This is a comparison and that many people have said shouldn't be taking price at all. These are the two newest and most interesting hybrids on the market today. This is the recently introduced Honda Insight and this is the very recently introduced Toyota Prius, the third generation of their hybrid technology. We still think that there is compelling argument for comparing these cars and that for one thing they are very similar looking. A lot of people will just assume they are comparable but also these days, with the economic conditions we are in, there will be a lot of folks who will be considering the Prius but find its price may be a little bit high and would like to consider as some what more affordable alternative like it nearly as good of mileage and that's what this car offers.
So how are these two cars similar and how are they different? First of all they look rather similar. They both have a similar profile and appearance, both have very good drag coefficient is very low for good efficiency moving through the air. The Prius's profile has actually changed a little bit from its predecessor and that the peak of it's roof line has moved back a bit. It's shifted rearward which has allowed for more rear occupant space, better headroom, better knee room and on. So that's an big difference.
Aerodynamically upfront, the Prius now has -- this rather blockish shapes on either side of a front bumper, and what they do is aerodynamically buff the air around the front wheel well. So the air doesn't tangled up in the wheel well and steer too much, that reduces dragging. Underneath this car is also a very considerable belly pan that smoothes the air flow beneath it. There's actually a couple of vertical fins placed background that area which actually are set to help with the car's direction stability and it's a remarkable detail. So both of them are hybrids. Well, the word, hybrid doesn't mean the same thing in every application and this is a good example.
A Honda system had been around for several years, this is the fifth generation of their integrated motor assistant. Now what this is, is basically a 1.3 liter 4-cylinder engine with an electric motor that's placed basically where the fly wheel would normally be. They are always connected, you can't disconnect the electric motor from the engine, they are always connected.
That way it makes it a bit difficult for this car to operate in pure EV mode. With engine in the Prius however is now 1.8 liter going from 1.5 in the past. And it's connected to its electric motors through a planetary gear set, so they can operate far more independently of each other compared to powered to operating this vehicle. There is about a 450 pound difference between these two cars, the Insight is lighter by that amount. It also has less overall power when you combine its gas engine and electric motor; they add up to about 98 hp, where in the case of Prius they add up to about 134 hp
This is the interior of Prius. It should look fairly familiar to people who have driven Prius before with the instruments all clustered up on the dash like that or rather simple design or very Fleur-Design but there is many differences here. This is notable one, a bit of a flying buttress here that holds the shift lever. The shift lever operates the same as the previous Prius but it's located little bit farther from the steering wheel on a more conventional location. Now here on the dashboard is an interesting new set of visual features but are all operable from these buttons on the steering wheel. It's an interesting design because when you touch any of these buttons, an icon appears up there, that's a duplicate of the button set. What they does is allows you to see what you're doing without having to look down at this button, you can keep your eye more on the road. It works very well, it's very interesting system.
Here we are in the interior of the new Insight, it's also very dramatically designed, very stylish, very futuristic looking. This is the double décker design to the instrument panel which we see now often in hand, with the speed up here and the other information clustered below. The interior is a very complicated design. It's reminiscent of the fit and the steering wheel occurs be directly off the fit.
Now that we have had a chance to compare the two vehicles technical specifications, appearance and design details, we will be taking them to the road and to the track to learn how they drive and how they perform. So stick around.
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