Finally -- A Reason to Come to Indiana!!

To say that the Honda Insight is a hot car on the market would be an understatement. In California, Edmunds Automotive (the champions of the invoice-priced car) paid $1,682 above sticker price for their Insight. Honda dealers across the country are taking this, the first hybrid gasoline-electric car sold in America, and marking up the price to high heaven.

Indiana, on the other hand, is about as far from California as one can get, attitude-wise. Where Californians worry about emissions and fuel economy, Hoosiers want 0-60 time and dual exhaust. California has the Sierra Club -- in Indiana "EPA" is a dirty word. In short, most people here just don't care about the environment very much; it's just not a priority. A car that uses bleeding-edge technology to achieve gas mileage of 61 city/70 highway only receives one response: "It's ugly." (I'm quoting a co-worker of mine.)

Why would I bring up this regional, er, "quirk" of behavior? Well, it means the Honda dealer here hasn't marked up their Honda Insight a single penny. Granted, when I asked I was told that they won't budge from MSRP, but if you live in California and want an Insight, it might just pay you to buy a one-way plane ticket to Indianapolis, buy an Insight at MSRP and drive it home. You probably won't spend $1,600 on the whole trip. Hoosier apathy toward the environnent could be your gain!

Well anyway, since I'm not a native here and I do care about the environment, I was excited when the local dealership got an Insight on the lot. This weekend I took a test drive in it. My first impression upon climbing into the car is that it's roomy. For such a small car, I had to pull the seat forwards to reach the pedals. My second impression was that this car has no frills. They have definitely emphasized economy and weight-savings over luxury in the Insight. The interior surfaces look nice, but touch them and you'll find hard plastic everywhere. The door panels look soft, but turn out to be a thin layer of fabric bonded to a hard panel. Fit and finish is good and the interior parts are solidly connected together, but it is obvious that coddling the occupants isn't the focus of this car.

The seats are comfortable, and covered with a grey/black combination of fabrics that look for all the world like neoprene wetsuit material. They move front-to-back and recline, but have no height adjusters or power option. Actually, the seats were virtually unnoticeable to me...and for me that means they didn't raise any issues with discomfort. There are only two seats, as the rear half of the car is dedicated to the battery packs for the electric motor portion of the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system.

Actually, the cargo section has a completely flat load floor because of this. While not very large, a week or two's groceries will fit under the sloping rear hatch. You probably won't be able to see out the rear window at that point, but that's really not much of a loss, because there's only a sliver of vision available from the interior rearview mirror anyway. The exterior mirrors are large and user-friendly, though, which is somewhat surprising in a car with the super-low drag coeffient of 0.25. I'd think that a quick way to reduce drag would be reducing outside mirrors to the size of LifeSavers.

Everyone says it, and I have to echo them...the Insight operates like a normal car, for the most part. You turn the key, the motor starts, you put it in first and drive away. The electric motor sandwiched between engine and transmission is invisible. The Insight has plenty of power in city driving -- not a surplus, no, but it's not a pedal-car, either. The motor is amazingly smooth and quiet in operation, too. It really doesn't feel at all like a 3-cylinder motor with half the displacement of a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke. I actually realized that I was going 40mph in second gear at one point, and the motor was nearly silent about it.

The biggest difference in the way this car acts is the much-touted "idle stop" feature. I've read about it, you've probably read about it, and we know the idea behind it: You come up to a stop in first gear with your foot on the clutch and the Insight kills the gasoline motor to save gas at idle. You step on the gas and the motor starts.

We know the theory, yes...in operation, "idle-stop" is just creepy! I owned real clunkers for a long time, so I'm somewhat used to my car quitting when I come to a stop...I'm just not used to it happening on purpose! The Insight uses the same electric motor that helps power the car to spin the motor to life. Hmm, the same motor can help push a 1,900lb car forwards...or spin a motorcycle-sized 1-liter 3-cylinder motor to life. The system operates just as they say it does, and yes, the engine really does spring to life the instant you touch the gas pedal. It's still weird, especially parking. I coasted into a parking spot in eerie silence.

On the road, the Insight behaves like any small econo-box. Actually, it most reminded me of the old 1981 Chevette I drove just after high school. No sleight to the Insight, I mean it in a good way. The Chevette was rather stiff and bouncy, narrow enough to fit through almost any gap between cars in a parking lot, and just big enough to feel like a real car as opposed to a Metro or Daewoo "minicar." I guess the Insight feels the Chevette of the 21st century...economical, utilitarian, roomy enough, and large enough to feel like a car instead of a skateboard. The ride is stiff and bouncy, but not harsh or "cheap-feeling." A lot of the bounciness probably comes from the hard-compound, low-rolling-resistance 14" tires.

The driver's controls are relatively intuitive and easy to use. The optional A/C (and I should add that A/C is the only option available on the Insight) uses large, understandable buttons and effectively cools the car, while actually creating only minimal drag on the motor. The dash is digital, with a large central speedometer and small tachometer on the left. On the right of the gauge cluster is a fuel gauge, battery-level gauge, and a gauge that measures the amount of either assist from -- or recharge to -- the battery pack. The odometer also displays instant and lifetime gas mileage. On my test drive I didn't match the EPA's 61mpg figure, but I did see a consistent 55mpg while I was hammering the gas pedal to match 45 mph traffic -- definitely in the range of motorcycle gas mileage. I found the amber readouts to be somewhat washed out from the sun, a common problem with digital dashboards.

While air conditioning is the only available option, most other things people like are standard. The Insight comes with power locks, windows and mirrors; keyless entry; AM/FM cassette with 2 speakers; rear window wiper; rear defrost and panic alarm. As of yet, the Insight hasn't been through any formal impact tests, but it comes with dual airbags, 4-wheel ABS and side impact beams in the doors.

Outside, the Insight is unmistakeably a Honda. It is reminiscent of about 90% mid-1980's Civic CRX and 10% last-generation Prelude to my eyes. The rear wheels are faired over by full wheel skirts, and even the weatherstripping on the windows presents an aerodynamic face. Opening the hood feels like opening a book -- the aluminum hood is really light. The motor isn't covered by cosmetic shrouds or plastic panels. It's a motor, and there it is. A curious thing is that with all the batteries in back, equivalent to 120 "D" cells according to the salesman, there's still a car battery under the hood for the engine.

Overall, I came away from the Insight favorably impressed. If we had $21k to spend on a commuter car for me, I'd snap it up. I only make a 6-mile roundtrip to work and back. With a 10.6 gallon tank, and at a conservative 55mpg, a quick run through the numbers shows that I'd have to fill the tank roughly once every 4-1/2 MONTHS. It doesn't even require premium unleaded to do this. When I break the figures down into a real-world example like this, all the hard plastic surfaces, hard tires, lightweight body parts and all the rest suddenly make sense. This is a car that sips gas through a straw -- a tiny little Barbie straw at that -- that's what it does and who it is.

As a big "form follows function" guy, I want to on record as loving the Honda Insight. Everything on this car comes second to the mighty MPG rating, and I like that. Honda managed to keep the "I want more fru-fru" people at bay, and build a real milestone in the American automotive scene. We love our Volvo, but I left the Honda dealer trying to think up some way to swing loan payments for a new Insight.