Welcome to Tech in the Car! I'm Oliver this is the Honda HR-V and this is a self-charging
hybrid and the benefit of that is you don't have to plug it in it keeps going in fact it can do
over 400 miles on a tank of fuel with this 1.5 liter four-cylinder engine and its electric motor
the electric motor has 131 ps of power and the engine which is a four-cylinder engine 1.5 liter
has 107 horsepower together they add up to around 250 horsepower and over 300 newton meters of
torque on a car which has a WLTP range of around 63 miles per gallon and when i've been driving
i've got over 50 which means this is a super super efficient car is a self-charging hybrid the answer
or is a full plug-in hybrid of the answer Honda make a good variety of cars they have the Honda e
which i love they've got their sporty cars like the civic type r the new version is coming
and this hybrid is a midsize crossover suv and it looks the part as well i think you can question
that we've got really cool 18 inch wheels we've got this really aggressive looking design i think
it's aggressive we've got these cool door handles at the back which i love also like on the honda e
and we've also got a full wrap round back light as well at the front we have led lights
with dynamic indicators just like you'd get on an audi which right from side to side
this car also has all the latest technology feature and it's available in three trims
elegance advanced and advanced style this is the advanced but this is not the top trim the advanced
style is more stylish the elegance model starts at twenty nine thousand four hundred and ten pounds
going up to around thirty four thousand pounds for the advanced style we also have all the latest
assistant technology here plus android auto and apple carplay we've also got a digital key using
the Honda app maybe it's time for you to change your car maybe you fancy a change maybe you want
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thank you to exchange my car.com the smart way to sell your car from the front here we have
really interesting grill design it's just a very aggressive looking bottom we've even got these
little indents in the bonnet which make it stand out and make it look more sporty which is you know
interesting on a hybrid car at the back here we have this fantastic full width light bar i love
light both in the back of cars they're becoming very common but still they look really really
cool this of course being an suv being practical has an automatic tailgate that i can press open
and we've got 335 liters of space here on the advanced and the elegance and then on the advanced
style trim this goes down to 320 so there's slightly less space on here and then of course
we've got tether points and hooks on here we've got a nice little cover here there's a hook here
we've got tether points down there and you can put the back seats down
and if you do that unfortunately there's no button here you have to do it from the inside
or you can do it like that which is not the most elegant way of doing things but if you do do that
you can go down flat and then you have about 1025 liters of space here so there's a lot of
space here give it a good 55-inch tv in there if you want to go shopping in costco maybe you
can get a special trim level with a more sporty spoiler and also you can get a sports pack and a
black pack as well to make it all blacker you can also get a titanium pack for the exterior
and the interior and it's got this sort of goldish titanium design this area here becomes that color
around the lights it goes that color and inside which is a separate pack the steering wheel
surrounds all the titanium gold titanium color so there's some interesting customizations you
can have on this car so let's take this car for a drive in london let's see how efficient this
self-charging hybrid is in the traffic of london and is it good to drive let's find
out now we start off in the honda hrv in ev mode now this is as i mentioned a self-charging hybrid
the benefit of having a self-charging hybrid is you don't need to plug it in but that's also a
negative because with a plug-in hybrid you get a specific range 30-40 miles and you can set eevee
mode on its own and you know that wherever you go you're going to get that range it means you can
drive around town city probably all day and never actually use any petrol which considering the cost
petrol right now is a big help now with this car you don't choose when you get ev mode it decides
for you which means that you don't get a specific range from the manufacturer that you can drive
around you do still get an ev mode and obviously that's one of the benefits here i've been in ev
mode for the last three or four miles since i left my home and i'm continuing to use it sitting in
london traffic now i'm not burning fuel i'm not wasting it and that's really really beneficial
and that is where a hybrid comes in really handy because you get the best of an electric car and
the best of a traditional motor car so those things are really really helpful as i drive
in ev mode through the london city center we're gonna end up at wimbledon a little bit
and really i wanted to see how this car does when you're sitting in traffic and also see how it
does in the park so we're gonna see a bit of both traffic and also in the park in nature this car if
we talk about the specifics of it we've got around 250 horsepower combined from the electric motor
and the engine which is a four cylinder engine and then we've got again around 280
newton meters of torque from the combined motor and engine so you know it's got a pretty decent
amount of power it's got a pretty decent amount of torque now let's talk about the gearbox so we have
reverse as you would expect neutral and we got dry but we've also got a b mode b stands for the regen
braking which means that it will basically allow you to essentially one pedal drive now it's not
quite the same as an electric car but it's very close and you can almost one pedal drive in this
b mode you can adjust the actual strength of that quite happily on here but at its maximum it almost
brings you to full stop so it's like very relaxed regen braking on an electric car be fair to say
but what it does mean is the power goes back into the motor so your electric range goes back up so
actually sitting in traffic like this the car is refilling the battery all the time so actually in
traffic it can stay in ev mode for long periods of time and that saves you so how does the hrv drive
well we've got a really good driving position can see the road very very clearly the steering is
pretty responsive i think you know for a small size suv crossover it actually responds quite
well in all honesty i'm quite impressed with the steering it's not got a vague feeling to me it
feels pretty extremely sporty and that's a good thing definitely like i mentioned before we have
our different modes we have a regen braking mode and you can't use the adapter cruise control and
lane assist in the regen braking mode because it automatically takes a speed out of the car to put
the power back in to the battery so you can only use that to cruise control with it in the normal
d mode but if you're in the b mode for regen braking then obviously you are recharging your
battery in the car and therefore you're getting a more efficient journey and that combined motor and
engine is what gives this car the really good economy wltp is around 459 miles of range and i've
seen over 50 miles per gallon although officially it's going to be around 63 miles per gallon
so this is a very very efficient car there's no question about it we're talking super super super
efficient and i love the fact that the petrol gauge has barely gone down even though i've driven
about 200 miles i still have a range of over 300 miles according to car that's a really really good
thing welcome to the front of the hrv now honda have got a very very standard steering wheel
design i quite like it we've got nice feeling synthetic leather here we've got a heated steering
wheel on this the advanced trim level we've got our lane assist our cruise control our home button
to navigate through and on our infotainment system we have an interesting display we have
analog dials on the right and on the left we have files which show the charge and you can scroll
through them and choose different modes depending on what you want using a little scroll wheel
and you have a lot of choice power and charge power flow range of fuel speed and time audio
phone navigation speed alarm seat belt safety support customize display and information
so if you put it into power charge then you get a little green and blue section like a rev counter
where when it's blue it's using a battery power and when it's green it's charging the battery
now one thing which does slightly confuse me is this infotainment display because it's slightly
tilted to the left away from the driver it's like it's tilted towards the passenger now i
can't decide if that's because honda want the passenger to control everything on the
infotainment display or if it's meant when the steering wheel is on the other side to be for
the driver which wouldn't make sense because in japan where honda comes from the steering wheel
is on the same side as the uk so why would they make a screen facing the opposite side
of where the steering wheel is unless they're designing it for europe so i don't know if the
u.s europe i don't know it's a bit weird it's a bit strange it's not actually so noticeable in
the day time i find it is more obvious in the night because you can see the lights kind of
shining away from you in the daytime the screen is fine it's tiny little thing a bit confusing
but it's there we've got digital controls here for the climate control which are very easy to
use that's good we've got two usbs one for charging one for connecting to android auto
and apple carplay we've got a 12 volt down here we've got a little space here we can store stuff
two cup holders we've got a little cubby hole here where you can can store more stuff we've got our
electronic brake we've got our drive mode button down here so one thing which is unusual is these
air diffusers so instead of having traditional little diors to adjust the amount of air coming
out of the air conditioning unit on here we've got a different system where we've got three options
no air normal air and diffused area when you turn it to the diffused air setting the air is meant
to move around the car and give you a better environment which feels better and has better
air flow and just you know makes you feel better because more air makes you feel better so that's
an interesting thing i haven't seen on any other cars i like that a lot so how about seating space
in the back here of the hrv well i've got quite a lot of space here i'm fairly comfortable the only
thing which is slightly annoying there is the headrest but we sorted that out
you can see here i mean it's very spacious i've got tons of space for my knees i've got
tons of space 178 for my head i've got arm room these windows are a bit narrow which is
it to be expected because it's quite a sporty s coupe as almost designed to the back of this hr-v
and yeah it's very comfortable this confused me a bit when i first saw it the seat belt the
middle center seat belt that's very clever it works just like a normal seat belt it's hanging
from the top though slightly confusing if you don't realize what's going on there but that
means you've got extra safety in the back of the car which is something which is very very good
we've got two usb down here we've got a little pocket here we've got climate controls obviously
they're the same as the front but you do have the ability to adjust them and adjust the amount of
air we've got some pockets here we've got a little cup holder here on the side of the door this is
actually a very very comfortable and spacious rear for this car so i'm impressed with that
so what do i think of this honda hrv well first of all it's really really cleverly done car it feels
a lot more sporty than you would expect from a small suv it's got very very very good efficiency
it has tons of range thanks to combination of the electric motor and the very very capable
engine this car has inside it's got all the technology you can one it's got all the safety
features you can regen braking on it which means that you put the battery power back into that
battery and so you can keep using the eev range for longer if i was honest the only thing i wish
that the cars had would have would be the ability to choose ev mode as its own separate mode however
because this is a self-charging hybrid that's not possible if you want that you need a plug-in
hybrid which this is not however everything else this does the job really really well
there's a lot of space in the back you can fit lots of stuff in it's surprisingly spacious seated
in the back of it i was really surprised when i got in the back how much space there was and it's
pretty good value starting around 28 000 pounds it has everything you can want and honda really going
to make the trims really easy to understand we've got our three different trims which means that
really it's quite easy to decide what you want and what features you need and then you can add some
finishing touches with the extra packs for design on the interior and the exterior if you want to so
all really really easy to sort out one thing i'm not fond of is the way the infotainment screen
faces away from the driver towards the passenger side now it won't make any difference to you in
day-to-day driving it's still very easy to use it's still easy to see everything is perfect it's
just a little niggle which i find a bit strange as a design choice and i can't figure it out because
like i said if it's designed for japan where they drive on the same side of the road as uk
then the screen should not be facing away normally the screen would be facing the driver if they
designed it purposely to face the passenger as a safety feature interesting i haven't seen that
on other cars yet overall good car has everything you want from a hybrid small suv it's good value
i would definitely say that if you're in the market you should check one out don't forget
you can check out my other videos on the honda e and the civic type r and if you enjoyed this
video please give me a like and subscribe for more on the channel thank you very much