Much has been written about the Insight, Honda’s new low-priced hybrid. We’ve been told how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you’re easy on the throttle and how it is the dawn of all things. The beginning of days.So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.
So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.
The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).
It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.
And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.
So you’re sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you’re doing only 23mph because that’s about the top speed, and you’re thinking things can’t get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.
Because the Honda has two motors, one that runs on petrol and one that runs on batteries, it is more expensive to make than a car that has one. But since the whole point of this car is that it could be sold for less than Toyota’s Smugmobile, the engineers have plainly peeled the suspension components to the bone. The result is a ride that beggars belief.
There’s more. Normally, Hondas feel as though they have been screwed together by eye surgeons. This one, however, feels as if it’s been made from steel so thin, you could read through it. And the seats, finished in pleblon, are designed specifically, it seems, to ruin your skeleton. This is hairy-shirted eco-ism at its very worst.
Please click to read the rest of the article at the Times Online
Don’t get me wrong, I like new technology, and improved fuel economy too, but I just had to show this auto review excerpt from the Sunday Times because, well, it’s just so darn funny.
I love watching Top Gear, but it’s not a car show, it’s a comedy show that happens to involve cars. It’s heavily scripted and the situations are contrived to get a laugh.
I treat Clarkson’s “review” like the show. Take it as comedy and not a review of the car.
In my experience it’s just called a “slicer”, since you can put almost any kind of meat on it. When I worked in fast food as a kid we used it to slice Roast Beef for the Roy Rogers Roast Beef sandwiches. So how about we just call it a “meat slicer”.
I have a car with a CVT and don’t have any problem with the performance, but then it’s a Nissan Murano with something like 265 hp. It was weird at first when you’re expecting the car to hit a shift point and it just keeps on going.
If you want to know what the new American automobile fleet will look like in a few years, travel down to Cuba and take a look around. That’s what is going to happen here in the USofA. Many of us will just keep our old vehicles on the road. If they increase the cost of keeping our old vehicles, then we will just go without other consumer goods. I’ll save my money for gas or whatever other taxes they dream up.
Just imagine to deal with such a lot of batteries. If you don´t use them a certain time they just die. Everything related to GWrs. its a nonsense.
One of the the comments to the article read:
“Electricity is the way – and new battery technology will soon provide 1000 Ks of range.”
Presuming the commenter meant 1000 kilometers, yep, good luck with that. Approximately 600 miles, given the current state (and soon-to-be future) of battery tech, which *might* now yield 40 miles, maybe 100 miles on a REALLY good day.
But, SOON …
Anthony, just wondering if you have driven in heavy rain like we get in summer here in Florida, you know 3-5 inches in a short time, street flooding and all. Also, how would your parked car handle hurricane winds?
Another concern I have is about insurance. In order to meet the new mpg standards proposed, cars will have to shed a lot of steel. Let’s follow that line of thought. Will there be more injuries even in low speed accidents? Will the injuries be more severe in medium speed accidents? No doubt there will more fatalities in higher speed accidents. Damage to the vehicles will be much greater at all speeds. Will the insurance companies take this lying down? No way. They will undoubtably be paying out much more in claims and will raise rates accordingly. The point being whatever savings you may realize in fuel you will probably lose in insurance premiums, medical co-pays and car repairs, all the time putting yourself in greater danger. I’ll stick with my rear wheel drive, solid as a rock, long wheel based, wide stanced big ass Mercury Marquis. Holds six comfortably, rides smooth as silk, plows through flooded streets and gets 30 mpg at 70 mph.
Better if runned with MS Windows Vista…..can you imaging resetting your car during a blizzard ?(those to come) LOL
There’s also an option for a solar-powered (PV on the roof, apparently) ventilation system for hot days. Sunroof’s great, unless you’re parked and want to keep thieves out. Sounds like a gimmick to me but being able to lock up and return to a reasonably cool car in summer, if you can’t find shade, sounds nice.
Yeah, highway. The comment you replied to is undoubtably for the EPA *combined* estimate, which likely be 30-ish at best.
New Prius EPA combined mileage is 50.
Cornfed … I doubt if the UK Sunday Times would be on the “buy American” train …
That is not a car it´s a “transformer”, it´s no joke it´s a japanese cartoon!
By the way…who won the pacific war?
I have no time for eco-friendly anything.
The basic desire of cleanliness and economy are the only true drivers. I don’t buy an efficent automobile because it is “green”, but because it saves me money.
The review definitely reminded me of this.
Chuck Rushton @16:52:19
Also, I am looking forward to the sudden shock !! horror !! when, five years after buyiong the “PIUS”, these folks have to buy a new set of batteries!!!
The Insight also has a dashboard that glows green as fuel efficiency climbs.
My point:
If CO2 is promotes plant growth, would it not be more accurate for Honda to make the dashboard glow green when fuel efficiency goes down, i.e. more CO2 emmissions = more plant growth.
I posted on this a few hours ago…
http://algorelied.com/?p=1741
The Ford Fusion hybrid also has it backwards. It has a digital green leafy vine that grows on the dashboard display as fuel efficiency goes up.
Sometimes it seems we live in a world where up is down, where right is wrong, and where truth is fiction.
I happen to like the CVT in my jeep especially on cruise control, when more power is needed say on a hill the engine just pulls, no dropping a gear.
” In the Insight you are constantly reminded, not only by the idiotic dashboard, which shows leaves growing on a tree when you ease off the throttle ” Does the dash really do that, hilarious, doesn’t the tree need C02 and the more there is the better it grows.
Note to non-USA readers: When your read something such as “35 MPG in the US”, remember that a US gallon is only 80% of an Imperial gallon! So, the numbers are better than you think.
I believe the new VW TDI turbo diesel gets over 35 mpg and you don’t have to deal with any of the hybrid nonsense.
A friend of mine owns a 2006 Prius. She said that she always loved the car but that she now is convinced that she had to sell the car because she said it was making her sick. She went to an electronics shop and had the car tested with a Gauss meter as she drove around. The meter maxed out at over 10 Mg. The EPA states that the maximum EM radiation for prolinged exposure should only be 1 Mg. My friend contacted Toyota and found out that in their 2009 model Prius they began adding shielding to their car.
I haven’t heard of others getting sick from their Hybrid, but if you add up all the EMF you are exposed to with cell phones, computers, and electronics, why add to this with EM radiation in your car.
Fun article, Clarkson is a good writer:
I just bought Mrs. Smokey a new Camry, with the 268 horsepower, 23 mpg engine. We are very happy with the car, and wouldn’t trade it for the 4-cylinder wimpmobile, which gets exactly one mpg better mileage.
FatBigot: You should experience the standard American hot dog, made with the very finest pig snouts, lips and sphincters. Or the bologna, which is made with exactly the same ingredients, only it’s bigger. Compared with Spam, they’re both low fat diet foods.
Anthony, thanks for posting the Clarkson article. I’ve seen him on Top Gear and found him to be mildly amusing, but I was not aware of his written reviews. The one you posted is hilarious, but so are others he’s written. (Check out the one on the C6 Corvette, for example.) I’m a car guy, and read many car magazines and reviews, but rarely do the articles show the wit, humor and irreverence of Clarkson. I’ll enjoy browsing his archives.
OT :
didn’t know how else to get this to your attention :
received the following email :
*********************************************************************************
Dear steven,
In three days, the Environmental Protection Agency will be holding a public hearing in Seattle on whether greenhouse gases should be considered a dangerous pollutant.
There are only two of these public hearings across the country. This is a crucial opportunity to support the reduction of the greenhouse gases that are having a dangerous impact on our planet.
Fellow activists and allies are gathering at the hearing site to show the EPA that we support solutions to the climate crisis.
We need your voice. Will you join us for this important event?
Here are the details:
Bell Harbor Convention Center
2211 Alaskan Way, Pier 66
Seattle, WA 98121
Thursday, May 21st, 12:00 PM noon
Please RSVP to join us now.
The EPA can make progress on solutions to the climate crisis. But they need to know that you support this effort.
I hope you can join us on Thursday and support solutions to the climate crisis.
Thanks,
Steve Bouchard
Campaign Manager
repower America
*********************************************************************************
and it got me to thinking, I have been getting several of these ever since using “their” technology to send my CO2 feelings to the national media. How about a WUWT “bit bucket” where we could forward such stuff for all to see and then after, say, 30 days the file gets auto deleted ?
as to the event itself, I’m sked to work that day and I can’t change it at this late date, just got the email today – May 19 – Dang ! I would very much like to show up and file a report.
Steptoe Fan
The whole point about the “Pious” and any other Green automobile is expressed completely by the greeny dashboard displays: It makes the owner feel good. That’s the whole marketing strategy; it doesn’t actually do anything.
The new Telsa being introduced is claimed to get about 300 miles on a charge.
They guarantee it for 10 years/150,000 miles in California-compliant states. 8/100,000 in other states.
From an automotive site:
Mike Abbott (17:21:59) :
Watch his Top Gear TV program where he drives to the Magnetic North Pole.
Sorry, don’t have a link but google it.
It’s got it all .. Arctic, SUV, Canada! No Polar Bearies tho.
Hey Jeez:
For Ed…
Honda (atmosphere) Insight 1.3
Reply: Eu não entendo, mas responder em Inglês. ~ ctm aka jeez
Jeff Alberts (16:49:40) :
Back in the 60’s we called it a “meat slicer”…. when I was too young to actually be doing that sort of thing the neighborhood deli guys hired me to help on sundays…. Second Sunday on the job, yep, I sliced part of my thumb off. The deli guy who hired me handed me a towel, finished the slicing, and wrapped my thumb slice in with the bologna. Don’t know why, but they kept me on the job anyway.
dhogaza:
lighten up and get a sense of humor.
jeez…. thanks for the customer complaint letter.
Anthony: thanks for this thread. I howled. I needed it. I’m grading final exams, essays and term papers and really, really, really needed a spot of brightness.
And yes, I gotta test drive that thing for myself.