Hybrid Living

This Wednesday at the LA Auto Show Honda debuted its new Eco-Assist fuel economy enhancement technology with the new Honda Insight Concept. This technology is hot on the heels of other manufacturers that have been releasing detailed fuel economy displays on their hybrid cars, and should be very competitive with these other products.

The Honda Insight, which also made its North American debut at the same time, will come equipped with the new Eco-Assist display in the spring of 2009 when the Insight first goes on sale in the United States.

Eco-Assist is more than just a display; it's a full fuel economy enhancement package. Besides the scoring function, which rates how you drive and encourages more economic driving, Eco-Assist offers and ECON mode, which tweaks the drivetrain to be even more fuel efficient. Perhaps the most visible and interesting feature is the speedometer background, which glows a certain color depending on how you're driving. This gives you instant feedback without the trouble of trying to read an extra set of numbers off the dash.

Honda hopes this feature will help propel the Insight, with it's low $18,500 starting price to projected sales of 100,000 units in North America annually. Personally, I'm looking forward to a test drive where I can see how the functions work in the real world.