface. About 5 Hz I reckon. And it's constant. My head also shook forward and backward. The car shook. The passenger seat when empty vibrates wildly. The pointless rear view mirror vibrates so much your view of the bar behind you is blurred. And there's no escape. Low speed, high speed, smooth road or rough road your head is bobbing and bouncing and the car is crashing and banging.
Here are my keys rattling on the M1. Turn up the volume (sorry again for the nasty camera).
On the M1, on my 4 journeys, I measured the number of miles to headache. 4 journeys, 4 headaches. All started at about 20 miles. If you turn the volume up on that Youtube video, you'll hear the keys rattling on a smooth section of M1. I am no pipe and slipper merchant, and I am used to hard cars. This one though is special. Harder than a 968CS. Bouncier than a Type R. Shakier than a GT3. And more unpleasant than any car I have ever driven, and I include a Series 2A Land Rover, an Austin 7, an original Nova and possibly even my all time worst ever car, a Mk 1 Golf diesel.
Conclusion So here's a drive in an Insight. Approach the car and admire the looks. Tell your mates they can't get in the back without crash helmets. Open the door and feel the hollow ring. Shut it and hear the tinny clang. Admire the low rent shiny plastics. Adjust the hard uncomfortable seat. Start the engine and ignore all the green trees. Get going and the bouncing starts. Try and steer, but never be in full control. Bounce some more and start to dislike the car. Accelerate and hear the howl of the 1.0 Fiesta with the blown exhaust. Brake and feel the jerkiness. Listen to the radio and comment on the boxy sound. Look out of the back and see nothing. Bounce some more. Come to a halt and be presented with some trees. Get out and say "It's not quite what I expected".
Honda, I really look forward to Insight 2.1. May it be 1300 kg not 1200, with 100 kg of sound proofing to be wrapped around that wretched engine. Let it have softer springs and appropriate dampers. Give it an off switch for all the tree BS. Work on the stop/start software. Put better seats in it (current Jazz ones would be fine). Sound proof the interior. And put better electric steering in.
This car will help the environment. Only because you will want to go to the shops, look at the car, remember the nightmare, and decide to walk.
In the mean time, I will continue doing my bit by driving a diesel that's just as economical, but a thousand times better in every other way.
Links to other reviews:
http://www.whatcar.com/car-reviews/h...review/25886-5 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/dri...cle6294116.ece http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/...1.3-SE/238798/ Finally, a massive vote of thanks to the lads at
Holdcroft Honda for the loan of the car. As usual they are determined to go to great lengths to do what they can to keep their customers happy. :) Just lend me a Jazz next time my car's in...
2010 Suggested Retail Pricing
Efficient and accommodating with a fun-to-drive character, the Odyssey offers something for the entire family.
