The 2018 Honda Insight is the new replacement for the Civic Hybrid and being one of Honda's newest vehicles, it is positively lousy with technology.
Let's check it out.
So we'll start down here where we have three buttons labeled ECON, SPORT, and EV.
Now this is obviously not for the infotainment system, it's for the hybride electric drive train and it's all based on how you want to drive.
If you wanna get every single MPG out of this car, ECON does a great job of numbing your inputs and prevent you from stabbing the throttle a little to hard, wasting a little too much gas.
Sport on the other hand just appears to make the engine noisier, so it's probably just best avoided.
You're not driving this car for sport anyway.
Now lastly, we have the EV button, that allows you to operate solely off the battery and electric motor in the insight.
Now the battery isn't very large so you're only gonna get about one to two to three miles of range out of it, but if you're just creeping through the city after getting off the highway It's a great way to not get that gas engine to kick in.
And now we move up to the infotainment system.
Our Touring Trim tester has Honda's eight inch display audio, which is the latest iteration found on both the Accord and the Odyssey.
Looks a lot better, reacts a lot faster, and did I already say it looks a lot better?
Cuz it does.
Now, one thing I like about Honda's new infotainment system is that it allows you to quickly tab between various functions, which are located up at the top bar here.
On mine you have phone, navigation, your radio, and what's currently playing whether it's on CarPlay, bluetooth, or through your USB cable.
Now if you need to access something that is not on the top navigation bar, you can just hit the home button on the top left here, and you'll be greeted with a series of tiles that, just appear to show up in whatever order they want to.
At the top left, is navigation.
Now this is a government based system that I find works a lot faster than the old nav on Honda's previous generation infotainment systems.
You can zoom in and out using the touch screen, and you don't know your destination by heart you caN just click the search button And type in keywords, addresses, states, whatever you need.
So next we have the phone tab, which is usually pretty self explanatory.
You can look at your recent calls, favorite contacts, or if you need to dial a number, you can bring it up on the keypad.
Although I would probably suggest using the voice recognition system which is a little less distracting.
Now remember how I said this was random?
Right after Navigation and Phone.
All of a sudden we're diving into settings.
That opens up the menu that deals with mostly infotainment related settings.
Whether its the display, or perhaps its sound system.
If you need to tweak things about, say the navigation you'll have to go through the separate settings menu in that tile.
Now if you're looking for just a main media or radio button, you're not going to find it here on the home screen.
Instead each individual input is kind of scattered around.
My home screen has FM and Bluetooth on it.
And if I want anything else, I have to swipe to the right, and that's when I can find my Sirius, my USB input, or my AM radio.
Now we are getting into the fun stuff.
One of my favourite things to play with on [UNKNOWN] system is the power flow menu, which is obviously only available on hybrid.
That will allow you to look at your current MPG and your range, in addition to how the hybrid system is actually functioning, whether power is been sent from the battery to the wheels Or from the engine to the battery to charge it up.
Next, we have your trip computer which allows you to look at not only your current MPG, but the last trip as well as both of your A and B trip meters.
Pretty straightforward, see how far you've gone, see how well you did.
Next, we have the AT&T hotspot button.
This one os on the newer side of Honda's technology.
The previous generation infotainment system did not allow 4G LTE wifi connectivity, but This one does let's it connect a few devices hopefully keep the kids a little quieter on the right.
Next we have the Hondalink button.
That is Honda's connected car telematic system.
From here, if you go over to the help and support tab, you can get a future guide about your vehicle and a little bit more about it.
You can get customer support or a roadside assistance.
Now last but certainly not least, we have the gauge cluster.
Instead of traditional gauges, Honda has replaced the left side with a configurable display that let's you look at well, Just about anything.
A quick tap of the home button allows you to see what you can put on the gauge cluster starting with just the gauges which is pretty boring.
So we'll keep scoring.
You can access power flow, so right here in the gauge cluster you can see how your battery and engine are working in tandem so you don't have to occur the whole [UNKNOWN] screen with it.
Beyond that, you can look at your range in fuel, your fuel economy.
Or, just whatever's playing on your radio.
And that is it for the cabin tech walk-through of the 2019 Honda Insight.
Feel free to check out the rodeshow.com for not only the written review but a video to go along with it.
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