Honda engineers designed a completely new 5-speed manual transmission for the Insight. Like the rest of the Insight, its new transmission is designed to be as lightweight and as compact as possible, and is sized to the power requirements of the IMA system. The new transmission weighs just 91 pounds and is 9.25 pounds lighter and almost a half an inch shorter than the current Civic manual transmission.
In order to minimize power loss within the transmission, the gears have been carefully machined to reduce rotational mass. The transmission's lubricating system has also been redesigned to provide more efficient lubrication with a smaller oil capacity; thereby saving additional weight and size.
The transmission's shift linkage operates smoothly, with minimal effort, thanks to the use of shortened synchronizer sleeves and a redesigned reverse-gear mechanism. A neutral switch built into the transmission tells the IMA idle-stop feature when the transmission is in neutral.
| First Gear: | 3.461:1 |
| Second Gear: | 1.750:1 |
| Third Gear: | 1.096:1 |
| Fourth Gear: | 0.857:1 |
| Fifth Gear: | 0.710:1 |
| Reverse Gear: | 3.231:1 |
| Final Drive: | 3.208:1 |