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part
of the trip. I tended to only get 55 mpg on the highway with the
A/C on always. Of course, these are hampered by our tendency to cruise
between 75 and 90 mph. The little car has no trouble at freeway speeds
over 85, with our peak cruise being about 95 mph. It still had room
to increase, so I have no idea how much faster it might go.
The
gas tank is just over 10 gallons, so a fillup goes better than 500 miles.
I appreciate that right now, at almost $2 per gallon.
The
instruments are all electronic and display all sorts of info on the integrated
engine/motor operation. There is a gas level gauge and a matching
level gauge for the battery pack state. There is another gauge that
shows how much electric boost or recharging is in progress. The only
gas engine gauges are the tach and temperature. The engine only holds
2 ½ quarts of 0W20 oil, so I have to trust the idiot lights to work
quickly if I ever get low on oil. (You should see the oil filter.
It is tiny.) At the bottom of the display is a real-time bar graph
of instantaneous gas mileage. The speedometer is a big digital readout
in the center of the cluster. It is a good thing it is so big because
it is the only real way for me to monitor speed. I have to check
it constantly.
Some
authors writing about the car remark on a lack of power. I had the
same impression at first. It took over a month of daily use to begin
understanding the variation between that impression and reality.
The difference began whenever I pulled out to pass another car on the two
lane highways. I would drop back, time the opening and accelerate
up and around the other car. When I reached the point of returning
to my own lane, I would look at the speedometer and see speeds between
85 and 90. And this was without a big dropback. Similarly,
cruising on the freeway showed unexpectedly high speeds without a strong
feel of acceleration. Slowly the reasons became apparent. The
car is very streamlined and there is almost no wind noise. The engine
is almost silent at
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I've
read a lot of car magazine reviews of the Honda Insight, but they all miss
the mark by a wide margin. I have been driving our Insight for over
three months now and think others might like to hear the views of someone
not being paid for a quick commercial review. As some of you know,
I usually drive a 1991 Honda CRX Si or a 1974 Elite. These are hard
precedents for the Insight to be compared against.
For
those who are not familiar with the Insight, it is the new gas-electric
hybrid car that may be showing us how cars will be powered in the near
future. The two-seater car is all aluminum and weighs just under
1900 pounds with air conditioning and full tanks. The specified load
limit is only about 400 pounds, including the occupants. The car
is arranged like the CRX, with the cargo area open to the back of the seats
and accessed through a glass "fast-back" rear hatch. There is a also
a hidden cargo space below the rear deck. We have put over 600 pounds
into the car for long trips without problems. The suspension does
not bottom out any more with the extra load than with just 2 people aboard.
A
1-liter VTEC gas engine is the primary propulsion, with the electric motor
used for power boosting when needed. The gas engine is 67 hp and
the electric is another 13 hp. A 5 speed manual transmission couples
the gas and electric power to the front wheels. Red-line is 6000
rpm, but it goes up past 6500 rpm without the limiter cutting it off.
I don't know where the limiter will cut in to protect the engine.
The electric motor is built around the flywheel and serves as booster motor,
starter and generator-. The electric motor is also pulsed out of
cycle with the engine firing at idle to smooth the 3-cylinder engine.
When the car is braking, or when the engine is not heavily loaded, the
computers will recharge the battery from this generator. The computers
also turn off the gas engine whenever the transmission is in neutral and
speed is below 19 mph. This saves gas at the stop lights. As
soon as the |
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transmission
is shifted into a gear, the electric motor restarts the engine. This
shutoff function can be overridden by the driver to allow the A/C to keep
going in hot weather. It is also automatically defeated if the battery
pack or brake vacuum reservoir are too low for safe operations.
With
the big 13 hp motor, the engine restart is instantaneous and silent.
There is no starter gear grinding. The same instant-on sensation
happens when starting the engine with the keys. There is about a
half-second delay between turning the key and the engine being on.
I guess the key turn is just requesting the computers to start the engine
and they check things out momentarily and then blast the engine on with
the big, direct drive motor. "Big" is of course relative. The
electric motor is about a 3 inch thick pancake sandwiched between the engine
and transmission.
The
batteries are a nickel-metal hydride pack of 120 1.2-volt cells, supplying
144 volts to the motor. The space immediately behind the seats has
a 10 gallon gas tank on the bottom and the battery pack just above.
The battery pack takes about half the car width between the wheels and
the other half is filled with electronics that control the battery charging,
motor operation and cutting the 144 volts down to 12 volts to support other
car needs. The power steering boost is electric, along with normal
engine operations, A/C blowers, cooling fans, etc. To the rear of
this power storage stack is another vertical stack consisting of the spare
tire and jack at the bottom and a covered storage bin above. The
bin is about the size and shape of a large ice chest.
How's
the gas mileage? Well, the EPA rating is 50 mpg city and 70 mpg highway.
I live at a 3000 foot elevation and work in the valley (about 100 foot
elevation). What I lose going up the mountain, I do not get back
going down. My average is 51 to 53 mpg for the daily commute.
On the highway, Trish got 61.5 mpg across East Texas, with rolling hills,
but with the A/C off |
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