Honda's "Insight"-ful new car

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

A cheap Hybrid car? It seems than Honda will be introducing a new hybrid with an old name for around $18,500-19,000. This is several thousand less than the Prius or Civic hybrids. Projected fuel economy is 70mpg, making it a tempting buy if for no other reason than saving money.

http://automobiles.honda.com/insigh...56264:sYRdFNB6B3YAADs9LoIAAAAL:20080913082148

I think the original Insight is the nicest looking of the dedicated hybrid cars. It even had a manual transmission instead of the troublesome CVT in some others. However, this thing looks more like a Prius clone than a clean sheet of paper. Then again, how many people will care?

Another interesting question is would you buy an older hybrid, like the original 1999-06 Honda Insight if it were cheap to use as a commuter? I would not have thought it, but I found a few Insights for less than $7,000 on Autotrader.com. It makes me wonder just how serviceable one of these would be, and how reliable it would be given 35k miles a year. Could it be upgraded with newer battery technology, or maybe as a plug in hybrid? As a plug in, you could charge the batteries all night (Or suck off the pizza place's electric between deliveries) and run it as an electric car most of the day, thus bypassing gas stations for most of your commuting. Are parts hard to get or extremely expensive? I'm not advocating it as I have no idea how feasible it is from a practical standpoint, but it is worth discussing as these things get cheaper. After all, if a bunch of eco-hippies can play with these things, can't a bunch of hot rodders potentially do it better?

 

[TBRtat2]

Did you know that most hybrids tend to get worse milage then a mid 80's 4 banger, when you dirve it like a normal car.

Most mpg rating are gottin by "babying" the car, but when you drive it like anything else they dont get the rated mileage.

Also the hybrids take more energy to build, when compared to a normal car, so when factering in energy used to build the car added to the decrease in polution put out by the car it would take almost ten years of "Average" driving to offset the polution created by building the car. and on top of that they cost a chit load more. Add it all up, and you find that people buy the hybrid cars so that they can feel like ther helping the planet. Cause if it was about saving money, who can really justify spending an extra $5,000 or more on a car so that they can say they getting an extra couple miles per gallon.
Think of this $5,000 @ 4.00 per gal. =1250 gallons of fuel,
1250 gal @ 25 mpg = 31250 miles
so even at 25 mpg thats over 31000 of free driving, just because you didnt buy a hybrid, IF you get a car with better milage, thats even more "free" miles
Now take my 89 vw golf that gets over 30mpg in city (with my lead foot even, i dont baby my cars) on pump gas.
Now if you spend even less on the car, think of how much gas you can buy with the difference in price, which is like free gas

 

[megaladon6]

sadly, ford even has a diesel in europe that gets 70MPG. they won't bring it here because the engines are made in england and it'd be too expensive for the expected level of sales. if we could get the press to tout diesel half as much as they do the hybrid crap we could actually get somewhere.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Did you know that most hybrids tend to get worse milage then a mid 80's 4 banger, when you dirve it like a normal car.

Most mpg rating are gottin by "babying" the car, but when you drive it like anything else they dont get the rated mileage.

Also the hybrids take more energy to build, when compared to a normal car, so when factering in energy used to build the car added to the decrease in polution put out by the car it would take almost ten years of "Average" driving to offset the polution created by building the car. and on top of that they cost a chit load more. Add it all up, and you find that people buy the hybrid cars so that they can feel like ther helping the planet. Cause if it was about saving money, who can really justify spending an extra $5,000 or more on a car so that they can say they getting an extra couple miles per gallon.
Think of this $5,000 @ 4.00 per gal. =1250 gallons of fuel,
1250 gal @ 25 mpg = 31250 miles
so even at 25 mpg thats over 31000 of free driving, just because you didnt buy a hybrid, IF you get a car with better milage, thats even more "free" miles
Now take my 89 vw golf that gets over 30mpg in city (with my lead foot even, i dont baby my cars) on pump gas.
Now if you spend even less on the car, think of how much gas you can buy with the difference in price, which is like free gas

All points I have posted previously. The point with the new Honda thing is that it is NOT $5,000 more than a comparable car, it is really only around $2,000-3,000 more ( Comparable being a Fit sport), and the question is will more people go for them given the lack of a huge price gap? I am not advocating hybrids here, merely posting speculations for others to build on. I also know about the VW Bluemotion and earlier diesels with their phenomenal fuel economy. Given the choice of comparable cars at comparable prices, give me the diesel. However, VW is dragging their feet in bringing lower priced diesels to the US and we only get a fairly pricey Jetta and not the Rabbit, Fox, Polo or (discontinued) Lupo. As for why I would look into any of these options, for me it makes a HUGE difference as I drive 3x as much as the average American, or around 35-40k miles a year, every year for the last 13 years. 75 mpg would save me $15 a day, or $450 a month which adds up when you only gross $2,000 a month. I am constantly trying to find the economic X factor which lets me keep more of my money instead of paying it out in expenses every month, thereby allowing me to live better on the same amount of money. I even have a preferred shitbox that I can't seem to find anywhere, a 1991-1999 Nissan Sentra with a GA16DE/5speed combo that gets 32mpg city no matter how you drive it. However, buying a beat up one means I have to spend too much time fixing it, time I do not have working a full time job delivering pizza and attending courses on Calculus , Chemistry and Physics.

 

[TBRtat2]

I am comparing new hybrids against older similar sized cars (and im only talkin about 8 - 10 years older, if that) And like i said, relisticly those hybrids tend not to get the mileage that the dealer shows, most cars dont get what they advertise. And lets face it with normal everyday trafic, you dont want to be driving the way they do in EPA testing, You will cause a lot of road rage and have everyone in the world wanting to run you off the road. (We have all been mad at the a-hole that drives at least 5 mph less then the posted speed limit, during rush hour.)

And I think I speak for everyone when I say that we dont want the dude delivering are pizza to be driving like a lil old lady, We want are food quick. I know thats why I tip my pizza dude good, lol.

Sierosly, who wants to drive like that just to get some extra mileage?


Just so you know, My vw is no pos. But it was when i got it, I rebuilt the engine from the ground up(back to how it was when new). So it doesnt break down all the time or ever as far as that goes. I wouldnt of had to rebuild it, but the last owner didnt take care of it, but hey it was cheap. I now have less then 2,500 bucks in that car, and get good milage out of it.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Well, I will only say that I am not the slowest driver on the road... However, my company has a penchant for simultaneously raising it's delivery charge and dropping our mileage compensation (currently we get $0.98 per delivery, and they charge $2.50!). Despite what some seem to think , the delivery charge does not go to the driver. Add in the cost of fuel, insurance, and maintenance and I lose money on any delivery I don't get tipped on. The whole delivery charge thing is part of why I am trying to get out of the business. I decided to go for an "easy" degree in Mechanical Engineering instead. Pizza delivery is a dying business model as it is increasingly unprofitable for the driver's to do their job. I give it 5-10 years before it is gone completely, and I have about 3-4 years of school left.

If I get a brand new car, it won't be a hybrid of any kind as I can't afford to keep one running past the first 150,000 miles. The two cars that closest fit my needs are the Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris. There's a whole other thread about that though. Basically I like the Fit better because it has a nicer interior and more stable handling and better brakes, but the Yaris is cheaper. The way I drive, I need stability and good brakes. I would not buy used because of the huge work load of doing all the science and math classes I need (Calculus I-III, Differential Equations, Intro to Chem., Chem I+II, and Physics I+II), plus I work a lot and really can't afford down time. I would rather spend cash on a new car than time on repairing a cheaper old one. Plus, time missed in class due to breakdowns hinders my ability to learn since there is so much material to digest in a short amount of time. I also need a cumulative GPA of 3.0 at a minimum to get in to the university I want to go to, and only have a 2.77 now, so I can not get lower than a B in any classes, and must get an A in at least half of them.

So, this is a thread about theory and not really about me. I developed another theory tonight while doing deliveries about a hybrid power adder system to boost power output and fuel economy in a standard internal combustion vehicle, but I am keeping that one to myself as it could have commercial possibilities. I still have to develop it further and figure out how to achieve a synergy between the elements. I may use my Cutlass or pickup as a guinea pig one day if I determine it to be feasible.