tigerhonaker
05-26-2006, 11:19 PM
BY SAM MOSES
For the Tribune's Accelerate section
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By all accounts, the redesigned 2006 Honda Civic is a great car. In January it won the Oscar of automobiles, the North American Car of the Year.
It has sleek new aerodynamic styling, and the stiffened chassis adds crashworthiness.
At a base price of $14,910 (including freight) for the entry-level DX Coupe, it’s a great value, especially considering that standard equipment includes side airbags in front plus full-length side air curtains. That’s something that’s not even standard on all luxury cars.
My test model was the Honda Civic Hybrid. Its base price of $22,400 makes it another story altogether. There are two reasons for buying a hybrid: lower emissions and higher gas mileage.
The Civic Hybrid is superb on the emissions front, with a Smog Index of 0.09, compared to the new vehicle average of 0.58.
A jury of 46 international automotive journalists named it the World Green Car of the Year.
Honda claims 49 miles per gallon in the city and 51 mpg on the highway in its official report to the Environmental Protection Agency. And driver experience in the real world supports that claim.
For 2006, 17 horsepower and 18 foot-pounds of torque have been added to the combined output of the Hybrid’s gasoline engine and electric motor, bringing it up to a total 110 hp and 123 foot-pounds pounds of torque.
The 1.3-liter engine uses new cams for more efficient valve operation, and the electric IMA (integrated motor assist) system uses better batteries and tighter wiring.
Additionally, the recharging that occurs during braking has been more than doubled. The Civic can now run on just the battery, like the Toyota Prius.
There’s also a new continuously variable transmission. The rheostat-like operation of a CVT seems compatible with a hybrid, unlike with sportier cars.
However, my Civic sometimes jerked and thunked when I accelerated slowly away from stop signs, especially if I had only come to a very brief stop. It jerked other times, when I had slowed to a couple miles per hour and then lightly accelerated without stopping.
Maybe the transmission wasn’t the sole culprit. Whatever, there’s a rough spot somewhere in the interface between the gas engine, IMA and CVT.
Out on the highway, the Hybrid is extremely quiet. Downhill on the freeway, with the gas engine barely being used, about all you can hear is some wind and tire noise.
And even that’s minimal, thanks to the excellent aerodynamics and tires with low rolling resistance.
The new chassis lengthens the wheelbase, and the suspension is upgraded. Both these changes should improve the ride — on paper. But around town, over choppy surfaces, I found the ride surprisingly harsh.
I was disappointed with the instrument panel, specifically in how the fuel mileage and battery charging information was displayed. The Civic uses very small bar graphs to transmit that info to the driver. The Toyota Prius is easier to read and more fun to watch.
If other cars of all types can give a digital readout of the instantaneous fuel mileage, why shouldn’t a hybrid? That information is very useful because it shows a driver where the inefficiencies lie. A driver can learn from this and improve his or her own technique.
A hybrid driver shouldn’t have to squint and guess to get that information.
Which brings us to my fuel mileage with the Civic Hybrid. There was a digital readout of the average mileage, and it only added to my puzzlement. I know how to drive efficiently. I was not a leadfoot with the Civic in the week I drove it around town. I constantly watched both the instantaneous mileage graph and the digital display for average mileage.
The car was delivered to me from Seattle. When it arrived, the gauge showed a previous average of 25.2 miles per gallon, so somebody obviously had been running it hard.
I only was able to drive the Civic around town and upped that average to 27.5 miles per gallon in a relatively few miles.
I should have reset the gauge to measure my own mileage, which was a lapse on my part. But I’ve spoken to other Civic Hybrid drivers, and they routinely get 45 mpg.
Let’s go back to the reasons for buying a hybrid. If gas mileage is about your budget and not primarily about a symbolic contribution to conserving the world’s oil reserves, you owe it to yourself to consider the simple $15,000 Civic, with a 1.8-liter engine that makes 140 horsepower and gets up to 40 mpg.
The Civic might well deserve to be North American Car of the Year and the Civic Hybrid might deserve to be World Green Car but that doesn’t make it the world’s best value — it depends on the price of gas and how many miles you drive per year.
http://www.portlandtribune.com/adxl8.cgi?id=X052606
For the Tribune's Accelerate section
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By all accounts, the redesigned 2006 Honda Civic is a great car. In January it won the Oscar of automobiles, the North American Car of the Year.
It has sleek new aerodynamic styling, and the stiffened chassis adds crashworthiness.
At a base price of $14,910 (including freight) for the entry-level DX Coupe, it’s a great value, especially considering that standard equipment includes side airbags in front plus full-length side air curtains. That’s something that’s not even standard on all luxury cars.
My test model was the Honda Civic Hybrid. Its base price of $22,400 makes it another story altogether. There are two reasons for buying a hybrid: lower emissions and higher gas mileage.
The Civic Hybrid is superb on the emissions front, with a Smog Index of 0.09, compared to the new vehicle average of 0.58.
A jury of 46 international automotive journalists named it the World Green Car of the Year.
Honda claims 49 miles per gallon in the city and 51 mpg on the highway in its official report to the Environmental Protection Agency. And driver experience in the real world supports that claim.
For 2006, 17 horsepower and 18 foot-pounds of torque have been added to the combined output of the Hybrid’s gasoline engine and electric motor, bringing it up to a total 110 hp and 123 foot-pounds pounds of torque.
The 1.3-liter engine uses new cams for more efficient valve operation, and the electric IMA (integrated motor assist) system uses better batteries and tighter wiring.
Additionally, the recharging that occurs during braking has been more than doubled. The Civic can now run on just the battery, like the Toyota Prius.
There’s also a new continuously variable transmission. The rheostat-like operation of a CVT seems compatible with a hybrid, unlike with sportier cars.
However, my Civic sometimes jerked and thunked when I accelerated slowly away from stop signs, especially if I had only come to a very brief stop. It jerked other times, when I had slowed to a couple miles per hour and then lightly accelerated without stopping.
Maybe the transmission wasn’t the sole culprit. Whatever, there’s a rough spot somewhere in the interface between the gas engine, IMA and CVT.
Out on the highway, the Hybrid is extremely quiet. Downhill on the freeway, with the gas engine barely being used, about all you can hear is some wind and tire noise.
And even that’s minimal, thanks to the excellent aerodynamics and tires with low rolling resistance.
The new chassis lengthens the wheelbase, and the suspension is upgraded. Both these changes should improve the ride — on paper. But around town, over choppy surfaces, I found the ride surprisingly harsh.
I was disappointed with the instrument panel, specifically in how the fuel mileage and battery charging information was displayed. The Civic uses very small bar graphs to transmit that info to the driver. The Toyota Prius is easier to read and more fun to watch.
If other cars of all types can give a digital readout of the instantaneous fuel mileage, why shouldn’t a hybrid? That information is very useful because it shows a driver where the inefficiencies lie. A driver can learn from this and improve his or her own technique.
A hybrid driver shouldn’t have to squint and guess to get that information.
Which brings us to my fuel mileage with the Civic Hybrid. There was a digital readout of the average mileage, and it only added to my puzzlement. I know how to drive efficiently. I was not a leadfoot with the Civic in the week I drove it around town. I constantly watched both the instantaneous mileage graph and the digital display for average mileage.
The car was delivered to me from Seattle. When it arrived, the gauge showed a previous average of 25.2 miles per gallon, so somebody obviously had been running it hard.
I only was able to drive the Civic around town and upped that average to 27.5 miles per gallon in a relatively few miles.
I should have reset the gauge to measure my own mileage, which was a lapse on my part. But I’ve spoken to other Civic Hybrid drivers, and they routinely get 45 mpg.
Let’s go back to the reasons for buying a hybrid. If gas mileage is about your budget and not primarily about a symbolic contribution to conserving the world’s oil reserves, you owe it to yourself to consider the simple $15,000 Civic, with a 1.8-liter engine that makes 140 horsepower and gets up to 40 mpg.
The Civic might well deserve to be North American Car of the Year and the Civic Hybrid might deserve to be World Green Car but that doesn’t make it the world’s best value — it depends on the price of gas and how many miles you drive per year.
http://www.portlandtribune.com/adxl8.cgi?id=X052606