The Honda Insight brings to mind my old Fischer. We had a fraught relationship, me and that tennis racquet. I tried really hard to like it, but I just couldn’t make it work.
It was the late 70s and my mom had come back from Europe with a) a new husband and b) said Fischer. Both were Austrian, but the latter was way more exciting (for me, any way). You see, ever since I’d seen my hero, South Africa’s Frew McMillan, play and win the Wimbledon doubles title using one, I had coveted this exotic piece of kit. Not only was it made of this amazing stuff called fibreglass, but its head was kind of hexagonal-shaped, rather than the usual oval that everyone else at Sea Point Tennis Club was forehanding and backhanding with. Along with my tight-fitting Bjorn Borg-signature Fila tennis outfit, I was easily the coolest-looking junior tennis player on the Atlantic Seaboard.
Problem was, as good as I looked, with the Fischer I couldn’t for the life of me keep the ball within the white lines of the tennis court. The damn thing was so flippin’ springy that if my serve actually made into the service box, my follow-up volley was still rising when it hit the back fence. For a budding young serve-and-volleyer, this was not good. After a month of trying to tame the Austrian beast, I locked it up in the cellar and returned to my trusty wooden Donnay. Which was Belgian. And weirdly for anything Belgian, my Donnay was actually pretty normal.
Big disappointment
But yes, the Fischer was very a big disappointment. Here was a new piece of tech that looked great, promised much, but it in my hands was useless.
Which brings me to the Honda Insight.
I was really looking forward to this. I mean really looking forward. It would be the second Honda hybrid I’d sampled. A month before I’d driven the Insight’s CR-Z sibling and been fairly impressed with both its shape — the 80s-era CR-X heritage plain to see — and its performance. The CR-Z wasn’t really a sports car despite its silhouette, but it was nippy enough with the 10kW electric engine adding enough zip to the 83kW 1,5-litre petrol engine to make for some entertaining motoring.
Here now was the Insight — a car with a slightly less powerful 1,3-litre engine (and 10kw electric motor) housed in a bigger, family-sized sedan/hatch. In profile, shaped similarly to the car it seeks to dethrone — Toyota’s Ur-hybrid, the Prius – the Insight is arguably a more handsome vehicle, particularly the front, which thankfully has a grill rather than the usual smooth metal nose designers seem to think appropriate for any sort of electro/hybrid car. Having seen some pics of the upcoming Ballade sedan sporting a similar visage, it’s clear this is Honda’s new corporate schnozz.
It’s spacey too. The curve line from roof to rear is so gentle, the Insight’s practically a station wagon, And I like station wagons. I even own one. As with my car, once I’d removed my mountainbike’s front wheel, the Insight would happily accept it plus all the assorted kit one needs to cover every eventuality on a day exploring the mountains and forest of the Western Cape. You get 400-litre boot space and 584 litres with the rear seats down.
Very significantly, too, the Insight is extremely well priced. At R259 900, it undercuts the Prius by a sizey R73k.
Ticking the boxes
Great, so we’re ticking all the boxes here. It’s cutting-edge tech, tick. It looks good, tick. It’s good value, tick. And it’s going to help save the planet, tick, underline.
Ja? No. Well I guess three out of four isn’t bad. This car ain’t going to save the planet. Not when I’m driving it, anyway. Even driving conservatively, I only averaged 7l/100km … and that’s an eyebrow-raising distance away from Honda’s claimed combined figure of 4,6l/100km. Look, make no mistake, 7,l/100km isn’t bad at all. Only problem is there are bunch of diesel cars out there that are at least as frugal.
And then there’s the performance. Put it this way, you’re not going to beat anyone off the line in the Insight. Maybe one of those electric three-wheeler things with the shopping basket in the front, but you’ll need to be on top of your game. Okay, that’s a little snarky, but you get my point. Put it this way, I don’t have fancy test equipment to determine acceleration figures, but I can tell you that 13 seconds had gone by and I hadn’t hit a 100km/h yet. The CVT gearbox doesn’t help matters much either. It’s characteristically whiney, though one can use the paddles to manually bump it up or down a notch.
If the Insight is sounding like a bit of lemon, perhaps I’m being a little harsh. It is a decent car. I like the way it looks on the outside, the interior is impressive — space and design-wise — and, as I mentioned earlier, it’s really well priced. It’s just a damn pity the engine and drive-train are so flipping uninspiring. With a hybrid, I’m personally more than happy to except performance characteristics below bigger capacity petrol- or diesel-engined cars … it’s just that even within those parameters the Insight is a little too pap. The chassis — from the steering to the well-balanced suspension set-up — is impressive and could sorely do with a few more kilowatts.
Vital statistics: Honda Insight
Price: R259 900
Engine: 1339cc four-cylinder petrol & 10kW electric motor
Power combined 73kW
Gearbox: CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission)
Torque: 167Nm from 1750-3000rpm
0-100km/h (claimed): 12.5 seconds (sea level)
Top Speed (claimed): 182km/h
Fuel Consumption: 4,6l/100km (claimed combined)