Once underway in the Insight, I was again impressed by how the car surpassed my initial "entry level" expectations. At light throttle openings, the car proceeds with a level of smoothness and quiet that actually makes it feel like the car is gliding along effortlessly - the CVT ramps the effective gear ratio quickly and smoothly as the car accelerates, keeping the revs very low. The torque boost of the IMA motor helps immensely here - peak system torque of 123lb-ft is available between 1000-1500 rpms, and if you drive around at city speeds with the Econ mode engaged, you will spend a lot of time in this rpm band. Pacing traffic in relative peace with the Insight is no problem, unless perhaps you happen to commute in one of the more Type-A infested areas of the country.

On the other hand, if you need to up the pace to something a bit more brisk, the Insight is willing to comply with your wishes, but be prepared to hear the fury of the little 1.3L as it whips itself into a froth. In this mode, the "effortless" feel experienced during "green" driving modes quickly dissolves, and you become very aware of the tiny engine's efforts. At full steam, I would categorize the acceleration as adequate, if only just that. The Insight's weight to power ratio is 27.9 lb/hp, which I'm guessing puts it somewhere in the bottom 5 or 10% of all cars currently sold in the USA.

One thing that helps give the sensation of enhancing the acceleration is bumping the EX model's shift lever down into "S" and then manually shifting through the paddle shifted "gears". In this mode you get to hear and feel the engine climbing through the rpm band, just like a "normal" car. The 7-speed mode may seem like a gimmick, but to me it is a worthwhile feature that makes the car more enjoyable to operate. It does a good job simulating a true 7-speed AT transmission and is very responsive to inputs from the paddles, shifting crisply and cleanly.

Acceleration out of the hole feels like it might be slightly better than the Civic Hybrid. Though down a bit on power vs the Civic Hybrid, the Insight is about 5% bit lighter and the CVT has slightly shorter gearing as well as more aggressive start clutch control. Around town, it's reasonably peppy, but if you're cruising at higher speeds out on the highway or on rural two-lanes, you will find that your opportunities for overtaking slower traffic may be limited by the Insight's relative lack of firepower.

Chassis
Despite its low curb weight and smallish 15" wheel and low rolling resistance tire package, the 2010 Insight manages to deliver the feel of a more substantial vehicle on the road. That's not to say that it feels heavy by any means, but it delivers generally excellent ride comfort as well a high degree of composure. The spring rates are relatively compliant but the damping rates are sufficiently tuned to quickly settle out any unnecessary ride motions.

Like most recent Hondas, the steering is electrically assisted (EPS) for obvious (fuel efficiency) reasons, and, like most recent Hondas, the car is decidedly lacking in the way of steering feel. Compounding that is a slow (by Honda standards) 16.73:1 steering ratio. For me it probably feels very slow because the two cars I drive the most are a 2008 Civic Si and 2000 S2000, both of which feature much quicker ratios. Comparing the steering response to its closest competitor, the Prius, the Insight fares much better.

Overall, the Insight's natural state seems to rest more towards the relaxed end of the spectrum, but when pressed it is able to deliver respectable performance. During the first day of the press event, I drove the Insight in a manner that I thought would closely mirror the way a typical Insight owner would drive it. In other words, I drove it somewhat conservatively, with an eye towards efficiency. It wasn't until the second day when Neal and I took the car out to shoot our video and photography that I really started playing around and probing the limits with the Insight. Here I was pleased to find the chassis to be more capable than I anticipated, despite its modest tires and suspension tuning. The steering is still too slow for my tastes, but it was plenty precise and the chassis has a nice tossable feel to it; you could play pitch and catch with the car all day long. With the VSA disabled, the car has a nice, nearly neutral feel to it - there is some inherent understeer but it is easily mitigated, and in fact, you can elicit traces of oversteer with some deftly timed flicks of the steering wheel and a little bit of footwork. With VSA enabled, (as I also found with the 2009 Fit) it might even be faster around medium-speed steady state corners (think cloverleaf onramp) as the EX model's VSA system works to intelligently counteract understeer. Considering the lousy reputation of the typical hybrid's low rolling resistance tires, the Insight's Dunlop SP37 15" all-season tires actually generated a reasonable level of lateral grip. It is highly unlikely that the typical Insight owner would ever drive his or her Insight in a seriously sporting manner, but it's good to know that the car will perform with poise if the circumstances ever call for it.

Visibility
In general, visibility from the driver's seat of the Insight is pretty good. Due to the steep rake of the Insight's hatchback glass, Honda pulled out a trick that dates back to the 1988 CRX, and that involves a second vertical window in the hatch to enhance rearward visibility. This aids in visibility when backing out of a parking space and in most on-the-road situations, but during my time driving the Insight I did notice that the position of the horizontal structural member that divides the hatchback glass and this transparent panel is large enough and positioned such that it can easily block the view of entire vehicles traveling at certain distances directly behind the Insight.

NVH
The Insight's Noise Vibration and Harshness characteristics are generally very good during normal driving, but we did notice that the tires can get pretty noisy on coarse pavement. Many of the rural Arizona roads we traveled seemed almost like gravel roads that had simply been bound with some tar, and the tires were pretty loud on these roads. On smoother concrete and asphalt surfaces, the tire noise diminished quite significantly, and the rest of the car was fairly quiet as well, provided the engine was humming along at the lower half of the tach. The Insight is Honda's least expensive vehicle to feature an acoustically insulated windshield. This may seem like a curious extravagance on a $20000 "entry level" hybrid vehicle until you consider the fact that this specially laminated windshield helps to insulate the cabin from temperature extremes, and thus helps the Insight operate as efficiently as possible.

The Insight's ACE body structure is very stiff, which pays tremendous dividends in the NVH sweepstakes. In designing the Insight's body structure, Honda has paid special attention to optimizing vibration frequency control while keeping the structure as light as possible.

71.3mpg! TOV wins the MPG Challenge!
As expected, there have been a lot of internet discussions concerning the Insight's preliminary EPA figures (40 city, 43 hwy, 41 combined). Certainly Honda knew that these figures could raise some eyebrows, so to emphasize how truly efficient the Insight can perform in "real world" conditions, they hosted an MPG challenge during the press event.

Participation in the MPG challenge was optional, but Honda put up some prizes to make things a little more interesting. A pocket digital camera "grand prize" was awarded for the top recorded fuel economy, and there were Planet Earth DVDs for participants who achieved 60mpg or better. It turns out that Honda had to send members of their event staff out to buy more DVDs because everybody in our group surpassed the 60mpg bogey.

The MPG Challenge was very straightforward: drive the Insight around a pre-defined 16-mile route and record the highest average fuel economy while doing so. A time limit of 35 minutes was set for completing the loop. The time limit was supposed to keep people from "cheating" by driving very slowly; in reality, driving too slowly would have likely hurt more than it would have helped. Wayne Gerdes of CleanMPG.com was involved with hosting the MPG challenge and offered some advice that could be summed up tidily with "keep it in the green". That was pretty much my plan of attack.

How did I do it? Well, to be honest, I didn't have to try too hard. I focused on keeping very near the posted speed limits, but would cheat up by 5-7 mph when the roads were level or slightly downhill, especially when I could see I would need momentum for an upcoming grade. On the uphill segments I held the "mood ring" in the green zone for as long as possible, and only started to back off the throttle if the ring began turning blue-green AND there was no traffic behind me. I paid a bit of extra attention to stop signs and keeping the "mood ring" fully green while braking for them, and did my best to anticipate the upcoming traffic light cycles and adjust my speed accordingly in an effort to avoid making a complete stop. Apart from that, there were no advanced hypermiling techniques employed - I simply used the Eco Assist Guide system and some common sense and most importantly (in my mind), did not impede the flow of ANY traffic. The Eco Assist Guide system makes it easy for anyone to achieve optimal fuel economy.