We recently picked up our new Honda Civic Hybrid, to replace our
out-of-lease Audi A3. The short answer is, it seems to be a great car.
When you first get in it feels quite spacious, although the front dash
is kind of large and imposing. At first I thought this was to
accommodate batteries, but they are actually behind the rear seat
(meaning in the hybrid you can not lay the seats down). It has plenty of
hidey-holes to store stuff, most of which have a pull-over cover.
The drivers position is quite fine, although visibility probably isn't
as good as in the older Audi. The steering wheel seems a little small,
but the built-in controls are good. One thing I miss from the Audi is a
space on the right of the accelerator to rest your foot, which is
especially good for long periods on cruise control. The digital speedo
is above the other controls and quite large, and is very visible to all
your passengers (maybe this is an added safety feature!).
There is annoyingly little actual information about the "Integrated
Motor Assist" system, other than it assists the motor and charges when
you brake. There is a little indicator that tells you how much
assistance it is giving, and conversely how much it is charing when you
coast or brake. When you brake to a halt it goes into "auto stop" mode,
where everything is off. The electric motor seems to take you from
standing for about 2 seconds, presumably whilst the petrol engine starts
up. It is quite smart about keeping the engine ticking on hills, but it
does roll backwards just slightly.
When coasting, it seems that the engine goes idle, or at least the
current fuel consumption gauge goes to zero. When the engine flicks back
to charge mode there is a little whirring noise from somewhere under the
dash, and when starting on electric the car does have a sort of subtle
shudder; other than you wouldn't really notice.
The CV transmission is fantastic, and makes for a very smooth ride,
especially on cruise control which doesn't have to hunt for gears. It is
quite strange putting your foot down and just having the car accelerate
with no noticeable gear changes. It has plenty of power for getting
around town, and goes OK in the above 100km/h range. Even carrying 5
people it didn't seem to struggle. It gets around car parks just fine,
and the steering is very, very smooth (new tyres probably help,
however).
For some reason you can't shut of the two innermost air-conditioning
vents, but otherwise the climate control works great. At least in
Australia the interior has a touch of the Henry Ford about it: you can
have it in any colour as long at is it beige. The rims are standard too,
but look quite nice and modern.
Minor annoyances are lack of a switch-blade style key (they take up less
pocket room) and, more annoyingly, lack of a remote boot unlock feature.
This is something that comes in very handy when you have hands full of
shopping, or a trombone and related paraphernalia. I also like the Audi
hydraulic arm that kept the bonnet open, not that I plan to be under
there much. Not that you'd want to touch anything, the two large red
cables from the 158V batteries look like they could pack quite a punch.
It has a few less flashy features than the Prius, but it by no means
feels like like a cheaper car. And the satisfaction you get from sitting
in traffic (a fact of life in Sydney) using zero petrol is pretty good!
Update : We've just returned from a road trip from Sydney to
Melbourne and back, covering 2170km. This was essentially all highway
driving on cruise control at around 100-110km/h, with full boot of
luggage. The trip computer tells us we averaged 5.8L/100km, which is a
fair way off the 4.6L/100km claimed in the Green Vehicle
Guide. A new 1.4L petrol Fiat
Punto travelling with us on the way down also was running at under
6L/100km. In normal inner-Sydney driving we average 6.8L/100km, and the
lowest we have achieved is 5.4L/100km whilst driving around the M2-M7-M5
loop when the new Lane Cove tunnel opened, which was often at lower
speeds (80-90km/h) than open highway driving.
