2010 Honda Insight hybrid is mostly agreeable

CAREFREE, Ariz. -- Honda's 2010 Insight gasoline-electric hybrid isn't the substantial, comfortable car that its Civic hybrid is, nor does it deliver the 50 miles per gallon promised by Toyota for its update of chief rival Prius.

But if Honda prices it low enough, Insight finally could make full-fledged hybrid technology available to car buyers with tighter budgets.

Insight goes on sale April 22 — Earth Day, in case you need a reminder of why to save fuel.

Generally, the Insight preproduction test cars driven here proved to be nice machines — mostly agreeable and easily capable of hitting the mileage ratings — with a few annoyances.

Honda officials here pitched Insight as a clever, handy, affordable small car that just happens to use hybrid technology for good fuel economy. It's a complete gas-electric hybrid system, not a so-called mild hybrid, but scaled down from the similar setup in the Civic hybrid (Test Drive, Jan. 9), so it doesn't perform as well.

Expect Insight to be rated 40 mpg city, 43 highway, 41 combined. Civic hybrid's rated 40/45/42.

It's hard to call 40 mpg disappointing, but in this case it is. The smaller, lighter Insight, using a smaller-displacement gasoline engine, seems to be an underachiever. Honda says that's partly because Insight's tuned for a little more punch, to make driving more fun, at the expense of fuel economy.

Honda's given no clue about pricing, so it's hard to say if Insight's a good value. Civic hybrid and the 2009 Prius both start at about $23,000. The less-lavish and smaller Insight should be considerably lower if logic is part of the pricing formula.

Toyota hasn't disclosed the price for the redone 2010 Prius — to go on sale in about six months — partly because it first wants to see what price tag Honda puts on Insight.

Here are Insight's salients, based on a day driving the two versions of Insight that Honda expects most people to buy, along with a 2009 Prius and 2009 Civic hybrid. The Insight is: