The battle begins. The new Insight is Hondas attempt to further branch into the hybrid region dominated by the Prius. The second gen Insight is a good start too.
The Insight gets 40 mpg in the city and gets 43 mpg on the highway. To make the car seem more driver friendly, it also comes with paddle shifters that make the variable transmission into a fixed transmission. That really doesn’t make alto of sense to me personally because paddle shifters were developed for F1 cars, and now Honda has the guts to put it on a slower than a moped hybrid. Honda is so proud of the F1 acceleration on the cars 0-60 time that they don’t even post it on their site. Not that it matters though, it is a hybrid.
The powertrain for the new 2010 Insight is a 1.3 liter inline 4 cylinder that is matched to a permanent magnet motor and continuously variable transmission. The battery consists of seven module nickel hydride setup, which puts the total output is 98 horsepower and 128lb/ft of torque.
The suspension is said to be spongy and not that great, so the car isn’t the best to drive. Despite that, it is more interactive than other hybrids though. There is a green glow that is behind the speedometer that measures how “green” you are driving. If you have a lead foot, the meter goes blue to let you know you’re killing your mileage. Or, you can push the green button to the left of the steering wheel which switches it to econ mode, and the car will do everything it can to get you the most mileage.
Overall I would say this is a solid car to anyone who wants to save some mileage and the earth, while not being the Prius owner. And that god because Honda is trying to target a different buyer, one who wants a little more fun from their drive (it is better than a Prius), and someone who wants to interact with the car rather than be dictated by it. Breaking away from the pack isn’t always a bad thing. I’d say it’s a good thing here.
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