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Honda Insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid (Funny Review)
TimesOnline ^ | May 17, 2009 | Jeremy Clarkson

Posted on 05/21/2009 5:41:31 AM PDT by CSM

It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more...

The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer...

The nickel for the battery has to come from somewhere. Canada, usually. It has to be shipped to Japan, not on a sailing boat, I presume. And then it must be converted, not in a tree house, into a battery, and then that battery must be transported, not on an ox cart, to the Insight production plant in Suzuka. And then the finished car has to be shipped, not by Thor Heyerdahl, to Britain, where it can be transported, not by wind, to the home of a man with a beard who thinks he’s doing the world a favour...

But let me be clear that hybrid cars are designed solely to milk the guilt genes of the smug and the foolish. And that pure electric cars, such as the G-Wiz and the Tesla, don’t work at all because they are just too inconvenient...

The only hope I have is that there are enough fools and madmen out there who will buy an Insight to look sanctimonious outside the school gates. And that the cash this generates can be used to develop something a bit more constructive.

(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: auto; environuts
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
Well I'm an engineer, just mulling the technical capability of getting from here to there. If we do it with gasoline engines, we'll all be driving glorified golf carts/death traps in a few years.

I agree with you about the loss of freedom, though. We have enough federal regulations in this country now that a mid-size library can't even hold them all, and every one is a loss of freedom.

Low flush toilets. Banning of conventional incandescent light bulbs. And millions upon millions more.

This experiment in freedom has run it's course.

41 posted on 05/21/2009 7:53:02 AM PDT by willgolfforfood
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To: willgolfforfood

Now we have two choices for our next experiment. Servitude and slavery, or revolution, and death (for many). We should have tried freedom a little longer.


42 posted on 05/21/2009 8:04:34 AM PDT by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
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To: CSM
No more of these...

Burnin' the Weenies

Every time the muscle cars get good, the government comes along and pees in the soup.

43 posted on 05/21/2009 8:26:45 AM PDT by jimt
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To: knarf

The Fortwo will go a whole lot faster than 50 MPH. At least they do in Germany.


44 posted on 05/21/2009 10:27:17 AM PDT by sionnsar ((Iran Azadi | 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | "Also sprach Telethustra" - NonValueAdded)
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To: sionnsar

Just sayin’ what I drove up on ... I was sorta’ fixated on this go cart in my way, and the hammer lane was full ... so I had to slow down ..... a LOT.


45 posted on 05/21/2009 10:31:58 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: CSM

Let’s see, I can give my money to a Japanese car company or to Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!


46 posted on 05/21/2009 10:35:56 AM PDT by nufsed (Release the birth certificate, school and passport records.)
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To: knarf

I ran into a sorta similar situation with a Jaguar this morning. One lane only, commute time, and they were WAY under the limit.


47 posted on 05/21/2009 10:41:01 AM PDT by sionnsar ((Iran Azadi | 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | "Also sprach Telethustra" - NonValueAdded)
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To: willgolfforfood
Actually, getting there shouldn't be difficult at all. Just go down in the third subbasement below GM and root around in the archives until you find the plans for the 100 mpg carburetor. Everybody knows that the oil companies and car companies were in cahoots from the 40s to 60s to quash it. The guy that finds those plans will be a millionaire overnight!

BTW, our new GE dishwasher won't dry the dishes and the new Kohler faucet on the kitchen sink takes forever to fill the sink with water. GE told me it's because of federal regs that reduced the power of the heaters by half to save energy. It sure does save energy because the damn dishes are still wet when the cycle is finished. And I can't find the hidden flow restrictor in the faucet.

I sure miss the good old days when companies thrived or died on how well they me consumer needs, not how well they served their government masters. I can only imagine what it will be like 25 or 50 years hence.

48 posted on 05/21/2009 6:30:59 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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