This morning I was surprised by a message from our company’s leasecar department saying they were negotiating a new lease deal with Honda for the Insight hybrid car. As I’ve been driving a Toyota Prius for about a year now and will be ordering my new company car in about a year this sounded quite promising. And so the search for more information began….

First stop is, of course, the Honda Netherlands website. And lo and behold there’s a link to a special Honda Insight page. The first thought in my head was “Hey! A new Prius!”. As far as I can see they took the current Prius design and added a couple of sharp edges where there were round ones…. I am a bit disappointed as the current Honda Hybrid (called “Civic” but resembling the Accord more then the Civic) looks like a pretty normal car where the Prius looks like a lunchbox.

As far as specifications go Honda isn’t telling us much yet. The Honda website itself doesn’t say anything but a little scrounging tells us there will be a 1.4 liter 98 horsepower engine (a bit more powerful then the Prius and the current Honda), an automatic CVT gearbox (although the EX version comes with “Paddle shifters” mounted to the steering wheel. What are they going to shift then?) and a very spartan interior on the basic model. No price information is available yet although my current thoughts are that it will not change the current Hybrid market much except for the fact that the Insight looks to have more interior space when compared to the Civic Hybrid.

All in all I’m not sure what to think of this car yet. When ordering my current car the main reason to choose the Prius over the Honda was the interior space of the Prius and the accesories (Civic does not have the option for an integrated navigation system). It does look like Honda has addressed these albeit at the cost of being just as ugly as the Prius is.