Driving Report HONDA Insight 1.3 Hybrid

Burn-out, stress, hectic rush and nerve-racking daily routines in the mill wheel of the professional world that is striving for ever more complex and effective solutions. Caught in the hamster wheel of our steadily increasing wealth of information in the "always-reachable-everyday life".
If you want to prevent mental, physical and emotional exhaustion, you need oases of calm, relaxation and deceleration.

There are cars that offer not only the basic ability to “accelerate” but also a form of “decelerating”.

Deceleration in automotive form

The HONDA Insight is such a car.

In Germany since 2009 and currently in the 2nd generation on the market, it is now facing a facelift. Our test vehicle offers a convincing performance on the subject of “decelerating in everyday traffic”. But one after the other.

Honda introduced the first generation of the HONDA Insight back in 1999, but mainly sold it only in the USA. In Germany only a few vehicles came to the dealerships and were used more as “technology carriers” than as customer vehicles.

The 2nd generation of the HONDA Insight, on the German market since 2006, uses, like the HONDA CR-Z and the Jazz Hybrid presented this spring, the drive technology named by HONDA: “IMA”.

At HONDA, IMA stands for “Integrated Motor Assist” and already describes the functionality and structure of the HONDA hybrid system very well. In contrast to the much more expensive competitor Toyota Prius, HONDA does not integrate an external electric motor on the rear axle, but rather combines the classic motor-transmission unit with an electric motor between the motor housing and the transmission. Thanks to this clever solution, this system is particularly compact in terms of its design and can be easily adapted to other vehicle models.

On the other hand, this integrated solution saves costs, which in turn benefits the buyer of the Honda Insight, the Jazz Hybrid and the CR-Z. Modern hybrid technology is even more attractive in this variant.

Due to the small depth of the electric motor however, the performance of the electric drive unit is also lower. The HONDA IMA models cannot start up purely electrically, which is why I also speak of a “mild hybrid” in this design. However, the HONDA Insight can drive purely electrically - albeit in a limited area around the city pace and only as long as you do not have any increased ambitions for sprint duels with the vehicles in the adjacent lane.
The HONDA Insight seduces you to a “decelerated” driving style.

On the one hand, you want to undercut the consumption records of the previous days every day and thus subconsciously learn the most effective driving style for efficient cooperation between the electric motor and the small gasoline engine. On the other hand, the driver in the Insight's cockpit is surrounded by an aura of serenity.

This serenity comes from a relaxed seating position with good back support from the cockpit seating and, much more, from the generous amount of space. You feel well accommodated. You are not squeezed into a tin can of automobile renunciation and just want to get the journey over and done with quickly. You sit relaxed, are taken care of by the standard, continuously variable automatic transmission, the automatic wiper and washer for the windshield wipers, the automatic light for the headlights, the automatic air conditioning for the interior and while you watch the flowers grow.

Now the Insight is not a “lame mill” and you are therefore able to watch the flowers grow along the way, no - the driver is rewarded in his futuristic cockpit by the growth of digital flowers in his economical driving style. This mechanism of “rewarding” the driver for a defensive driving style also leads to a completely informal “deceleration” in daily traffic with the HONDA Insight.

The cockpit of the HONDA Insight meanwhile speaks in the language of the materials used of the automotive manufacturers' need for cost-efficiency. On the other hand, the surfaces are not foamed, but at least processed without blemishes.

Nothing creaks and nothing rattles. The seats in the front row deserve special recognition. The back is supported by a well-shaped backrest and the headrests can also be used by giants. But even on the 2nd row you don't sit on a penalty transfer. For its overall length, the Honda Insight offers an almost overly feudal seat on the back seat.

On the other hand, an Insight with 4 adults is no longer particularly impressive in its motor performance. If the 88PS strong 1.3l 4-cylinder petrol engine with the 10kW electric motor for the driver and front passenger still has enough power, a fully occupied insight (in the worst case with luggage) becomes a challenge for the drive unit.

What in everyday life and especially when the “Econ button” is pressed, it is still a convincing engine-transmission combination, becomes an unpleasant source of noise with less than convincing talent for longitudinal dynamics under a full load and increased demands on driving performance.

If you move the Insight alone, the system output of 98PS and the continuously variable transmission are good for adequate acceleration - but you really don't want to exhaust the combination of combustion engine, electric motor and continuously variable transmission. This is due to the design-related peculiarity of the continuously variable transmission. Above all, the acceleration process from the village is fully occupied, and in the event of a disaster even uphill, a performance of the finest speed arias that sounds extremely unusual to the ear of the normal driver. Because the engine turns under full power in the range of the maximum power output and the transmission continuously varies the translation during acceleration. The result feels a little like the clutch is slipping.

To hide this elastic band effect you can switch the transmission in the Insight to “S mode” and then fix the transmission ratio using the paddle on the steering wheel. 7 possible “virtual” gear steps are then imitated by the continuously variable automatic. Likewise, the Insight then does not switch automatically. This procedure is also useful for general journeys over hilly landscapes.

But - if the gear steps were fixed in this way, you quickly notice when the small battery needs to be spared and how powerless a 1.3l petrol engine can be as soon as it loses the support of the electric motor.

Let's leave the accelerator alone, just stroke it gently, press the ECON button and glide relaxed over the villages in our region. Especially on the country roads along the Main, the Insight takes you into a form of short vacation. The variable gear ratio in ECON mode always tries to demand minimum speeds from the motor and often you can leave it to work only with the small electric motor when driving through built-up areas.

Four-cylinder in-line engine, 8 valves controlled by an overhead camshaft (SOHC), light metal engine block and cylinder head, sequential double ignition (i-DSI), variable valve control (i-VTEC)