Anybody got a Honda Insight and care to tell me how many litres per 100km around town. Does 6.5 seem reasonable!
grangies,
Dec 13, 1:56am
Reasonable!
Surely that's good!
mugenb20b,
Dec 13, 2:00am
No, not for a hybrid car.
mugenb20b,
Dec 13, 2:02am
Honda Insight is so bloody expensive, that you'll never cut even when you account for fuel savings. I'd rather buy a $5000 Fiat Punto that uses 5 litres per 100km, and put the other $30k in the bank. Those extra $30k can buy a lot of petrol too.
clark20,
Dec 13, 4:06am
Brother uses one and gets under 6, I think his best is 5.4. However it is $20K plus less than a Prius, and thats a lot of gas to make up for.
thejazzpianoma,
Dec 13, 4:57am
Have you bought one poster 1! If so I am afraid you have likely been suckered by the hype and the silly Japanese economy testing that is set up to dupe people into thinking their cars are more economical than they are. If you are thinking about buying one don't. You will get the same or better economy in NZ conditions from a stock standard VW Golf and have more power and a nicer car. VW are where its really at for economy, they are the ones that have actually spent obscene amounts of money on real research and development. Because their marketing dosn't scream that from the rooftops people don't realise. They are a good 7 years ahead technology wise than your average manufacturer. VW use technology that actually works to be efficient as opposed to technology that "sounds impressive".
andrea_w,
Dec 13, 5:09am
jazz : I know you will probably deny all knowledge but. how much does VW pay you to make these posts! Seriously. Do they pay based on post length! Number of "VW" name drops! or. !
eagles9999,
Dec 13, 2:25pm
Jazz I was intrigued by an advert I sawcomparing an Insight with a Mazda3 on economy. Obviously not comparing like with like.
ezekiel67,
Dec 13, 2:54pm
The Swift has a factory fuel figure of 6.2 and I can get under 6 without really trying.
vtecintegra,
Dec 13, 5:51pm
Not purely around town you can't. 100% urban driving is where hybrids come into their own.
The other posters are right though, no brand new car makes sense from an purely economical standpoint
thejazzpianoma,
Dec 13, 6:11pm
Their adverts are sneaky! The Mazda is actually one of the thirstiest vehicles of its type, I havn't seen the advertisment but assuming a comparison I would imagine that's what they are up to. Did they mention performance! I can't remember the 0-100 times for the Mazda off hand but I would expect the Mazda to be more powerful so may not be fair from that aspect either.
The advertisment I did see that really annoyed me is their one about it being so much more economical than the average hatch. That sounded iffy to me so I checked on it and it turns out that the "average hatch" nowadays includes a disproportionate number of really high performance vehicles. What would be fair but not good for sales would be to compare it to the average hatch of similar performance and to use the same testing system.
The Honda is at least one of the better Japanese hybrids and I do like a lot of Honda product. I get really annoyed though when people peddle expensive items based on sneaky marketing as opposed to actual value and fair representation. That's not cool.
brapbrappy,
Dec 13, 6:13pm
The Insight advert referred to was a real trap. Quoted a low weekly payment and lots of fuel savings. In the very small print were the conditions 48 months, $4000 deposit and $4000 final payment which made it even more economically disasterous.
thejazzpianoma,
Dec 13, 6:16pm
Nice work, if you get the chance drive a european vehicle and compare what you get to its rating. My implication was open a bit to each individuals exact driving style and conditions. Bottom line is though the Jap test dosn't even take the car to the NZ open road speed (where as the Euro test exceeds it) and the Jap test only accalerates half as quickly (painfully slow, something like 30 seconds to 100km/h (if it got there) from memory).
Anyhow bottom line is whatever you can do as a comparison to factory figures in a Jap car you should be able to do much better in a Euro car. Some time when I have a bit of time up my sleeve I will post the article on the two tests I read a while back if I can find it again. Very interesting stuff.
vtecintegra,
Dec 13, 6:17pm
Bear in mind the Insight is essentially a Jazz (or City if you prefer the sedan) that costs $10k more. $10,000 buys a lot of fuel
thejazzpianoma,
Dec 13, 6:18pm
Its annoying that, they are technically not breaching the fair trading act or advertising standards but the actual intention/effect of the advertisement is really just as bad as if they did.
thejazzpianoma,
Dec 13, 6:22pm
LOL fair comment, I am an equal opportunity fanboy though. I have had the opportunity to mess around with a reasonable number of modern vehicles and as far as economy goes VW are where its at.
If you get the chance do some real comparisons yourself and see what you think. I am not alone either, plenty of motoring writers etc are just as impressed.
Sweet! Thats 15'000 mentions this year. I am off to pick up my new complimentary Polo. bye.
vtecintegra,
Dec 13, 6:30pm
Just because a car comes from Europe doesn't mean the European ratings are being used. Similarly just because a car comes from Japan it doesn't mean the Japanese rating system is being used.
Actually both Honda and VW advertise ADR figures here so should be directly comparable.
Edit: Actually that may be incorrect, the equivalent VW models seem slightly worse under the ADR figures on the .com.au website. May just be slight spec differences.
thejazzpianoma,
Dec 13, 6:41pm
Now thats interesting! I will keep an eye out for that in future. Its a pity the likes of rightcar etc don't standardize to the one rating (ADR). I am all for fairness no matter what the outcome and I think its much more usefull to have a comparable figure than one that is slightly closer to local driving conditions etc.
At least with a benchmark you can then always know you will likely get a little bit better or a little bit worse based on personal experience.
Thanks vtec, good info.
vtecintegra,
Dec 13, 6:47pm
Yeah the second hand car information is a mess - there simply aren't any useful numbers available for a lot of Japanese spec cars that were never sold outside of Japan.
New cars are relatively consistent most of the time, but things like automatic engine stop start can have a massive impact or no impact at all depending on where you drive so its impossible to come up with a single number that works for everyone.
craig04,
Jun 3, 11:53am
What's the point on spending obscene amounts of money on something and not having your marketing department scream it from the rooftops! I'm being serious here. If they are soooo amazing, surely they would be marketed as such.
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