SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.

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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.

We gain Insight into Honda's 2011 hybrid 

Pic supplied

Gently into the future

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday April 27, 2011

There was a delay in releasing Honda's new Insight to the South African market - simply too much overseas demand. It was worth the wait, though, because we finally got the car with the updates and improvements announced at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. Among these were improved suspension and revamped interior. We mention the suspension upgrade because early examples were criticised in some quarters for being harsh-riding. There were certainly no complaints from the editorial butt on that score in the new car, but then we prefer a firmer ride anyway.

People's most common reaction on being told that a car is hybrid is: "Oh, is that the one than can run on battery power alone?" In the case of the opposition’s Prius, the answer would be "yes." Honda uses a different system known as Parallel Hybrid in which the electric motor is mounted between the petrol engine and the gearbox. In this configuration the electric motor simply assists the petrol engine that remains the primary source of power.  To our mind the parallel system is easier to live with. The primary engine works all the time, giving reasonable performance, unlike the other system in which owners struggle to go everywhere on battery alone and block traffic in the process.

A 1 339 cc eight-valve four-cylinder engine developing 65 kW/121 Nm provides the Insight’s main power. Assistance is courtesy of a 10 kW/78 Nm electric motor. The combined output figures are 73 kW at 5 800 rpm and 167 Nm of torque between 1 000 and 1 500 rpm. Quite right, the numbers do not add up. The explanation as to why one plus two equals two-and-three-quarters is beyond us because not everyone is an engineer, but the extra bit of push at low engine speeds is always welcome. Drive is through a constant velocity transmission (CVT) because that was found to be more economical overall than either a conventional automatic or relying on human beings to always drive a manual 'box efficiently.

Verdict? If you select the "econo" driving option, are really patient and behave yourself, you can get amazing fuel economy out of this car, with under 5 l/100 being quite attainable in city motoring . If the journey is longer, with cut-and-thrust freeway driving, the picture changes because the "econo" setting isn't really right for conditions like these. On a trip to Sibaya Lodge outside Durban and back, we selected the Sport setting on the gearbox and turned the driving mode back to normal. The car drove like a typical modern 1400 with automatic transmission, returning about 6 l/100 km for the journey. This is probably average for a small car on a 99-percent freeway trip, but not a modern miracle. Overall fuel consumption during the time we drove the car was 6,1 l/100 km.

Unlike its sister hybrid, the CR-Z, Honda Insight boasts four doors and is billed as a full five-seater. While easy access to the back seat is welcome, We rated passenger space back there as only "fair." It probably depends on whether your five occupants are small-to-average civilians or large-to-average football players. The boot is wide, long and fairly deep with a steel spacesaver spare underneath. Its size is given as 408 litres, expanding to 584 with the seat backs down. This is significantly bigger than the 196-litre luggage space in the CR-Z, the secret being that the Insight's NiMh battery is under the rear seat rather than in the boot.

Was it worth waiting for? Probably. Is this particular hybrid a modern miracle? Possibly, provided you have enough patience to live with it in econo mode.

The numbers
Price: R259 900
Engine: 1 339 cc four-cylinder with electric motor assistance
Combined power: 73 kW at 5 800 rpm
Combined torque: 167 Nm between 1000 and 1500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 12,5 seconds
Maximum speed: 182 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: See text
Tank: 40 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km at 15 000 km intervals

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.

Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax. 

So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local
colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

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