Oh yeah, and I never shared my story of test driving the Honda Insight yet..
My verdict:
As a true petrolhead (would love to declare myself as one, but I haven't own an Alfa yet. Shame.), I often cringe at the sight of hybrids on the road. Especially Malaysian roads. I couldn't help but to notice that they all share the same dull, not-so-fast-back styling. Take the Toyota Prius & Honda Insight for an instance. The 'hybrid shape' usually explains how boring hybrids are; and Lexus joined the market with their quintessentially designed, rather pleasant looking CT200h. Doesn't matter to me, still a hybrid anyway. It's just another Prius in Lexus' clothing. Although it does make me squirm whenever one drives past me. Yes, I'm a sucker for Lexus (Lexuses? Lexi? Lexera?). The CT200h shares the similar engine, similar electric motor with its' cousin, and that gives a similar combined output. Also not to mention that I was once marinated, dusted, grilled & smoked in my stock Persona by a Prius, driven by a lady. At 180 KM/h. On the ever bumpy Duke Highway.
Let's get back to the main point, shall we? I wasn't too keen to test drive the Insight at first, because I'm still against the whole hybrid idea. But because it was a sincere offer made by my friend who recently acquired her new Insight, and me being the worst critic among my peers when it comes to cars, I reluctantly accepted the offer. Yes, I was still very skeptical at this point, but not until I was greeted with a warm welcome by a nice 'beep' when the door was opened. Could've been worse.
I must say I was rather pleased by the arrangement of buttons & dials on the dashboard in the car. A nice-to-the-touch CD player with grey brushed metal finishings; can't help but to perpetually run my fingertips on the headunit & caress it. Am I the only one with a fetish for brushed finishings here?
Digital speedo display. Hmm. Nice touch, but it wouldn't give as much thrill as watching the needle rise on a conventional analogue. It's a 1,339 CC 4-banger with an ELECTRIC MOTOR. Wouldn't do that quick, anyway.
It weighs around the same as a Persona, mind you.
I hate it when car manufacturers, especially the big ones like Honda decide to use cheap plastics for the door trims in their cars. The door trim feels REALLY cheap, very close in quality to that of the first generation Myvi. As if they were made out of recycled plastic bags. It doesn't feel like a sub RM 100k car to the receptors on my fingertips. Come to think of it, the Myvi's door panel were less flimsy compared to the Insight's. Even the interior of the slightly cheaper, new Honda City is a notch above. Sound insulation was O.K., but Honda could've done better.
And so, what's the drive like?
The stepless CVT gearbox provided the car with a rather smooth acceleration. 0-100 in about 11.4 seconds as recorded by the car owner who was sitting beside me at that time, a far cry from the manufacturer's claim of 10-ish seconds. Still faster than many cars today. Lesson learnt; do not EVER mess with hybrids as they have enough torque from the electric motors to smoke you from standstill. Comfort was acceptable on paved surface, although on certain rough road patches you could feel the details on the road; stones, tiny cracks, holes. At one point I actually thought I felt the car went over an engraving on the road that reads: 'MRR2, 1992'.
Honda should've painted the ECO button in red instead of green with fine printings on it, in bolded capital that says: 'Do not press.'. With the ECO mode activated, it was a pain to sit in the car through the traffic under the ever blazing, scorching sun on our way to Pavilion as it reduces the climate control (the mighty invention that we Malaysians worship and recognize as 'air-cond') fan speed and recirculates the air in the car more. Might be a rather nice implementation to other parts of the world, but not here in Malaysia. And as smooth as the engine is (a plus point for the Insight), it is rather irritating when it constantly stops and restarts in a jam when your foot is on the brakes. The ECO mode also limits the power and torque, which is a rather brilliant way to reduce fuel consumption, but there isn't enough power to get the car up to a cruising speed once the traffic cleared.
Overall, the Insight is a rather decent car, but what you get doesn't actually justify what you paid for. Probably paying extra for that electric motor and battery, but the interior should've been better, and comfort can still be improved. Haven't actually tried to thrash the car around corners to test the handling, but from city maneuvers, it's easy to tell that the car wouldn't slip through corners like a snake. Steering was extremely light, so light that I had to constantly remind myself that I'm holding a steering wheel that is ACTUALLY connected to the front wheels, as opposed to my cousin's 1994 Proton Saga Iswara. Trying to park that Saga in a parallel parking box is equivalent to working out at the gym for 30 minutes with no membership fees; I can skip gym altogether! Point being, if you have RM 100k to splurge on a car, go for the new City or the Jazz instead.
very long long comment...
Aug 19 2011, 09:26 PM
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