Archive: 2000 Honda Insight RoadTest

Great find! There is one of these (lime green) near my house. It always reminds me now of how far we've come. Wow, hybrid nostalgia! Looking forward to 3 days from now?

 

I remember going around to Honda dealers to look at one and they never seem to have any of these in their showrooms. And when they did get one in they didn't last long.

 

I didn't know the original Insight only came with a manual transmission. I don't buy those anymore as I've owned many with manual shift.

 

Very cool video. Our AZ mailman drive an Insight every day on his route and tells me he's never had a single problem with it.

 

Yep... the CVT came along in 2001 and unfortunately hasn't had the best record for reliability (in the first gen Insight). [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight"]Honda Insight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


Hypermilers have gotten over 100 MPG from an Insight and it's no wonder people can hit the 70 MPG mark without too much trouble because the cars only weigh around 1850 lbs.!

Every time I read that Wiki article it makes me want one again!

 

Manual transmission is more efficient than a traditional automatic, or even a traditional CVT. The torque converter is a major source of losses. The automatic transmission is very rare over here. One of the complaints about the Prius was that it wasn't available as a manual! It's hard to explain to people that e-CVT is actually more efficient than a manual transmission in many cases, that it's simply not possible to build a real manual variant, and that you're not likely to do better selecting from a limited set of 'gear ratios' than the computer does with the entire range of variability available.

Weight is one issue, but it only affects acceleration. The main factor in cruising is drag. While the new Prius and old Insight both have a 0.25 coefficient of drag (Cd), this is only a multiplication factor of the frontal area, which was a lot lower on the Insight. Wikipedia gives the 'drag area' of the Insight at 5.10 ft², with the 2004-9 Prius at 6.24 ft². (I don't know where this data came from.)

I've seen it suggested that a hybrid's economy increases as the motor's power capability increases toward 50% of the total system peak power. Honda haven't improved their IMA motor's output at all - the Civic Hybrid and new Insight are still rated at only 10 kW, the same as the original Insight, while the Accord had 12 kW. As a proportion of the total, it's actually dropped way back. In comparison the 2010 Prius now has a 60 kW motor, battery assist of 27 kW and about 100 kW total output - I'm not sure whether to count that as 60%, 27%, or somewhere in between!

 

Great! A Nice addition to my little collection eace: