2019 Honda Insight: Is It a Good Road Trip Car?

As I’ve already mentioned, I’m always looking for road warriors to put miles on long-term cars I’m borrowing, since I live but 3 miles from MT HQ. So when friendly new guy Nick Yekikian spoke of making a round trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30(!) hours, I threw him the keys in exchange for his notes. They opened with: “900 miles. 30 hours. 5/10 recommend.” Read on for a sampling of the rest:

“Road noise was really well suppressed; so was tire noise. I think it rides like a car that costs more than 24 Gs. Overall the drive up was really uneventful, which is sort of what you want when you’re covering so much ground.

“The first half of my drive was pretty easy, but after hour four my lower back was begging for some extra support. Sadly, the seats don’t have any sort of lumbar adjustment, so I was contorting myself in such a way that the side bolster was acting as a pseudo lumbar bulge. But that didn’t help much, and at the end of Friday’s drive I was in a lot of discomfort. By the end of the 11-hour haul back down Highway 1 on Saturday I was in need of a chiropractor. I still am.”

Why Nick chose to take Highway 1 (the beautiful but incredible twisty route) back to L.A. is something you’ll have to ask him, as it nearly doubles the road-trip time. More on the seats in a bit.

“The motor in the Insight felt OK on the way up, but once my friend and I loaded his entire life into the back of it (that is, four large suitcases’ worth of clothing, two Xboxes, three paintings, a 55-inch Samsung flatscreen, two lamps, all of his bedding, a hamper, and—for whatever reason—almost 20 bottles of Gatorade), the motor lost all of its puff. On-ramps were flat out just to get to 60. Overtaking was a chore, and even when your foot is flat to the floor the CVT doesn’t shift—it never does. As a result, the engine just sits there spinning at max revs until you’re off throttle. Not only is it extremely disconcerting to hear an engine rage against its limiter for 30 straight seconds, but the noise it makes—a high-frequency drone that not only the loudest music could drown out fully—is just heinous. I know hybrids are slow, but this was appalling.”

In defense of the Insight’s buzzy powertrain, can we reconsider all that Nick and his buddy managed to cram into this sedan!? Four large pieces of luggage, three Van Goghs, two dudes, a 55-inch TV, a bunch of laundry, and a flat of Gatorade. That would tax any small car, hybrid or not, but the “heinous” noise the Insight makes at wide-open throttle has been well documented. Accelerating with additional mass doesn’t amplify the cacophony, but it certainly prolongs it.

“Luckily everything else about the Insight was just about excellent. Build quality is good—I didn’t hear one squeak or rattle the entire way up or down. Honda’s new infotainment system is so user friendly I almost used it instead of CarPlay. Brakes were actually pretty strong. Steering was meh, though. I guess that’s a byproduct of having an electric power steering system so you can have lane-keep assist (LKA) and adaptive cruise control (ACC), which I used to great effect for at least a third of the 18 total hours I spent on the road. Occasionally ruts along I-5, likely put there by the endless stream of 18-wheelers that drive along it, would fool the LKA and the car would dart out of its lane to try to keep the line it thought was correct. Luckily my incredible reflexes were there to save the day.”

As I’ve also mentioned previously, the Insight’s Honda Sensing technology suite, which includes LKA and ACC, is a pretty great value. It’s arguably the best system available at this price point, but as Nick points out, it’s not perfect. No advanced driver assistance system is yet (not even ones branded Autopilot or Super Cruise), but I was surprised to hear Nick knock the Insight’s steering feel, which I find very light and natural feeling—borderline sporty. That trifecta is quite an accomplishment for a car in this class. Perhaps his reflexes are too incredible. I’m also relieved he didn’t experience any of the dash rattles I’ve heard over rough pavement. That’s good.

As a counterpoint to his experience, the wife and I took the Insight on a holiday weekend road trip from L.A. to San Francisco to Sacramento and back to L.A. The return trip saw heavy highway traffic and rainy conditions, which turned the normally 5.5-hour nonstop drive into 8 hours of stop and go. My back started to complain about the lack of lumbar support near the end of the trip, but my wallet sure didn’t. Amazingly, this trip of 1,027 miles burned only 23.49 gallons of gas (three fill-ups for the Insight’s small tank) and a cost just under $90 (at expensive California prices). This equates to 43 mpg, which confirms that although the Insight is better suited to city sprinting, it’s good for the long haul, if you are.

Read more about our 2019 Honda Insight EX long-termer:

• Arrival: Third Gen’s A Charm?
• Update 1: The 1,100-Mile Road Trip
• 5 Quick Insights on the 2019 Honda Insight
• Update 2: How Prius Performance Compares to Our Hybrid Honda
• Update 3: Five Insights After Seven Months and 7,000 Miles
• Update 4: The Safest Hybrid on the Road?
• Update 5: Oil Change, Tire Rotation, and a Free Lyft Home

The post 2019 Honda Insight: Is It a Good Road Trip Car? appeared first on MotorTrend.