2001 Honda Insight - Throwback

About 3 minutes in, he says the the car's conversion from liters per 100 km to miles per US gallon is off. I think he's missed the mark, suspect he's converting to Imperial gallons. FWIW, I've found dividing either liters/100 km or mpg US into 235.2, you convert from one to the other.

 

Honda Insight is a great car.
The stick shift version of these cars are good for 60-70 mpg, making for 600-700 miles on a single tank of gas.

Right now you can still buy under 100,000 mile examples of these cars for $5,000 or less.

In fact I have a couple for sale if you know anybody looking.
One is Citrus colored. 98,000 miles
One is Silver. 69,000 miles.

 

He does say "...that converts to miles per US gallon...". Still, he also pronounces Honda "Honder", habits are hard to shake.

Was there both a manual and automatic version? I believe that was the case with first gen Civic Hybrid (we had 2nd gen, auto only).

I notice in the review, with the stick shift version insight, he mentions auto-stop only happens if you shift to neutral. I wonder if that's right, just depressing clutch pedal wouldn't allow auto-stop?

 

Unfortunately, the battery management system would allow drivers to overdraw from the pack.

 

The 2000-2006 Insight is awesome with its 3cyl engine, and aluminum body/frame.
Car weighs less than 2000 lbs.

Fun little cars.

 

Now I'm thinking three wheels...

 

3 wheels? Nope that would something like Zap Xebra. I owned one if those as well.
Crazy. 4 passenger, enclosed, 3 wheeled electric vehicle.

Technically a motorcycle.

 

There is another that has an open air cockpit.
Plus, the Aptera is trying to come back.

 

I was in an old Aptera back in the day. Cool car but kinda small cockpit.

 

I'm kind of toying with the idea of getting an original stick-shift Insight, but haven't done any research on them really. Any good resources as to the changes & recalls from 2000-2006?

 

InsightCentral is the largest community.
No real recalls that I can remember.

I work on hybrids for a living so I have seen plenty of them over the 15+ years I have been working on them.
Feel free to call and chat if you want to save some time digging on the internet for answers. 608-729-4082

They were pretty much the same engine/transmission-wise the entire run. Some slight differences in interior the final few years.
It's a very rare car, with less than 17,000 made for the US over 7 years.

If you are ever in the Madison, WI area give me a shout. I may have one handy for you to give a test ride.
They are spartan little cars, but, man, they kill it in mpg.

 

They did have the same battery management system that lead to the Civic hybrid issues.
The later years might have been CVT only.

 

Insight were available as 5-speed all years.

 

I saw one "in the wild", out at Costco, about a year back. Westwood Honda had one parked out front, back in the day.

 

They're quite "common" still out here .

Always fun to see them still running well.

Much like the classic Prius that still roam freely.