2010 Honda Insight vs 2009 Toyota Prius Test

Inside Line tested a 2010 Honda Insight vs a 2009 Toyota Prius and had some interesting results. The Insight is a lower cost hybrid car coming in $5,473 less than the 2009 Prius. This difference in price could mean even though the Prius gets better gas mileage, the savings vs the Insight is only $70 a year at the current gas prices. Inside Line also figured out if gas prices jumped to $5 a gallon, the Prius owner would have to drive his car 413,000 miles just to break even with the cost of the Insight.

The two cars look very similar at a glance. The Honda Insight should be able to out Prius, the Prius.

Our Prius boasted its fuel economy of 48 mpg city/45 mpg highway on its price sticker and it was equipped with the $3,280 Package #5 option, including a navigation system, premium audio, satellite radio capability, Bluetooth, a back-up camera, stability control, cruise control and a few other items. This car is well-equipped but not the most fully loaded Prius variant available and checks in at $27,643.

The all-new 2010 Honda Insight merges an updated version of Honda's Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) hybrid system with a 1.3-liter, eight-valve inline-4, and the powertrain produces a combined output of 98 hp and 123 pound-feet of torque. The IMA system slots a 13-hp electric motor between the engine and continuously variable transmission (CVT) and it is juiced by a nickel-metal hydride battery pack behind the rear seats. Lithium-ion batteries would have cut the space requirement in half, chief engineer Yasunari Seki says, but were quickly rejected on the basis of cost.

And cost is the Insight's trump card. Honda's hybrid system is more basic than the Prius' NASA-grade hardware, yet its more affordable cost is the key to delivering the Insight's dirt-cheap sticker price. At least, we think it's dirt cheap. Pricing hasn't been formally announced, so we're going on whispers and hints from the Honda brass. But you can count on the Insight's official EPA fuel-economy rating of 40 mpg city/43 mpg highway, plus the fact that the car will be formally released on Earth Day, April 22, 2009.

Our scrutiny of Honda's marketing data makes us pretty confident that the model we drove — a fully optioned Insight EX with navigation — will sticker for very close to $22,170 with destination. If we're wrong, then we only request that you wait at least three weeks before composing your hate mail.

Each car achieves over 50 mpg in Inside Lines testing. They say the ride in the Prius is better than the Insight. The flip side of this being the Insight steering, and handling feel better than the Prius.

To make a long, boring story short, the Prius netted 54.4 mpg to the Insight's 51.5 mpg during our driving loops. These results are considerably better than the EPA estimates for each car since our driving style was conservative to minimize variables in performance and to ensure the cars remained nose-to-tail for the entire drive. Hard-core hypermiling wonks will undoubtedly top even these results.

I suspect we will see a lot of Honda Insights on the road, if Honda can keep the price in the low 20k range.

Source: Inside Line