2019 Honda Insight Review: A Better-Looking, 50 MPG Civic

Honda has a winner in the third-generation Honda Insight compact sedan. You’ll get 50 mpg without trying hard, an upscale interior, and decent room for four. After building two generations of weird-looking, and then kinda-weird-looking Insights, Honda settled on what looks like a Civic — only nicer, and outfitted with a smaller version of the two-motor hybrid drivetrain in the Accord hybrid. As with the Honda Clarity plug-in hybrid, you’ll see marketing for the Insight that extols efficiency, more than the underlying technology that made it possible.

It’s called the Insight, instead of the Civic Hybrid, because the car appeals to more affluent, older buyers who respond to different cues than the core Civic audience. So Honda wanted a separate model. The new Insight perks up with a a nice next-generation infotainment display with real buttons (but still no tuning knob), and the puzzling return of Honda’s offbeat LaneWatch camera system for DIY blind-spot detection on the passenger side only.

The Insight is a compact sedan measuring 184 inches long, 72 inches wide, and 56 inches high. It weighs 2,987 to 3,078 pounds, depending on the trim level. Weight is 61-39 front-biased.

The Insight cockpit is generally well laid out. The instrument panel has a 7-inch LCD on the left; the center stack has an 8-inch display.

The instrument panel includes an analog speedometer and a 7-inch LCD that can display power or navigation arrows.

The engine bay includes a 1.5-liter Atkinson cycle engine (with late valve closing on the compression stroke). It gains efficiency at the cost of power, which is made up by the electric motor. There are two motors in total: a traction motor and a smaller motor functioning as a generator.

The Insight's steering wheel controls are reasonably sized. This mainstream-priced car has a high-end feature: a roller wheel, although for menu selections rather than audio volume.

Cutting corners: The five-passenger Insight has just two USB jacks (2.5 amps) and a 12-volt socket at the bottom of the center stack. No 120-volt outlet, and nothing for the back seat passengers. The entry-level LX Insight has just a single 1-amp USB jack, which is not enough to maintain charge on many high-end phones.

The Honda Insight Touring (only) gets a sunroof.

With the hybrid battery under the back seat (gas tank, too), the 60/40 rear seats have a large opening and fold flat. (The entry model LX's seats are fixed.)

Insight trunk holds 15 cubic feet of luggage. Capacity would be twice as big, at least, if Honda made its entry hybrid a crossover, as Kia did with Niro, rather than a sedan.

A rooftop fin contains the Insight's antennas. On Touring, that includes built-in telematics with integrated Wi-Fi.

The Insight Touring has 17-inch alloys (above) with 50-series tires. The EX and LX have 16-inch alloys. That's perfectly adequate for a car that's not a sports car.

Here, the two-motor Honda Insight sits in front of the two-engine HondaJet, the hottest seller in the current business jet market.

The Honda is quick around town thanks to the electric motor. If you don’t tromp the throttle, you’ll easily top 50 mpg in city driving. On highways, the Insight is quiet and stable, and as polished as a car with a 106-inch wheelbase can be. It’s not a sports car, but it is a Honda, meaning you won’t wallow. Room is very good up front, and just good in back. You’ll think you’re sitting in the most luxe Civic ever built. The premium audio system is pretty good (the sound), although the improved Display Audio system could still use a tuning knob (the functionality). The Insight even spots highway signs and posts information, particularly speed limits. Other electronic goodies include an electronic parking brake with automatic brake hold at stoplights.

As the Insight shifts among its three drive modes, it does so effortlessly because it doesn’t require one motor to both drive the car and regenerate electricity. Honda puts a detent, or bump, in the throttle pedal linkage at about three-quarters power to remind you to drive economically. Go past that and the noises from the hood grow a bit raucous as you stress the system. You’ll hear it for about 9.0 seconds on a timed run to 60 mph, which for 2018 is the border line between good and acceptable acceleration. Pull back on the left-side paddle for regeneration at three levels. On the early production cars we drove, even max regen seemed weak. Ideally, the most aggressive setting should take the place of routine, not panic, braking. The Honda Sensing safety suite makes highway driving safer and backs up a driver who is momentarily inattentive.

The trunk is reasonable for a compact car at 15 cubic, helped by a 60/40 folding seatback on the two upper trim levels. It would be close to 40 cubic feet, had the third-gen Insight been a compact SUV based on the CR-V instead of a sedan based on the Civic.

Honda’s Home Run: The Two-Motor Hybrid

The new Insight is a two-motor hybrid. This is not like the two motors of a Tesla or the new Jaguar I-Pace EV with one motor driving the front wheels and the second a motor in back. Instead, Honda’s are both up front. One electric motor powers the front wheels (the ones in back freewheel). A second, smaller unit is a motor in the guise of a generator, meaning it turns engine force into electricity (a motor does the opposite) to charge the lithium-ion battery or to power the first motor and propel the car. There’s no traditional transmission, but there are clutch packs. The Insight runs in one of three modes: electric-only, gasoline-only, or a combination of gas and electric.

On startup, the traction motor (the electric motor) is geared to the drive wheels directly and gets the car going, as long as there’s battery power. With a full charge, it’s good for a mile at 20 mph or less. At low-to-moderate speeds and loads — that is, when you’re not tromping the throttle — the Insight works as a series hybrid, meaning the engine turns the generator, which powers the traction motor that drives the wheels. This would be the arrangement, too, if you’re starting off with no juice in the hybrid battery.

As long as there’s a modest load on the car and you’re going at a decent clip, the gas engine drives the front wheels directly. The ratio is equivalent to a transmission-equipped car in top gear. Add load to build up speed entering an on-ramp ,and it’s all hands on deck as the 1.5-liter Atkinson engine (2.0 liters on the Accord, which pioneered the technology in 2014) is boosted by the electric traction motor and by any power still left in the battery.

The 60-cell LiIon battery is rated at 1.1 kWh and is small enough to fit under the rear seat along with the gas tank, stealing no trunk space. The intelligent power unit (IPU), which contains the batteries, is 32 percent smaller — in part by removing the DC-DC convert and moving it to the power control unit (PCU), which is unchanged in size. The engine is rated at 107 hp, the traction motor at 129 hp, and the two at a combined 151 hp. The EPA ratings for LX an EX are 55 mpg city, 49 mpg highway, 52 mpg combined. The Insight Touring is rated at 55/45/49.

Honda Sensing Rocks. Then There’s LaneWatch.

The Insight’s technology is mostly good. Honda, along with Toyota, pioneered the no-cost safety and driver-assist system systems on most or all of its cars. Honda Sensing is on every Insight. It comprises forward collision warning (FCW), collision mitigation braking system (CMBS), lane departure warning, lane keep assistance, road departure mitigation (that pulls the car back if you go off-road), and adaptive cruise control with low-speed follow and traffic sign recognition.

LaneWatch is one of Honda’s genius engineering ideas that works okay at best in real life. It’s a rear-facing camera on the passenger-side mirror only (that’s strike one) that projects a view of cars in or near your right-side blind spot, taking over the center stack display after you flip the turn signal or press a button. It works poorly at night because of headlamp glare (strike two). You measure the intruding car’s proximity by three horizontal lines on the display. If the other car is in back of the middle (yellow) line, it’s at least 33 feet away, and behind the rear line it’s at least 75 feet away. If it’s between the middle yellow and the forward red line, it’s as little as 3 feet from your back bumper, as would be the car in the photo above; LaneWatch gives you no information on whether that car’s speed is constant or accelerating (strike three or, politely, foul ball). If navigation is running, you only get to see LaneWatch on half the screen, which is barely enough (another foul ball). LaneWatch precludes rear cross traffic alert, which uses the same sensors as BSD (a foul ball caught by the catcher). [I think we got the point. -Ed]

A couple years ago, Honda seemed to sour on LaneWatch in favor of traditional blind spot detection, which covers both left and right sides, and provides rear cross traffic alert, the tool that protects your backside when backing out out of mall parking spaces. Honda says there was strong sentiment among owners who wanted LaneWatch back. Perhaps Honda should contract with someone skilled in handwriting analysis or word pattern recognition to see if it’s not one LaneWatch diehard chauvinist with a hundred writing styles. LaneWatch would be super-cool on an Acura (higher-end vehicle) in conjunction with traditional blind spot detection, where LaneWatch always got the entire center stack screen when activated and the navigation prompts went to the instrument panel LCD or the head-up display. No one believes it’s a bad thing to have a rear camera and parking sonar.

Insight Infotainment

The current iteration of the Display Audio is an improvement from the all-glass-panel (no buttons, no knobs) version, or the one that got a volume knob. But it still would benefit from a tuning knob and the menus could improve. We’d also argue against Honda’s decision to not offer Android Auto and Apple CarPlay on the cheapest Insight (less-affluent folks don’t get lost?), and applaud the decision to not include on-board navigation in the middle trim level, since smartphone navigation is pretty good and getting better now that Apple caved and agreed to allow Android Auto and Waze to be used as well as Apple Maps.

Wi-Fi for occupants is on the top trim line, the Touring, as part of the integrated telematics system. There is a center console slot for an iPhone X with case (Honda claims space for only up to iPhone 8+), but Qi wireless charging isn’t available. The shifter buttons — push a button for Drive, pull back on a second for Reverse — take getting used to, but they are not a barrier to choosing the car.

The Insight Trim Walk

One of the best things about buying a Honda is you don’t wade through trim lines, then features packages, and then options. As the trim line goes up, so do the features. But it also means you can’t mix and match the features the exactly the way you want them, order the car, and drive it a couple weeks later. The three Insights are:

Insight LX, $23,195 (including shipping). It includes Honda Sensing, 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlamps-running lights-taillamps, auto high beam, auto high-beams, a 7-inch TFT screen and 5-inch color audio screen, six speakers, heated door mirrors, and HandsFreeLink. You do not get Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, as mentioned earlier.

Insight EX, $24,955. It includes smart entry, Honda LaneWatch, remote start, 8-inch Display Audio, eight speakers, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, satellite and HD radio, and a 60/40 split rear seatback. Honda says this will be the most-purchased trim line.

Insight Touring, $28,985. It adds on-board navigation, a moonroof, 17-inch alloy wheels, LED fog lights, leather seats and steering wheel, HondaLink (telematics), a 10-speaker premium audio, heated power front seats (8-way driver, 4-way passenger), dual-zone climate control, remote garage door opener, and automatic wipers. Mileage falls off. In comparison, a loaded Honda Civic Touring would run $27,695, also with Honda Sensing and LaneWatch, and get 37 mpg (EPA combined), for $1,290 less.

Should You Buy the Honda Insight?

The 2019 Honda Insight is a polished car with a smoother, superior hybrid system and excellent mileage. At this month’s average price for regular gasoline ($2.85 a gallon), you’d spend just $820 to drive 15,000 miles in the next year, or half the cost of driving the average 2018 vehicle. Honda Sensing is a significant safety benefit. LaneWatch is a drawback.

Competition to look at includes the Toyota Prius (the plug-in is better than hybrid, we found), and the Hyundai Ioniq hybrid. Among mainstream cars, the Mazda3 Touring is the best sporty compact sedan/hatchback; the Toyota Corolla is a reliable best-seller, light in the fun-to-drive category (try the Corolla hatchback instead); and the Kia Forte is solid all-around, and more enjoyable to drive than the otherwise solid Hyundai Elantra.

We buy into Honda’s marketing pitch that even while Insight is Honda’s entry alternative-energy vehicle — with the Honda Accord in the middle and the Clarity Plug-In Hybrid on top — the Insight buyer differs enough from a Civic intender that a different vehicle makes sense as the company’s compact hybrid offering. We’re also on board with de-emphasizing the hybrid underpinnings and look-I’m-a-hybrid designs.

That said, it’s unclear why Honda is pulling back from the out-there shapes of the first two Insights, yet it didn’t go mainstream in a more compelling way and offer the Insight as a crossover/SUV, not a sedan. The US market is now voting 2-1 against sedans in its current buying patterns. Note that within the Hyundai corporate family, the Kiro Niro hybrid (and Niro plug-in) crossovers are outselling the Ioniq sedans almost 2-1.

The 2019 Insight looks a normal, stylish car. In fact, like a Civic, only different. Honda believes buyers are looking for a hassle-free mainstream vehicle that, by the way, turns out to be a hybrid. The bottom line on the 2019 Insight is that the hybrid technology, telematics, and nicer cockpit justify the upcharge over the stock Civic. It’s a very good car and worth a look if you drive a lot of miles each year. It’s competitive against traditional compact sedans and holds its own against other hybrids. The middle trim line, Insight EX, offers the best bang for the buck.