Third Try's A Charm

DRIVING HONDA’S LATEST PRIUS FIGHTER

- Kim Reynolds

Strapping into the original 2000 Honda Insight, I was never more certain about anything: This will be a hit.

The radically aluminum, slippery teardrop of a two-seater looked like an eye-catching cross between a Chiclet and a space pod dropped from Venus. In the end, a few engineering professors bought them—but there’s only so many of those— and then it quietly disappeared.

In 2009, I picked the second-gen Insight over the recently redesigned third-generation Toyota Prius in a battle of four-door, five-seat hybrids. Call it temporary insanity, but I was too enthusiastic about the Insight’s cheapskate cost of ownership during the frightening downdraft of the Great Recession and not nearly disturbed enough by its otherwise dreariness. In the end, a few car-hating accountants bought them— you know the rest.

Should I be as optimistic for Honda’s third attempt at dethroning the Prius? Perhaps. Honda has packed the 2019 Insight with the first edition’s caliber of technology and the second generation’s compelling value proposition.