The Honda Insight Is Back As An Awesome-Looking Electric Crossover, But It’s Not Coming To America

I am a staunch defender of the original Honda Insight. The two-door, streamlined hybrid hatch looked stunning thanks to its aero-focused rear wheel covers, and even came with a manual transmission. It was the most efficient mass-produced vehicle to be sold in the U.S. upon its release at the turn of the century, and has since developed a cult following for its design and insane efficiency numbers.

The second- and third-generation Insights, released in 2009 and 2018, respectively, brought innovations of their own, but they looked far less distinctive, and didn’t deliver the same fuel-sipping economy numbers. Slowly, the Insight nameplate faded into irrelevancy until the model was dropped from Honda’s lineup in 2022.

Now, the Insight is finally back. And for the first time, it’s no longer a hybrid, but a full-on electric vehicle. It’s also no longer a hatchback, but a tall-riding crossover. It can get over 311 miles of range on the European cycle, but sadly, it’s not coming to America.

A Honda North America representative confirmed to me over email that the new Insight is being sold “exclusively for the Japanese market.” So if you’ve always dreamed about having a semi-affordable Honda EV to shuttle you back and forth to work, you’re going to have to keep waiting.

It’s a shame, because this new Insight seems pretty appealing. It has a distinctive design, with a Civic-like nose and sharper headlights, which include integrated boomerang-shaped daytime running lights running down either side of the bumper. There’s also a strip of light running through the center of the bumper, illuminating the Honda badge, which I’m not so sure about. The rear end, meanwhile, reminds me a lot of the Toyota bZ4X, with another beam across the rear hatch and vertical lights on either end.

This design isn’t exactly new, since the new Insight is actually based on the e:NS2, an electric crossover spawned in 2024 through a joint venture in China between Honda and Dongfeng. The interior, similarly, matches up with that car, using a massive 12.8-inch touchscreen to control everything from climate to entertainment.

That screen is paired to a 9.4-inch digital instrument cluster and comes with stuff like a head-up display and a 12-speaker Bose stereo. There are at least real buttons on the steering wheel and on the center console to actuate the transmission and select drive modes.

Underneath, the Insight predictably shares the e:NS2’s powertrain. That means a 68.8-kWh battery pack sending thrust to the front wheels via a single electric motor, rated at 201 horsepower and 229 lb-ft of torque. For what it’s worth, that’s 50 more horses and 32 more lb-ft, respectively, than the last Insight. But this car is also probably a bit heavier, so don’t expect huge gains in performance.

There’s no word on how much the new Insight will cost in Japan, but whatever the number is, it wouldn’t reflect theoretical pricing stateside. Being built in China, import tariffs would make the Insight far more expensive than if it were built virtually anywhere else, so don’t expect Honda to eventually bring it here unless some drastic policy changes take place. Depending on how it holds up over 25 years, it might make a decent niche JDM import, though.

Top graphic image: Honda