Comments on: Road Test: Honda Insight Hybrid

By: Fifth Gear Honda FCX Clarity road-test | Geek-Speak

Fifth Gear Honda FCX Clarity road-test | Geek-Speak — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:21:12 +0000

[...] what do you think of it? The car looks pretty big, but when I tested the Insight I was struck by how big that looked too. Somehow, though, it felt small and easy to drive. I love [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:15:38 +0000

great review Chris. I certainly enjoyed the passenger ride in it when you kindly took me for a ride! Much easier to observe all the gadgetry from the safety of the passenger seat. Yeah, a great car and certainly food for thought for future car purchasing

By: Mike CJ

Mike CJ — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:23:32 +0000

Not sure about the new Prius but the old one suffered from that weird engine note. The Lexus – no. So much spare power there that the engine never seems to need to work!

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:01:07 +0000

Thanks Mike, glad you enjoyed reading it. The petrol motor is always running, but not always driving the car – it seems to just idle when the electric motor is being used at low speeds. The good thing is that people should be able to hear you coming, even when running (mostly) on battery.

Yes, from what I hear the engine noise is a feature of CVT – it would be interesting to try a Prius (1.6l) or that Lexus you had a while back and see if they sound different.

By: Mike CJ

Mike CJ — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:21:00 +0000

Great post Chris, and I’ve been looking forward to this one. The car certainly looks the part. Can it run on EV power only like the Prius, or does the petrol motor always kick in?

I suspect the engine noise issue is a CVT one, the only CVT car I’ve driven which doesn’t annoy in the same way was a much more powerful one.