Jeremy Clarkson reviews the Honda Insight

[cmcpokey]

imagine trying to plan any driving where you leave your known area. or an interstate journey..

Hydrogen Station Map | California Fuel Cell Partnership

if you live in the bay area, or in LA, youre fine. but i wouldnt want to try to drive between the two.

[RacingManiac]

There are probably still places in US that you can actually run out of gas between gas stations, I can't imagine Hydrogen being of any use any time soon.....

range is a real consideration, and that is also the reason why cars like Volt has a back up gas motor. Another reason why people at Tesla who thinks GM is wrong in doing so is grossly missing the big picture....

[LeonOfTheDead]

Here people don't buy CNG cars in areas where CNG stations aren't massively present (that's to say the whole Italy apart from the North), despite having the petrol tank as a back up. Same goes with LPG cars, despite LPG stations being much more present even at South.

And we are not talking about 26 stations, just that 1every three stations has LPG.

[clutch-monkey]

Well, you're missing May. Which is a brilliant car journalist.

just bumping this thread for this post.
i found myself on the top gear website the other day, and agree completely - he also seems to write more articles than the other two.
the reasons he gives for liking/disliking cars can be eccentric/left field but because of that they are very apt.

just finished his caterham review:

We spend a lot of time on Top Gear talking about speed, but most of it is hogwash. Figures like 180mph are all very well, but, in the real world, speed is simply distance divided by time, which makes the Caterham R500 quite a slow car.

This is because it took me half an hour to get in, and that has to be included in the final figure...

... I noticed that the steering wheel comes off to make getting in easier. I wish I hadn't noticed this, because I'm always overcome with a strange urge to take it off while I'm driving along, to see if I can get it back on before I crash.

in the end he liked the car. unlike clarkson you don't 'resent' or protest his view of a car, he explains it very well.

[Ferrer]

Yep he is brilliant. Much more than the other two in my opinion.

[4wheelsonline]

It is his own opinion or reviews and let it be his. A controversial car journalist? Hmmmm.

Is this his reviews? --> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/dri...remy_clarkson/

[Theaveng]

Greenercars.org had a life cycle analysis of all cars (from factory to junkyard). In brief:
- Cleanest car ever made was the 60mpg Insight G1 with a clean score of 59/100.

- The Prius and Civic hybrids score 55/100, and the nonhybrid Civic is about seven points below that, so "no" a nonhybrid is not as clean.

- The Leaf and other EVs score no cleaner than the hybrids due to their electricity being generated by coal/natural gas/ hydro/et cetera. They just displace the exhaust to the central power plant and operate at about the same 30% efficiency as the gasoline hybrids.

- The Tesla EV only scored 38 out of 100 due to its large body made from energy-intensive aluminum. In other words making it produced more pollution than a diesel Jetta (46/100).
.

[NSXType-R]

Oh yes, I agree, just because the pollution isn't coming out a Tesla's tailpipe doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I support Tesla for pushing the envelope, but it certainly is not a long term solution, at least until battery technology becomes much cleaner and our energy production shifts significantly towards nuclear power. The US mostly uses coal so there's a lot of mercury production too.

[Theaveng]

JC's review of the Insight, designed using sketches of a Prius and several sheets of tracing paper.

Oh I also wanted to correct this: The insight has had the cammback shape since 1999, while the prius only got the shape in model year 2004. If anybody copied anybody else, it was the 2004 Prius copying the earlier Insight.

Of course would could argue the Prius copied Honda's CRX from circa 1988. In any case it was TOYOTA that had the "tracing paper" as they cloned Honda's earlier designs.

[f6fhellcat13]

The original Insight is a very cool car; I plan to acquire one one day.
The gravitational pull of a K-Series might yank out the IMA, though...

[Ferrer]

Oh I also wanted to correct this: The insight has had the cammback shape since 1999, while the prius only got the shape in model year 2004. If anybody copied anybody else, it was the 2004 Prius copying the earlier Insight.

Of course would could argue the Prius copied Honda's CRX from circa 1988. In any case it was TOYOTA that had the "tracing paper" as they cloned Honda's earlier designs.

Don't worry.

Nobody copied nobody else.

Because it was done in Germany around 50 years earlier than the CRX.

[Kitdy]

The original Insight is a very cool car; I plan to acquire one one day.
The gravitational pull of a K-Series might yank out the IMA, though...

Don't worry.

Nobody copied nobody else.

Because it was done in Germany around 50 years earlier than the CRX.

You two are hippie-communards. The CRX, CR-Z, and Insight suck.

Deal with it bros.

[Ferrer]

Could be worse. They could be as bad as the Mercedes-Benz A-Class.

Of the three, I have no interest in the CRX, I think the Insight is interesting from an engineering point of view and the CR-Z is just the future.

[NSXType-R]

The original Insight is a very cool car; I plan to acquire one one day.
The gravitational pull of a K-Series might yank out the IMA, though...

People do that all the time to Insights. That's a really nice way to add power.