2019 Honda Insight Hybrid Specs
2019 Honda Insight Hybrid Specs The first-generation Honda Insight was a shaky three-door contraction with wheel sparrows. The second-generation Honda Insight was a five-door one that, despite being the most cost-effective hybrid on the market when it launched, never caught up to Toyota’s trusty Prius. For the third time is a charm, right? Now the spiritual successor to the deposed civic hybrid and the insert swerving into the line-up between the Civic and the Accord is taking the best parts of both cars and injecting them with a dose of green cred that’s hard to beat. And unlike the latest Prius, you can watch it without your face going all the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Success!
The Insight avoids any of the Civic’s visual quirks in favor of a design that Honda believes will help broaden its appeal. Given how much the Prius now has a hot mess and how polarized the design of the Civic can be, I think Honda has made the right move. The front borrows enough from the Clarity’s design without getting too weird, and its limousine silhouette has a bit of a clean fastback shape.
Inside, there’s the right amount of weird. My touring trim tester’s 8-inch infotainment screen “swims, ” sure, but there’s still a whole dashboard behind it. Changing gears requires pushing or pulling buttons rather than moving a lever, but it quickly becomes muscle memory. Otherwise, the seats are supportive and the clutched glass offers a lot of forwarding and side sight-I wished but a more extended view through the rearview mirror.
There is no space-eating battery hump in the trunk, which means that depending on the trim, you can get 14.7 or 15.1 cubic meters of cargo space exactly like the Civic Sedan. It’s not as much as the Accord offers, of course, but it’s voluminous enough to house food from an entire family with space to save yourself for a huge bag of dog food.
Read more: 2019 Honda Insight Hybrid Colors
Hidden beneath Insight’s sheet metal is a 1.5-liter Atkinson gas engine that emits 107bhp and 99 tonnes of torque. Toss in two electric motors, and you have a hybrid stew that has a net of 151 horsepower and 197 pounds-feet. It can cause you to meander through modes and ignore the lizard brain’s thoughts on engine noise to make sense of everything, but when you do, it’s quite rewarding.
There are four types of drive: Normal, Sport, Eco and EV. Despite the acceleration penalty, I spent almost all my time in eco mode maximizing electricity operation. Normal mode sacrifices the economy for more citizen-like acceleration. The sport, on the other hand, makes the engine higher for longer without producing significant performance gains, and it uses the speakers to make the engine louder, so I found it was best ignored.
A small battery means you’ll watch the load drop surprisingly quickly, but it’s still nice if you only have a few miles of EV operation without paying for a plug-in hybrid set-up. With the EV button, you can choose when to let the battery do it alone, but there is no “hold ” mode to ensure you have charged if you want it. The engine will kick in when it barely feels like translating into the cabin, but since it’s not connected to the wheels, the revs will rise and fall regardless of vehicle movement, which takes some getting used to. At higher revs in each mode, the engine is surprisingly loud-but this is my only real complaint about how the Insight drives.
Whether on the road or on the highway, the ride of insight is basically the same as that composed of the Civic-composed without being overly stiff. It eats up potholes with the aphorism, and if you want to intervene in a spirited driving for some reason, it won’t collapse into a fractured pile. Regenerative braking has three different strengths that can be adjusted with the paddles behind the wheel, and I really liked the seamless transition from regenerative to friction braking.
Read more: 2019 Honda Insight Hybrid MSRP
The EPA rates the Insight Touring on 51 mpg city and 45 mpg highway, but I was able to hit and beat the base Insight rating of 55 mpg city and 49 mpg highway with little conscious effort. Use the EV button at the right times, and you knock on 60 mpg’s door.
2019 Honda Insight Hybrid Specs
Honda offers very few packages for its individual trims these days, instead of using the trims themselves to split the content. I stick with my tester’s dark Cosmic Blue color, available on all insights. The $24,060 EX offers the best value by bundling the larger infotainment screen and creature comforts like keyless entry and LaneWatch, but I’m a sucker for automatic climate control, heated power front seats, and hotspots, so I can stick to the $28,090 touring. That’s still thousands below the average transaction price for a new car in 2018.
LX FWD
1.5L 152hp@0 In-Line 4 mild hybrid 55 city/ 49 hwy Variable Speed Automatic $22,930
EX FWD
1.5L 152hp@0 In-Line 4 mild hybrid 55 city/ 49 hwy Variable Speed Automatic $24,160
Touring FWD
1.5L 152hp@0 In-Line 4 mild hybrid 51 city/ 45 hwy Variable Speed Automatic $28,190
