The Crank: Why Honda’s hybrids are the right cars, but at the wrong time

[svgallery name="2011_Honda_CRZ_hirez"] By John LeBlanc Here’s one thing you need to know about the car industry: nothing happens too quickly.Unlike a Nike or Apple, car companies can’t whip off all-new designs and products almost seasonally. It takes years to research, develop, and build new cars. So its natural that sometimes a vehicle is released that seems at odds with its times, like the new 2011 Honda CR-Z I’m driving this week. If not offering the exemplary fuel economy expected with its “HYBRID” badge, or high-performance promised by its two-seater son-of-CR-X shape, my first impressions of the CR-Z earlier this year were fairly positive. And now, after some quality time in a $23,490 CR-Z with a six-speed stick, I’m appreciating the tiny two-seater even more. First of all, kudos for Honda for even making a TWO-SEAT SMALL CAR. I mean you have to have some guts (a quality the company has shown little of lately) to go into a segment you and your rivals abandoned decades ago. Mazda MX-3? Toyota Mister-Two? Where art thou? Second, the CR-Z looks like the future promised in a Sid Mead (look him up) sketch. Yeah. Safety regs have forced the petite Honda with a huge schnoz. And former CR-X owners, like myself, will wonder why it weighs so much (damn, safety nazis, again). But just sitting in the low-slung CR-Z is a cavalier experience. Its funky controls had me captaining the Millennium Falcon. I wanted to hang a “NO KIDS ALLOWED” sign on off its rear window wiper arm. Plus its a hybrid with a manual gearbox, something not seen since the original 1999 Insight. For those of us who know what that third pedal is for, that's pretty cool. But where the CR-Z disappoints, and has taken the biggest criticism for, is its middling 122 hp gas-electric drivetrain. You have to think, Why didn’t Honda just drop in the Civic’s 140 hp gas engine, (or even better, the 197 hp 2.0 from the Civic Si) be rid of the weighty batteries, and offer more performance without too much of sacrifice in fuel economy? My theory? See paragraph one. My guess is the CR-Z was signed off sometime in late 2007 or early 2008. It was a time when gas prices were tickling $1.50/litre (and projected to go higher), and anything with a HYBRID badge on it was selling like Justin Bieber T-shirts at Sweet 16 party . Of course, we all know what happened next. Greed on Wall Street created the Great Recession. The world economy flopped. Demand for oil went down. And now we’re in a position where $1.00/litre gas looks like the norm, and optimum fuel economy is taking a back seat in new car buyers’ wish lists. Honda’s other hybrid, the car the CR-Z is based on, the Insight, has suffered a similar fate. Less than 1,000 have been sold in Canada this year. In hindsight, Honda must be wondering how many Insights and CR-Zs it could have sold if they had been available in 2008. But it’s just not Honda that is suffering from bad timing. Toyota Prius sales are off by almost one-third this year. And I would also put Mitsubishi’s new 2011 RVR—a vehicle I recently drove that puts fuel economy ahead of driving refinement with a weak engine/CVT combo—in the right car/wrong time category. Of course, if gas shoots up again, people will be lined up at Honda’s door, wondering why they can’t get their Insight or CR-Z in the colour they want. Until then, I’ll continue to enjoy my time in the CR-Z. I’ll keep the engine mapping switched to Sport, enjoy descent fuel economy, some semblance of driving fun, and know I’m piloting something special, if for all the wrong reasons.

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