Comparisons

[Jan&tone]

My Son's father in law is looking at an Insight.

I've never bothered, I went from an Avensis to a Gen2 and then my current gen 3, but someone out there must have looked at both?

What is the difference, and why did you buy the Prius?

I understand the Insight may be cheaper and I think the transmission is different, certainly the Insight has a conventional gearbox..

But what are the pro's and con's ... Anyone know please? What can I tell him that will get him in a Prius...

[Seamaster73]

I checked out the Insight before I ordered my Prius. The only advantages of the Insight are that it's cheaper and there's lots more kit for the money. Otherwise I found nothing to recommend one over a Prius. They're uglier (especially inside), even poorer built and nowhere near as good on petrol/CO2. A hard sell, even at the lower price, IMO.

[kithmo]

They are not so good on fuel because the engine is running most of the time, but, compared to the Pruis, would that even out over a year ?

E.g. (Fictitious figures) lets say on short journeys the Pruis did 60mpg in summer and 40mpg in winter because the engine is running more in the cold weather and the Insight did say 55 mpg summer and 45 mpg winter (1.4 litre engine, more economical when running ?) the average mpg for both = 50mpg over the year. It would be interesting to see how my guessed figures work out.

I know on fuelly the UK average mpgs are better with the Prius but that probably takes into account longer journeys as well.

Insight Average mpg is around 53

Prius Gen 3 mpg is around 56 for 2010 and 59 for 2011

Prius Gen 2 mpg is around 54

It would be interesting to hear from any Insight owners out there who regularly do short journeys.

[Peter Sale]

The newer Insight's have had suspension mods as the ride was heavily criticised. As a result there appeared to be quite a few ex-demo's in dealers that were before the mods - think this was some time in 2010.

The thing that put me off is that the only way to keep the engine off is to keep your foot on the brake (don't want to start that debate again !) and using the handbrake or park didn't achieve the peace and quiet that you get in the Prius.

[ColinEL]

My Son's father in law is looking at an Insight.

I've never bothered, I went from an Avensis to a Gen2 and then my current gen 3, but someone out there must have looked at both?

What is the difference, and why did you buy the Prius?

I understand the Insight may be cheaper and I think the transmission is different, certainly the Insight has a conventional gearbox..

But what are the pro's and con's ... Anyone know please? What can I tell him that will get him in a Prius...

Hi Jan & tone

While I was waiting for the finace to be sorted for my Gen 2, I popped into Honda which was close to the Toyota dealer, it was on a holiday so only had a couple of sales guys in the show room, I had a sit in an insight, it looked quite good, I told the guy straight that I was after a Prius,he told me the Insight was differant from the Prius in that, it starts on the electric motor and stops on the electic motor, at all other times the petrol engine is running, thats what I was told, I think the one I looked at was something like £17,000 odd.

ColinEL

[DrCez]

I checked out the Insight before I ordered my Prius. The only advantages of the Insight are that it's cheaper and there's lots more kit for the money. Otherwise I found nothing to recommend one over a Prius. They're uglier (especially inside), even poorer built and nowhere near as good on petrol/CO2. A hard sell, even at the lower price, IMO.

I also had a look at the Insight (back in summer 2009) before I bought my Prius. I tend to agree with Seamaster's summary, although the fuel consumption difference is not huge, especially compared with the Gen 2 Prius (see Kithmo's post with Fuelly stats).

A couple more details from memory:

the electric motor assists the petrol engine and cannot run independently of it, but at low speeds the engine valves are closed so the car is effectively running solely on electrical power.

The gearbox is a CVT - I don't know if it has belts etc. but I don't think it is as clever as the power split device in the Priusn (and possibly less reliable?).

You don't get a spare tyre - just a repair kit (a bit like the Gen 3 sunroof Prius).

The car is smaller than a Prius; there is far less rear passenger room (head and leg space) and the middle rear seat is set very high/could only be used by a child.

I don't know how much the re-tuned suspension helps but when I tried it out my impression was that it was much less refined at motorway speeds (lots of road and wind noise).

The ECO display features on the dash are helpful, but don't add anything over the HSD in the Prius.

At the time I was looking, the Gen 3 T3 Prius (which is a step up in terms of overall build quality) was just out and priced pretty close to the mid-range Insight (ES trim I think?) so the Prius seemed much better value to me. I don't know how they compare now but had the price differential been bigger I might have been more tempted by the Honda. In the end I felt it competed okay with the Gen 2 Prius but was some way short of the Gen 3.

FWIW I think Honda made a mistake in making the Insight so similar to the Prius. For example, their hybrid system could be used with a manual gearbox and with a less Prius-like body shape it would be a more distinct offering.

[Gmac70]

My gf has a crz and they put the manual box in that which is nice.

She gets typically 52mpg

[kithmo]

FWIW I think Honda made a mistake in making the Insight so similar to the Prius. For example, their hybrid system could be used with a manual gearbox and with a less Prius-like body shape it would be a more distinct offering.

IIRC they tried that with the Civic IMA, that had a manual gearbox, but was one ugly SOB.

The Honda CR-Z looks a more promising manual gearbox offering but it's not that much better than the Prius in terms of performance and the fuel economy is compromised (and it's only a 2 seater).

Here are some official (i.e. not real world) figures:

Car:.............Combined mpg:..........0-62mph:..........Max speed:

Prius:...........72.4 (70.5 T-Spirit)........10.4 sec............110 mph

Civic IMA......61.4............................12.1 sec............115 mph

CR-Z............56.5.............................9.9 sec.............124 mph

[Gmac70]

Agreed but she is getting much closer to the manufacturers mpg, on a regular basis.

They are different cars with different purposes.

[Thrawn60]

I don't have the biggest knowledge on the Honda, but I was just browsing through the Fuelly webpage, and thought I to compare the care on consumption that would be a good place to see real life numbers.

In 2011 there was:

41 Toyota Prius listed with an average consumption of 4.6 L/100km(61.4mpg) (the highest hit of cars, namely 7)

32 Honda Insight listed with an average consumption of 5.2(54.32), 5.3(53.29) and 5.5(51.36) (4 cars in each segment)

So from that perspective it's less economical, smaller engine, and more ugly in my eyes at least :)