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.
Every leftist greenie is talking about the plug-in electrics that are one or two years away.
I attended a talk two years ago by a researcher from PNL on how the grid will handle them. Looks like only coal is capable of handling the extra loads.
WInd and solar are unreliable. Nobody will build more hydro or nuclear, but they aren’t really suited to on-demand power, which is what is required when several million people all plug in at night when they get home from work.
We should begin now getting ready for the brownouts. Buy your own generators! You’ll pay more for the gas, but at least you be able keep your food frozen.
Half-baked idiots with half-baked ideas are running the country (or is that ruining).
I do not get the hybrid thing. A bunch of complexity to get a few extra miles per gallon. My 2002 kia spectre cost about 10,000. It got about 42-47 miles per gallon on the highway at 70+mph with the air on. Car needed no maintenance in 150,000 miles except oil changes,tires, and one scheduled timing belt change that I did for about $50. The brake pads were even still good at that mileage.
So i am going to spend 30 to 40,000 for some rinky dink hybrid that is so complex that it will not be repairable in a few years to get about the same mileage as my 10,000 car had.
At least the Fusion is the size of a real car. Only real competition is the Camry. How much are those again? Oh yeah, and with worse mpg.
The Prius felt to me like driving a golf cart. I can only imagine the Honda experience. All I can conclude is that anyone who thinks ANY of these “eco-cars” are in any way comparable to what most Americans have come to consider a “decent ride” has never HAD a decent ride. I can understand how a Lithuanian farmer right off a field tractor might fall in love with the likes of a this new breed of automobile, but not people who’ve experienced options.
Why is it that noboby talks about the roads all these cars drive on — that are paved with asphalt, you know, that fossil carbon petroleum byproduct?
PS — I drive a pickup truck, frequently on dirt roads. So I’m half and half.
PPS — then there was the guy who went to parts store and said he wanted a gas cap for his hybrid. The parts dealer said it sounded like a fair trade.
PPPS — so what if it’s an old joke. It’s still a good one.
Indiana Bones (17:46:21) :
Are your aware the as CO2 levels increase, the fotosynthetic rate increases? The rate increases up to a 1% (3x current levels) CO2. Feeding the trees is quite accurate.
Where I come from this is high school (equivelant) biology.
Many, many years ago, a friend of mine had a Toyota Starlet, tiny car, with an econometer on its dashboard, green light when you’re driving economically, orange, then red.
Needless to say, the challenge was to keep it in the red as much as possible!
When EU regulations on emissions were formulated, they did the usual thing.
Set the limits & then said that these were achievable with catalytic convertors, so a cat was what had to be had.
The same limits were achievable with lean-burn engines, which were more economical, but couldn’t be run with a cat, so weren’t used.
I’d guess one big problem with designing a car for the US market, is designing one capable of carrying a familly of lard-asses!
Jeremy (22:07:00) :
“There’s still Harley Davidson. My favorite point, btw, in all this eco-nonsense, is that a technology almost as old as cars still gets double-or-better the mileage as these hybrids, and costs less to make and operate, and that is the motorcycle”
Damn straight, I get over 40 miles per gallon,
AND still have a fast powerful exciting ride. 🙂
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b238/XY-SATAN/saltspringislandbiketrip054.jpg
AND I drive it to work everyday, rain or shine.
Call me silly. We have a vehicle that gets 423 miles per gallon of fuel (if you believe their ads). The technology relies on wheel motors powered by a generator powered by a diesel engine (no batteries). So, why not adapt that technology for highway travel?
Side note. When my oldest daughter turned 16 in 1986, I gave her my old 74 buick to drive. She hated it, but it kept her safe.
Jeremy Clarkson is an unmitigated, egomaniacal petrol-head. While he does have his moments and displays a decent sense of humour I dislike his glating arrogance. However, in this instance the bloke deserves a heartfelt accolade.
WELL SAID JEZZA!
Dave(Another) (17:39:09) : I am securely surrounded by two tons of steel and comfortably ensconced on a leather seat in a 23-year-old Mercedes diesel. I get 36 mpg Imperial (30 mpg U.S.) on the highway.
Dave, I too have such a fine beast. I get 28-30 mpgUS most of the time. When “drafting” trucks on a freeway on long trips, I’ve gotten up to 35-36 mpg (again, US). IFF I ever want to have a low carbon foot, I can load up with bioFuel. In an emergency I can run jet fuel, cooking oil, Automatic Transmission Fluid, even kerosene and scented lamp oil or up to 25% gasoline blended in with any of that lot.
And remember that during a collision, momentum is conserved. We each take away our share of Mass x Velocity. Now, if a 1 ton car whacks into me, I will take my share of MV as 2M (1/2V) while he will get 1/2M so 2V.
(This is a simplification for illustration. Car collisions are not elastic and the math is a bit more complex than shown here, but you get the idea… they bounce off and the big car ploughs through… so they take more delta V).
At this point some are thinking “So What?” while others have leapt ahead to energy… While momentum goes as MV, the energy is distributed as MV^2 … So while I’m getting 1/4 the energy per unit mass spread around twice as much mass to absorb it, he is getting 2-squared energy per unit mass in 1/2 the mass to cope…
And that is why “the big car wins”… We don’t take all that delta-V the small guy does, so we soak up a whole lot less of the energy in the collision, and we have more to work with to absorb it before it gets into the cabin. (And, for that matter, we also don’t take as much force on the seat belts… My personal delta V is a lot less, so my seat belt crushes my chest with much less force…)
My ‘carbon footprint’, apart from being a ’so what’, is low because all the CO2 used to build my car has now been absorbed by the forest. Besides, when I am done with it, it can be recycled since it isn’t full of plastic. Not to mention that it cost me (used) half the price of a new Smart “car” and it will almost certainly last longer, even giving the Smart a 17-year head start! No hybrids for this chap.
My “daily driver” is a 1980. So that’s 29 years old … I think it’s “carbon contribution” was absorbed long ago… It will still be running in another 30 years too, if fed modest maintenance (It never needs to be ‘recycled’ it can be ‘reused’ forever). BTW, I bought it for about $2000 IIRC several years back. Far less than the Sales Tax on a new econobox… It is approaching 200,000 miles and these iron block Diesels are known to go 1,000,000 miles. (I had one at 450,000 when I got rid of it and got this ‘young one’;-)
So yes, I drive a luxury tank that’s just a bit under the “new CAFE Standard” and where you can walk away from a major collision… That cost me less than the sales tax on the econobox and with no car payment… And can be a “Carbon-free Diesel” if I want it to be 😉
And folks wonder why car sales are down…
BTW, when I want power I can drive it’s turbo sibling (“only” 24 mpg in a 2 ton boxy wagon doing 75 ish on the freeway with seats for 7 with the 3rd row setup…) The BMW from ’86 or so (524?) that had a turbo 6 Diesel in it was astoundingly fast and got even better gas milage. Wish I had bought one when I had the chance.
Videodrone (21:26:30) : as part of my work involves hauling a few 100lbs of electronics to remote Mt tops on occasion my daily driver is a 3/4 ton 4wd 6speed turbo diesel –[…] (any job that’s less than 700 miles that requires tools or gear – these days it simpler and sometimes faster to drive than fly)
As various air travel restrictions set in, my “comfortable drive range” got longer. Doing equipment installs in co-lo sites became a pain (always carried my “loss is not an option” tool kit and laptop in the airplane cabin, often with the Very Expensive Parts… No More). Well, it finally reached the point where I was happiest to drive long distances with kit in car…
Did a shot from San Francisco to Denver one weekend. Installed gear in 2 days. Then headed home – but snow sent me back via Phoenix / L.A. route. Still did it in one shot of about 24 hours. THAT is when you really appreciate the Benz comfort… But at this point anything closer than about 1000 miles, it’s definitely faster and easier to drive when gear is involved. At about 1/2 the continent it gets tedious though 😎 Only commuted “coast to coast” twice (!) … with a wagon load of gear. Sometimes the “hotel” was the bedroll in the bed of the wagon…
so what’s going to happen, not just odd balls like me but the farmers and ranchers who have a 20mile or better trip to paved road and then its another 100 miles to the nearest store – can’t haul feed or cattle in one of them crumple boxes – and how long will one last off pavement?
There will always be a category of “commercial truck” that will be exempt from the “non-commercial light truck / car” requirements. You will drive one of them. I saw a Great Big Pickup made on an F750 Chassis (no typo SEVEN fifty…) Custom job with all the bed / cab proportions right. Monster size, though, but from a distance it looked like a regular F150 with the road shrunk up!
The “end game” (which I don’t think we’ll ever reach) would be like it is for private airplanes. Folks will “pay up” for a name plate, since it is the license for the craft, and “rebuild” the other 99.9999% of the parts around it… ( I have a ‘junker’ Diesel at a storage yard for just this purpose…)
Here’s your 1980 F350 4×4 … Yes, reg and plates –
it’s all in the envelope 😉 Just add drive train, body, and accessories …
Hey, FedEx, UPS, and bread trucks will be built on some kind of chassis.
Why settle for just the one Jeremy Clarkson?
Reply: Two thumbs up ~ charles the supposedly no sense of humor moderator
@Videodrone (21:26:30) :
BTW, Benz makes trucks… and the old pre ’85 Mercedes Diesel sedans & wagons have the attitude of one (or of a German Staff Car)… I’ve taken it over Christmas Tree Pass Nevada with not even a hint of a worry.
http://www.exploringnevada.com/2009/01/08/photos-of-christmas-tree-pass-in-nevada/
Including some of the more rutted one lane side roads… But I think what you’d like is one of these Big Trucks:
http://www.wakeboarder.com/products/showproduct.php/product/1391/cat/211
Since most commentators are concentrating on the “ham slicer” it’s only fair to tell our American friends an old story that only makes sense because the machine has only *ever* been called a “bacon slicer” here in the UK.
Bert comes home to his wife and tells her that his friend Eric was sacked at the shop this morning after being found [snip]”
“She’s getting the sack too”
(Whether this makes it past Anthony’s moderation rather depends on whether he wants his blog to contain important climate information or anecdotes about sexual perversions in grocers shops, but perhaps just this once…)
Reply: Sorry, we strive to be a Flog (family blog). I left it to the readers’ imaginations. ~ charles the moderator
“Hank, aye, but can you haul a large boat or large Airstream behind it? Can it haul a family of 8? Or will it outrace a muscle car?” – David Corcoran (21:32:30)
No, thats what I use my 4×4 truck for. With a raised suspension, mud terrain tires, front and rear lockers, diff guards, rock sliders, locking center transfer, rack system, raised intake snorkle, dual electrical system, 9000 lb. winch, and a slightly modified engine, the truck will pass anything on (or off) the road but a gas station. So, it makes perfect sense I would own a hybrid for most of my driving needs. The truck gets driven maybe once or twice a month – usually to one of my favorite trailheads or an off-road rally.
Now, I’ll bet you had me stereotyped as one of those tree hugging, polar bear petting folks. It’s a common mistake people make when you tell them you own a hybrid.
Anthony,
If you enjoyed that, you should read Jeremy Clarkson’s other column in the same edition of the Sunday Times, here – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article6301096.ece
I’m sure some of your US readers would find it light relief.
Ghillie
1) Brits (and Europeans for that matter) don’t get hybrids.
2) If you think this is bad, wait until 2016 when CAFE goes to 35.5. We’ll be talking about 1990-2010 being the “golden years” for automobiles. The sportscar of tomorrow will be a 1.something L 4 cylinder FWD direct injection plug-in hybrid. Yaaaaaawwwwwnnnnnn.
Buy your truck and Corvette today. Tomorrow, they’ll be gone…
In Europe much of the money to build/maintain roads comes from road fuel tax. Electric cars avoide paying this tax, will this change???
Daghoza seems a bit precious with his “holier than thou” contributions on the fun subject of Jeremy Clarkson’s comments about the Honda abortion.
dhogaza (16:19:42) :
dhogaza (16:54:38) :
dhogaza (17:24:20) :
dhogaza (18:47:32) :
dhogaza (18:52:23) :
In the UK, we want J. Clarkson Esq., for PM. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ei=1NYTSrSvI6GrjAfbi9HjCA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Jeremy+clarkson+for+PM&spell=1
The Tesla starts at £87,100, so it’s as pointless as a woman preaching. “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Dr. S. Johnson.
As for the diesel BMW being too expensive, I would suggest that a vehicle being worth better than 50% of its purchase price after 3 years is a better deal all round than a cheaper car that is worth only39% after the same period. Total costs of ownership are the figures to compare.
It should be noticed that J. Clarkson is a climate realist and will have no truck with AGWarmists. Were JC to become PM (otherwise known as King Magnus) and restore financial and scientific sanity to the world, I suspect the USA will send us Ambassador Vanhatten to declare “Sir. The Declaration of Independence is cancelled. The treaties which endorsed it are torn up. We have decided to rejoin the British Empire. We shall of course enjoy Dominion Home Rule under the Presidency of Mr B. Obama. I shall revisit you here shortly, not as the Ambassador of a foreign power, but as High Commissioner for the greatest of your dominions, and your very loyal and devoted subject, Sir.”
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300431h.html#i01 The Apple Cart, Act II.
A Political Extravaganza by George Bernard Shaw
Political correctness? Bah! humbug!
`
Wait til the Chinese come in with their version of an electric car:
From http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200904/chinese-innovation
The Chinese are coming.
Their low cost production values means that any western (including Japanese) automobile will be priced out of the market.
In Australia the introduction of Chinese vehicles will be probably in the next six months. Their pricing will be two thirds or less of the next cheapest equivalent model.
Traditional mass manufactures will be decimated and perhaps annihilated in the near distant future.
And they will meet your CAFE standards.
This is because they have into high efficiency diesels for years. Their cars are smaller and much cheaper than hybrids. Many Euro cars are more fuel efficient than
hybrids.
Toyota made their Hybrids to last the life of the battery. Changing the battery in one of these cars is false economy.
Forget about great advances in battery technology. They have to follow the laws of physics and thermodynamics. Batteries have been around for over 100 years and in that time in reality only incremental advances have been made.
As someone has posted way back. You can’t suspend f=ma.
Clarkson, BTW, is absolutely brillliant….
Les Francis (04:34:01) :
The Chinese are coming.
Yes, but these cars are not built according to our safety standards.
We have a vehicle that gets 423 miles per gallon of fuel (if you believe their ads).
That’s not what the ad says. The add talks about how much fuel it takes to move a ton of freight 423 miles. My Semi will move a ton of freight about 200 miles on a gallon of diesel, but that certainly doesn’t mean I get 200 MPG.
Forget about hybrids, buy a Jeep Diesel:
“During the 21-hour drive, passing through six countries, Helen Taylor achieved a fuel consumption figure of 66.76 mpg driving the Jeep Compass”
Jeep prove impressive fuel economy.
Fuel economy experts John and Helen Taylor drove a Jeep Compass and a Jeep Patriot, with 2.0-litre turbo diesel engines and carrying two people and their luggage, from London to Berlin on less than a single tank of fuel each.
The husband and wife team, John and Helen Taylor first drove the Jeep Compass and Patriot 658 miles between the two European capitals. After completing their journey, there was sufficient fuel remaining in both vehicles for them to continue into Poland. In total, they travelled a total distance of 698.4 miles.
“This new achievement helps to establish Jeep Compass and Patriot as industry leaders and proves that it is possible to offer global customers fuel efficiency and capability in the same package,” Jim Press, Vice Chairman and President, Chrysler LLC said. “Jeep offers a full range of vehicles powered by efficient diesel engines and we are committed to furthering our efforts to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. In fact, at the new Chrysler, we are redesigning our business model with a greater emphasis on fuel-efficient products with features that the customers want and need.”
During the 21-hour drive, passing through six countries, Helen Taylor achieved a fuel consumption figure of 66.76 mpg driving the Jeep Compass. John Taylor performed even better, achieving a fuel consumption figure of 67.46 mpg in a Jeep Patriot. The Taylors were observed during their marathon drive by an independent scrutineer, PC Stephen Driver, of the West Midlands Police.
“We already knew that the Compass and Patriot were among the most economical of all SUVs, but we were amazed by the fuel efficiency that these two vehicles were capable of during this drive,” commented John Taylor. “We drove on normal roads at realistic speeds with two people and their luggage on board and the traffic and weather conditions weren’t favourable at all – cold with many traffic jams,” he said. “We used simple fuel economy driving techniques that any driver could replicate.”
His wife Helen added, “This record achievement challenges the myth that all SUVs are gas guzzlers. We’ve proven, in everyday driving conditions just how fuel efficient these two Jeep SUVs can be.”
The Jeep Compass and Patriot have already been praised by the media for their fuel efficiency. 4×4 & MPV Driver Magazine in the UK ranked Jeep ahead of all other manufacturers of 4×4s and SUVs by presenting the brand with a Gold Award in its 2007 Green Awards scheme. The publication praised the Jeep Compass and Patriot for being “the most economical 4×4s ever to wear the Jeep badge” and for being the least polluting with their CO2 emissions.
For more information visit http://www.jeep.co.uk.