/ 30 October 2009

Insight into a Honda hybrid

With its greatly refined technology and improved practicality the Honda Insight will be the cheapest hybrid on the market.

I have a friend who buys every Apple product that comes on the market, regardless of its function. And how he moans when he has to wait for something that’s on sale in the United States but won’t make it elsewhere for a few months.

At last I can sympathise. Honda is doing the same thing with its hydrogen fuel cell car, the FCX Clarity. It recently went on limited release in California — but in Europe, Honda is merely allowing us to purchase its latest hybrid saloon, the Insight.

It will be the cheapest hybrid on the market, its technology is greatly refined and it’s much more practical than the original Insight — launched in 1999 — but is still based on the same, now familiar pairing of a battery pack with a small petrol engine, the former charged on braking. It even looks familiar, with the hunchbacked profile of the Toyota Prius.

Ah, yes, the Prius. It must have been deeply aggravating for Honda, that most innovative, brave and progressive of Japanese car companies, to watch its main rival conquer the global hybrid market. The first Insight, though flawed (it had only two seats) and quirky (it looked as though it should have had solar panels on the roof), was the first hybrid to go on sale in Europe and a brilliant piece of technology. Ultimately, though, Prius, not Insight, became synonymous with “hybrid”, in much the same way Hoover has been with “vacuum cleaner”.

Although the new Insight’s emissions and fuel consumption figures are impressive, they only marginally improve on those achieved by the latest diesels (Ford Econotec-engined Fiestas and VW’s Bluemotion Polos, for example; although, admittedly, diesels do pump out a few other nasties).

And hybrids are clearly made with the best of intentions, so I wouldn’t usually complain about their heavy handling, sluggishness at higher revs, cheapo plastics and dorky aesthetics.

But why can’t we have a Clarity? Honda itself is banking on the hydrogen fuel cell in the long term; and most people agree that hybrids are a short-term approach to the impending energy and climate crises, so why bother? Yes, the Insight is now the best hybrid on the market (although a new Toyota Prius has just been launched). But is it a radical step forward, a great car in its own right? And is it the solution? I’m afraid that’ll be a no. —