London Times on the Honda Insight: "Biblically terrible"

Mark Frauenfelder 9:35 pm Thu May 21, 2009

200905212135

Jeremy Clarkson's review of the Honda Insight for the London Times made me grin, which is as close as I ever get to LOLing at something I read to myself.

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).

It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.

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 Insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid

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