FIRST DRIVES
HONDA HR-V
TESTED 6.10.21, FRANKFURT, GERMANY ON SALE LATE 2021
Small crossover’s third generation goes hybrid only and gets a dose of sophistication
TESTER’S NOTE
The HR-V pulls the London cab trick of pushing the rear seats back a long way. Great for leg room, not so much for boot space.
IV
Honda’s press blurb for the new generation of its HR-V reads as though the company has been paying attention to reviewers’ and customers’ clamour for cars that don’t hit you over the head with technology. It makes much of its ‘Man-Maximum, Machine- Minimum’ design principle, which sounds like a bad Google translation, but it is supposedly the “belief that the purpose of technology and design is to serve the needs of the driver and passengers”. Amen to that.
It doesn’t mean that this is some sort of back-to-basics Suzuki Jimny competitor, though. For starters, the new HR-V is hybrid only, like its Jazz hatchback sibling. It uses essentially the same set-up, but with a bigger battery and 21bhp more to cope with the heavier, taller body. That means a 1.5-litre Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder petrol engine, and two electric motors giving a combined output of 129bhp and 187lb ft.