Toyota Prius Vs Honda Insight - Hybrid Comparison - video Dailymotion

MotorTrend

We hit the streets and the track with the all-new Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight for a comparison to determine which hybrid reigns supreme.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:08 Now that we've had a chance to review the technical details and features of these two

00:11 new cars, these high interest hybrids, the new Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, we're

00:16 going to discuss how they drive and take them to the track to learn how they perform.

00:22 Okay, here we are driving the new Prius.

00:25 Compared to the Insight, this is a much more substantial feeling car. It feels very solid.

00:31 The structure is much more solid. It feels a bit heavier. It has a higher quality feel

00:36 on the road. It's no longer sort of a lightweight vehicle. The brake feel and behavior is very

00:42 normal. You hardly detect its transitions from regen to normal friction braking. The

00:48 shifter operates very well. I love this type of shifter. You can shift very quickly back

00:52 and forth through all the different gear options. The experience looking around this interior

00:57 is interesting. It has a lot of familiarity or similarity to its predecessor. It's a very

01:02 elegant dash, a very elegant interior. The lines flow. They're sweeping. It's a very

01:09 serene type of environment compared to the Insight.

01:13 At the track, the Prius arrived at 60 miles per hour in 10.6 seconds, the quarter mile

01:18 in 17.9 seconds at 77.7 miles per hour, stopped from 60 miles per hour in 120 feet, and gripped

01:25 with 0.82 Gs of lateral acceleration.

01:32 Now here we are in the Insight, and this is a very different experience. Many people in

01:37 the past have mentioned about the Prius's interior that it looks like a spaceship. Well,

01:42 if it looks like a spaceship, this looks like a Klingon spaceship interior. Very aggressive,

01:47 very wild looking. The driving experience is very different as well. It feels much lighter,

01:53 so it's a bit more fun on the road just because it's a lighter vehicle. However, it is much

01:58 noisier. There's a lot of engine noise when you go to full throttle. Being a CVT, it lets

02:03 the revs climb quite high. It's a small engine, so it has to work pretty hard to do its job,

02:07 and it doesn't have a big electric motor to help out.

02:10 Another option for shifting is to use these paddles on either side. They're not real ratios.

02:14 They're kind of artificial ones that the computer selects. That's really a CVT, of course, but

02:19 it does give you greater control over the operation of the vehicle, unlike the Prius.

02:25 The steering is lighter in effort than the Prius. That's a noticeable difference. It

02:30 seems a little bit slower ratio. I find myself turning the wheel a bit more to accomplish

02:35 what I'm trying to do. It's just a very lightweight car. It's more akin to earlier Priuses than

02:41 certainly the current one.

02:43 At the track, the Insight sprinted to 60 miles per hour in 10.4 seconds, hit the quarter

02:49 mile in 17.8 seconds at 79.4 miles per hour, stopped from 60 miles per hour in 127 feet,

02:56 and gripped with 0.79 Gs of lateral acceleration.

03:02 The biggest differences between these two cars are the basic differences one always

03:06 sees between Hondas and Toyotas. The Insight here is a much lighter car. It feels lighter

03:11 on the road. It's more nimble. It has a lighter weight sense, but it's also kind of fun and

03:17 a little bit tossable.

03:20 The new Prius, however, feels quite substantial, much more like a high-quality, high-end Toyota

03:26 or Lexus product rather than what it was before. Also, its mileage has gone up quite dramatically.

03:32 50 miles per gallon combined, EPA number, that's fantastic. It's the highest efficiency

03:37 car you can buy in America today. For the Insight, you get nearly as good a mileage,

03:42 40 city miles per gallon and 43 highway miles per gallon.

03:46 But which is the more important hybrid? Starting at under $19,800 plus $670 for destination

03:53 charge, the Insight is the first hybrid that's simultaneously within the reach of just about

03:58 every pocketbook and is a solid business proposition for Honda. Amazingly, it delivers nearly identical

04:05 mileage as the current Prius at about 80% of the price. The incremental value of 50

04:11 miles per gallon versus 41 miles per gallon, whether you judge it by gasoline cost, greater

04:16 national security or CO2 reduction, seems dwarfed by the benefit of its potential sales

04:22 volume. The Insight is a milestone that can't go unnoticed.

04:29 [Music]

Toyota Prius Vs Honda Insight - Hybrid Comparison

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