Honda Insight 1.3 SE review

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Honda Insight 1.3 SE Road Test

Test date 18 March 2009 Price as tested £16,995

For Car-like handling, interior space, pricing, emissions

Against Harsh ride, engine and gearbox refinement, economy

You have to feel for Honda. Despite developing the first production hybrid car, and before that pioneering clean and efficient petrol engines, the environmental limelight has been well and truly hogged by arch rival Toyota.

In 2008 sales of the Prius flew past the one million mark, while sales of Honda hybrids, of any incarnation, languish at just 275,000.

Honda’s fortunes could be about the change, though, for with the rebirth of the Insight name comes a hybrid car designed for global appeal. Not least because for the first time since the original Insight, Honda’s hybrid is a stand-alone model, rather than one hidden within the Civic range.

While not as ground-breaking as the original Insight, or for that matter the current Prius, the new Honda boasts simplicity at a much more affordable price. Starting from £15,490, the Insight is the cheapest hybrid currently on sale.

Honda’s thinking is that by eroding the premium, more buyers will migrate from conventional family cars. Will they? Only if the Insights talents extend further than this value proposition.

Honda’s history in environmental cars dates back to 1972 and the Civic CVCC, a low-emissions petrol-engined car designed to meet US clean air regulations.

In 1996 it produced the EV Plus, a pure electric four-seat city car, before launching the original Insight in 1999. Which, with a 1.0-litre petrol engine and electric motor plus advanced aerodynamics, was capable of 83mpg combined and 80g/km of CO2.

In 2003 the first Civic IMA appeared, followed in 2006 by a second generation, the Civic Hybrid.