Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

3916 readers

50 users here now

About Community

c/Cars is the largest automotive enthusiast community on Lemmy and the fediverse. We're your central hub for vehicle-related discussion, industry news, reviews, projects, DIY guides, advice, stories, and more.

Rules

Stay respectful to the community, hold civil discussions, even when others hold opinions that may differ from yours.

This is not an NSFW community, and any such content will not be tolerated.

Policy, not politics! Policy discussions revolve around the concept; political discussions revolve around the individual, party, association, etc. We only allow POLICY discussions and political discussions should go to c/politics.

Must be related to cars, anything that does not have connection to cars will be considered spam/irrelevant and is subject to removal.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

TIL about the Honda Insight, a hybrid vehicle from 1999 (www.topspeed.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I learned about this today so now you all do too

The Honda Insight is a car all the way back as far as 1999. This crazy vehicle was able to achieve an EPA MPG (with modern tests) of 49 city and 61 highway. Original testing was actually 67 city and 71 highway, at that! This crazy little engine has a maximum of 78 horsepower, combined between the Inline 3 SOHC Honda engine and a 10KW (13HP) electric motor. This motor is used as the starter, the alternator, and a motor together, but it actually has a separate starter motor in case the hybrid motor dies, using a separate 12v starter battery as well.

While 78 horsepower doesn’t sound very great, keep in mind the following: the coefficient of drag is 0.25, and if weighs a maximum(!) of 1,964 lbs, or 891 kg. What does this mean? It can still reach a maximum speed of up to 112mph! Not to mention, modders that get ahold of these things can push it far beyond these limits, with someone putting in a Honda J32A2 engine and getting 295HP in this little thing! That would put it at approximately capable of a top speed of about 192mph!

Not to mention, not only is this thing super light and nimble, it still has respectable crash ratings, and while parts for it may be hard to find, this car is one of the coolest and most efficient one can buy, even today

Edit: Found a link I like even better for the main link, original link here

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I loved my Honda Insight when I was driving it. Fun to min/max the mpg and the auto off was pretty nifty at the time. Less fun when the hybrid part of the engine died. If I remember correctly it was also the alternator so that was a 5k fix