Honda's Insight: First To Market Now Has Lowest Price

By Marc Stern

Marc Stern

LATEST ARTICLE
Hybrid Cars May Be Industry's Next High Profit Center
Is it possible that the auto industry has found it's latest Holy Grail? For a long time, the... Read More

• N/ALEADERBOARD RANK
• 9ARTICLES CONTRIBUTED
• 0COMMENTS POSTED

Enlarge Photo

The little gem said that the Honda Insight is the least expensive hybrid on the market, even leading the market-leading Toyota Prius in price. This struck us as funny and heres the reason why. Honda was the first to the market with its Insight in 1999, beating Toyota by at least a full year.

Can you imagine that, the worlds number one selling automaker with its near-mythic icon of hybridology, the Prius, wasnt the first on the market? If you bought into the hype that had built over the years, you would have thought that the Prius was the first and most important imported hybrid on the market. And, here was Honda, always the bridesmaid, but never the bride, left behind in the information race.

Our first drive in the Insight lets call it the 2000 because it was released late in the year showed the promise of hybrid technology. The reason, quite frankly, is because we were driving it over snow, slow-going roads for more than a week and although we did get through five gears the first Insights were sticks we were really driving more in first second and third. Those are the important gears for city driving because it is in those gears that you not only get maximum engine charge for the batteries, but also because you get to use the regenerative braking effect that assists in the charge cycle. In effect, when you hit the brakes, the entire driveline becomes a huge flywheel and recycles the power back into the charging system.

It is true the first Insights were a little light on power side. The engine, that also served as the battery system charger, was a three-cylinder (that right three) one-liter engines, but the rationale for the tiny engine was that it was made to primarily provide a charge for the batteries and wasnt made to provide road-racing speeds. The 0 to 60 clock on the original Insight was very leisurely at about 14.5 seconds, but then again, what can you expect from a one-liter, three-cylinder engine that spent most of its time trying to charge the batteries, and, when needed to act as the backup powerplant to the battery motor.

Then again, thats a problem thats little mentioned when a discussion of hybrids comes up in any dealership. In order to keep up with highway traffic, not only is the electric motor cranking away in a vehicle such as the Prius or Insight but the gasoline engine is also cranking not only providing a charge to the batteries, but also providing power to the front wheels.

But, all this aside, its interesting that Hondas Insight, which is now the lowest-cost of all the hybrids being offered, was also the first to market, a fact that not many people remember and which Toyota has conveniently seemed to have forgotten in its drive for hybrid domination.

Lets face it; if it didnt have the name Prius attached to it, it was not a hybrid, according to many people, even though the Insight was there from 2000 to about 2006. It never really reached record numbers of sales, as it was more of a cult car than a wildly popular seller, yet it did represent the real, first attempt at a mass-market hybrid by an imported automaker.

Indeed, the outline of todays Insight and the outline of the 2003 or 04 Insight are about the same, however, the Insight of 2003 was definitely on the micro side of things. It was a two-seat coupe that had a relatively large but shallow storage area under its large glass hatch. It was primarily driven by its electric motor and featured regenerative braking.