Honda Insight

In short: Honda’s new hybrid, looking much more like a typical family car, at far closer to typical family car prices. Needs to beat Toyota’s Prius and the new generation of ‘normal’ eco-cars such as the VW Golf Bluemotion.

Good: Practical hybrid which looks like a family car – not a slightly weird eco-machine

Not so good: cheap plastic interior trim, and too many pictograms

HYBRID – the buzzword of motoring’s road to a green nirvana. Of course we ‘in the business’ know that these combinations of internal combustion engines and electric motors are not the only or necessarily always the best solution for those looking to stretch their fuel and smother their CO2, but in terms of positive publicity hybrids hold the high ground.

They don’t seem to make so many headlines these days though, so perhaps hybrids are becoming normal? Evidence of just that is the Insight, the latest hybrid from the firm that brought the term into general use – no it wasn’t Toyota, really...

Honda’s first Insight was a very strange coupe with closed-in rear wheels and only two seats – basically because the rear end was needed to accommodate the electric motor’s batteries. The new Insight, however, is a proper five-seat hatch with its much smaller battery hidden under the boot – a boot which offers more space with the seats up than does a Ford Focus… There’s also plenty of room in a rear cabin that is accessed by its own doors – yes, this really is a normal family hatch.

Until you slip behind the wheel, because then things get a little strange. Having ignored the unfortunately cheap trim, you face a dash clearly following the sci-fi school of design established by the current Civic. Above the usual dials is a pod within which sits a digital speedo – problem is that in adjusting the steering wheel, there’s a very narrow band between obscuring the rev counter or said speedo.

The back of the speedo features a sort of sunset graphic, except that it glows blue or green depending on how you are using your right foot. It’s all part of the various methods of explaining the workings of the hybrid system, and there are plenty! Do you watch the little graphic that shows your instant mpg, the ‘Eco bar’ with a rising and falling scale showing how hard you accelerate or brake, or perhaps the one with arrows depicting whether the petrol engine is assisting the electric motor, vice versa, charging the battery, running on electric alone?

Basically to produce the greenest and least wallet-threatening driving performance you should keep the colour green and the Eco bar as close to the middle as possible, and if you do really well little tree graphics grow across the display – I kid you not!

Basically, there is too much info. Joggling between the displays on the launch route I actually pushed the car’s mpg up to more than 70mpg – its official best combined figure is 64. But I also built up a queue of irritated local motorists behind me, and became concerned at just how much priority I was giving to watching the displays, rather than the road ahead…

All that info informs you as to the condition of the car’s 1.3-litre petrol engine of 87bhp, which is matched to 14bhp of electric motor through the ‘Integrated Motor Assist (IMA)’ technology that Honda has been using since launching the first Insight back in 1999. It’s less complex than rival Toyota’s system, and the latest version is a lot lighter and more compact than its prececessors, hence the extra space in this car.

On the road the combination is effective, shifting the car along in competent if unexciting fashion. I don’t think we’ll be seeing any Type-R Insights but of course that is not what the car is about. It rides comfortably and is very easy to drive, particularly in a stop-start urban environment to which it is most suited – company car drivers pounding the motorways would be better buying something diesel-powered.

Thought we’d finished with the green bits? Oh no… Pressing a button activates ‘Eco-assist’ in which mode the car will for example smooth out its acceleration to burn less fuel. Try Heavy use of the right foot produces a raspy and not very refined engine note, but for cruising along it’s very well-behaved.

There’s a stop-start system too, but because the Insight only comes with a CVT auto transmission this feature has to be based around the brake rather than clutch pedal. Therefore when sitting at traffic lights the only way to stop the engine restarting is to keep your foot on said brake pedal, which is uncomfortable and irritating to drivers behind you.

Overall, the new Insight has flaws – but it is also a major advance on what has gone before. At prices from £15,490 it is almost £3000 cheaper than its cheapest Toyota rival (though a new Prius is on the way) and even undercuts the far less     practical Honda Civic Hybrid saloon by £1600. Particularly for those whose daily drive involves stop-start urban traffic, the Insight is well worth considering. 

Vehicle Make:	Honda
Vehicle Model:	Insight
Price:	From £15,490
Top Speed:	113mph
0-62 mph:	12.5
Fuel Economy:	64.2
Insurance Group:	6
CO2 Emissions:	101
Euro NCAP:	Not yet tested