Honda Concepts: Insight, CR-Z, and FC Sport

L.A. Auto Show

L.A. Auto Show

L.A. Auto Show
A trio of alternative-fuel concepts graced the Honda stage: Insight (top), CR-Z (middle), and FC Sport (bottom).

We're still waiting for official specifications on Honda's Insight and CR-Z hybrid concepts, but at least the L.A. Show brought both cars to North America for the first time. And we'll know all about Insight soon enough, as the production model is due to appear at Detroit ahead of an on-sale date sometime next spring. It's expected to be all but identical to the concept and to cost less than $20,000, which could make it the most affordable hybrid on the U.S. market.

In case you missed it, the Insight is a compact sedan that shares only its name with the two-seat hybrid coupe introduced nearly 10 years ago. Its gas/electric drive system is similar to that of the Civic Hybrid sedan, which means a 4-cylinder gasoline engine assisted by a motor/battery drive that does not run the vehicle by itself. Insight uses a dedicated platform shared with no other Honda, and though it does resemble the company's FCX Clarity hydrogen-fuel-cell sedan, that's deliberate. Honda says the Insight will get about the same fuel economy as the Civic Hybrid and will include "Eco Assist" instrumentation to help drivers achieve maximum mpg. Hybrid-owning "hypermilers" should love it.

So, too, the CR-Z. This concept debuted in 2007 as a jaunty little hatchback coupe whose looks and size recall the popular two-seat CRX Civics of the 1980s and '90s. Honda says the U.S. will get something like the CR-Z by 2010 or so. The company had planned to sell it only in Europe and Japan, but Honda wants to boost its North American hybrid sales to at least 100,000 units per year, so the CR-Z is coming in to bolster the Insight.

There was one other concept on Honda's L.A. stand, the FC Sport. A project of the company's California design center in Pasadena, it was developed as an ultra-sporty riff on the Clarity's "V-Flow" fuel-cell architecture, the idea being to show that gas-saving green cars needn't be dull. Unfortunately for Honda, most people we spoke with thought the FC Sport was just plain odd, especially at the front and back. Oh well, not even Honda always gets it right.

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