Green Machine; Honda's little hybrid redefines performance.

``I have seen the future, and boy, is it slow.'' -Notes from the test track

After track-testing Honda's Insight, we were left wondering why we chose to measure the speed of a car that exhibits so little of the stuff. Then again, the reason many of you-auto enthusiasts all-bought the vehicle is its performance. Not the kind measured in tenths of seconds, but in miles per gallon. The U.S. market is home to two hybrids, Honda's Insight and the Toyota Prius. Both vehicles play variations on the gasoline-electric theme, the Honda as a two-seater and the Prius as a bigger four-door sedan. And just as Insight beat the Prius as the first hybrid to hit the U.S. market, according to the EPA, it beats it in the fuel-consumption department as well. The Insight has a fuel-sipping city/highway combined 65 mpg to the Prius' comparatively measly 48 mpg. Insight achieves its ultra-low fuel consumption through a combination of low vehicle mass, good aero and a sophisticated powertrain. Its aluminum chassis and aluminum and plastic body panels help Insight achieve its sub-1900-pound curb weight, with features like rear wheel skirts and a small frontal area that help reduce the car's drag coefficient to 0.25. Then there's its hybrid powertrain. Starting with a lean-burn, 1.0-liter, VTEC three-cylinder engine, Honda adds to it a 10-kW high-efficiency electric motor. The motor can boost the vehicle's output by 25 lb-ft of torque by assisting the engine, and it also functions as a generator to charge the Insight's nickel-metal hydride battery pack. Put together, the powertrain turns out a peak 73 hp at 5700 rpm and 91 lb-ft of torque at a low 2000 rpm. And yet as anyone can guess, 73 horses don't do well at the track, speed-wise. Our first attempt at testing the Insight produced some potentially explosive results. During the second slalom run, gasoline began, as one witness described, ``gushing out'' from under the car-not a good thing for either seconds or tracks. Honda later discovered the problem resulted from a crack where the fuel filler hose connected to the tank of the hand-built pre-production car we used. Honda says no owners have called the automaker with a similar problem, since production ...