Posted on 05/18/2009 8:22:32 AM PDT by Crazieman
Much has been written about the Insight, Honda’s new low-priced hybrid. We’ve been told how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you’re easy on the throttle and how it is the dawn of all things. The beginning of days.
So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.
So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.
The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
This looks like a brazen ripoff of the Prius. And no I would not drive either car, or any hybrid vehicle.
ping
Clarkson writes auto reviews like Ann Coulter, very funny stuff.
The nickel for the battery has to come from somewhere. Canada, usually. It has to be shipped to Japan, not on a sailing boat, I presume. And then it must be converted, not in a tree house, into a battery, and then that battery must be transported, not on an ox cart, to the Insight production plant in Suzuka. And then the finished car has to be shipped, not by Thor Heyerdahl, to Britain, where it can be transported, not by wind, to the home of a man with a beard who thinks he’s doing the world a favour.
LOL!!
So ... did the reviewer like it? /s
A CVT? Gag. Most counter-intuitive technology ever developed. I really didn’t think I’d mind it much - till I drove one.
I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. If I had bought it I would have gone batty within months.
And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.
Jeremy is undoubtedly the guy who’s the host of “Top Gear”, the British car show which I’d try to catch when I was in Europe in 2005. You don’t have to have any particular interest in cars, he’s hilariously funny.
Honda has given up on the hydrogen car and will not be selling any more hydrogen stations for home use. It just takes too much electricity to make hydrogen. It is a great fuel, but unfortunately it doesn’t grow on trees or come out of the ground.
Maybe, with enough nuclear power, you could make hydrogen and pipe it around, but that is way way off.
On the other hand..natural gas is available and is a good motor fuel. Pipeline already exist and all we need are more filling stations.
Reminds me a bit of a review that the host of "Top Gear" (a great BBC car show) gave to a Renault.He didn't like it and made that clear during the review.To wrap things up he said (in that great British accent of his) "and like everything French,it smokes".Great line,IMO.
It is a fantastic car. I encourage every leftist to buy one. I will recommend it to my leftist friends. The car is ideal for my leftist brother-in-law.
Jeremy Clarkson is one of the funniest car writers on the planet.. kudos for still not bowing to the smugism of the enviroweenies.
Apparently this review is by the host of Top Gear. The same guy
Pretty much sums it up.
You should hear him rail on about government regulations of driving and parking in London and on taxes..
Same guy.
He is on in America on BBC America w/Top Gear. Hated Bush, most Americans and America. regularly bashes America to pander to his bosses at the “all white people are evil” BBC. Somewhat funny but a fat pompous arse.
James May on Top Gear is the funny one.
Here are his other articles.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/system/topicRoot/The_wit_and_wisdom_of_Jeremy_Cl/
And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.
Honda had a reputation of using the hybrid equipment as a power boost so your 4 cylinder engine felt like a 6 cylinder. It didn't help the gas mileage much because they focused on squeezing out more performance. I guess they gave up on that idea.
Although I looked at the specs and it doesn't look too bad. The 1399cc engine is only a little smaller than my 1600cc in my first new car (Mazda 323) and the 112 mph top speed is faster than I ever got my 323 up to.
Is that the same guy? Yah,I think you're correct.That never occurred to me.Yah,he's hysterical.Great show! You can see it on the BBC America channel which,I think,is available on most cable systems.
And,BTW...check out my post #11.It was Jeremy who delivered the line I mentioned.
No, that's the whole problem. They didn't imitate success but engineered an unwanted product in a shaky market. This too shall pass. Badly.
"..hybrid cars are designed solely to milk the guilt genes of the smug and the foolish.."
Now cleaning coffee off of monitor.
Thanks, I’ll see if I can catch him on cable. I wasn’t aware of his anti-Bush stance, but as a matter of context, it’s a very British thing to do, and as you say, he may have been compelled to do so to appease his BBC masters. Or, he may actually think that way. I don’t know. He just has some great lines.
My favorite line of his, when he was reviewing some high end Bentley or it might have been a Ferrari...”it sounds like Barry White chewing on wasps”.
The review, however, gets 5/5 stars!
bump for later.
“Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.”
PING for a funny review of a “Smug-mobile”.
Yes, Jeremy Clarkson is the host of “Top Gear” which, by the way, now airs on BBC America. For listings see http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/266/index.jsp
You can also watch videos from the show on their website topgear.com
Watch this show and you will laugh your butt off. Please do note that Jeremy is your typical Britsnob who hates Americans.
folks had a honda civic back int eh late 70’s think it was a 1300 cc motor car had to wiehg less than a ton, great acceleration (compaired the the 1200 cc VW we had0 it was a CVVC (three valve) engine. got near 38 mpg on hiway. no hybrid either, had AC that my dad installed.
simple cheap car that was reliable. no car likethat now days.
Going green has its price!....stupid buyers!
I believe those were called “CVCCs” and they were ~~50 mpg roadrunners 15, maybe even 20 years ago. For that genre they were indeed wonders. Little small for me but they had a near-religious following.
Ping for later.
Best line of the article, “But let me be clear that hybrid cars are designed solely to milk the guilt genes of the smug and the foolish.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
He’s not so much anti-Bush as he is, well, anti-America. Although honestly, I don’t think he trashes America nearly as much as he trashes those traditional targets of British wit, France and Germany. Clarkson’s just a curmudgeon and he’s pretty equal-opportunity in who he takes shots at.
And though he does tend to rag on America pretty hard, he absolutely loves Corvettes. So he can’t be all bad. :)
}:-)4
That's cold.
Amazing << Hear this. Feel this, and tell me that this isn't music.
Oh, dear...
He really paints a picture, doesn’t he?
Brilliant critique!
Here’s my favorite Jeremy Clarkson You-Tube vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FdkvdzK_nY
Perhaps the most concise description of the 4-cycle internal combustion engine that I've seen to date.
Clarkson writes like the Mark Steyn of car reviews.... Too many great lines and pithy comments to just pick one.
Clarkson and Hammond are a bit too forced and they act like goons. The fake laughter etc. I like James May who they usually pick on.
The best episode was when Hammond and May go to work for a company that drives drunks homes from pubs. They go out on essentially portable mini bikes, put it in the trunk (boot) and drive them home.
Well they would critique the car in code words. James May would get these snooty yuppies and it was usually the wife. Most were urban know it all types that were so clever. The banter between them was funny. May would try to tell them their car was not very good without offending them. A lot more subtle than Clarkson but very funny.
Thought you might get a kick out of this.
Should have been copyrighted and "Power Slide Transmission".
Boffo review. I doubt the Tappit Brothers could have done better.
Yes, it looks a lot like the Prius, especially the new 2010 Prius which doesn’t look as nice as the 2004 version.
But, as the author pointed out, it drives nothing like the Prius. Which actually drives nicely, and has no transmission at all in truth, but acts like a continuously variable transmission (with no indication of shifts at all, done by a 2nd electric motor in a very clever combination of sun/ring gears).
Thanks for the ping. That one hurt me. I’m laughing like a loon at work because it’s all true...well, the parts about separating the smug from his money...
A few weeks ago I picked up a $1 every-year picture book of corvettes over the weekend at a used book sale. Pretty cool. My favorites are the 57’s and 58’s. Classic.
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