Impressions of driving a Honda Insight after 15 months of Prius

I took another good look and sit in a 2010 Insight last weekend at Honda. Too bad it won't work because it's a really good looking car. I actually like the overall styling of the Insight better than the Prius - front end, shape, rear end, size of wheels and tires compared to the body. It doesn't feel too bad in driver's seat but maybe a tad small to me.

When going to the back seats, it all falls apart. I was not going to push the driver's seat forward to fake more room behind it. I could not get my foot in the car behind the driver's seat. Had to leave my left leg outside of the car. Deal breaker. Hardly the smallest person could have foot room back there either.

I wish Honda would make a full hybrid so they can make a car that can really compete with the Prius. The Insight does not.

Accord is obviously sized mostly like a Camry and directly competes with it. Insight needs to do the same against Prius, but it needs big changes that likely won't happen for years.

sounds like a prius HSD transplanted into an Insight chassis would be a winner.

Maybe so, but didn't Honda equip one of their hybrids with a tachometer? I can't see how that instrument is of much use in a hybrid, given the relative lack of control the driver has over engine RPM.

Honda's, and Hyundai's, hybrid system is simpler in terms of changes to the standard car. The transmission is the same as the ones on a non-hybrid.

Now, Honda equips CVTs on their hybrids. A tachometer is silly in that case, but they, and others, program their CVTs to behave like fix speed transmission.
The CR-V does have a manual transmission option.

One of my pet peeves against current Honda cars are the gauges. i don't mean to say that they are not informative, but that they look garish to me. I like subtlety.

This is a true story. Back in 02 I bought a new Honda Civic Hybrid, the first year for them. They were actually called 03's. Later that year, I was at an auto show where all the companies were showing off their new models. The Honda display was right across from the Toyota display.

Toyota had not brought out the gen II car yet. They had a gen I on display. I was talking to one of the pretty ladies in the Toyota booth. I told her that I had a new Civic Hybrid. She replied with this statement: "They (Honda) used our system."

I didn't say anything, but thought that she was wrong because the drive systems are completely different from each other. A few years later after I bought my 07 Prius, I came across some literature, and guess what? She was right. The first Prius (not what we call gen I) used the same system that Honda still uses today.

An electric motor sandwiched in-between the engine and a belt type CVT. It operated just like the civics and insights. The only difference is that they used a capacitor instead of a battery.

Glad I kept my mouth shut at the auto show.