[alenp07]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

3. Hatchbacks are dead, sedan is in heaven and everyone is happy with crossovers & UVs back on Earth.

I could very well be wrong! <fingers crossed>

I am with the same sentiments. Slavia and City are the top two contenders on my list. I found the Slavia top trims to be overpriced or it is beyond my reach. Where City VX has all the bells and whistles as a family car. The only gripe I have with City is the way it drives with the CVT gearbox. The difference was quite obvious once I test drove Taigun and Kushaq both 1.0 and 1.5.

Now the reason for me to consider City Hybrid is because of the technology and the excellent efficiency it offers. As you rightly mentioned pricing will be the key and I hope that Honda will price it right. It can have all the potential to be the best Diesel alternative that too with a proper automatic.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

In the case of the City Hybrid's unusual set-up, I feel there is no difference between having a 2km or 20km battery.

Why? Because this isn't a plug-in Hybrid. If you could charge the full 20km at home and use only that in the city, the bigger battery makes sense. Since the engine is the only avenue to charge the battery, whether the battery provides 2km or 20km of charge makes no difference. The engine will have to run to charge the battery regardless of range.

The only difference the 20km battery would make is that maybe the gaps between the engine switching on-off to charge the battery would be larger. But ultimately, fuel consumption would remain the same.

Agreed only with the benefits of going for a smaller battery. However, I do not fully agree with a larger battery not making a difference. It depends on the sort of use you put the vehicle to. Consider you use the car on a mixed city and highway scenario. On the highway, the opportunity to regenerate is much higher due to prolonged braking or coasting. This could charge up the battery and provide me one way of pure EV drive to office. Same if you live in hilly regions or cities with a mix of inclines and declines. Hence, while the fuel consumption might not change between a smaller battery and a bigger one, the whole point I was trying to make is that this system by Honda is quite focused on its use case, and is not comparable to its earlier implementations.

[ashishpotdar]

Can anyone who has owned/driven a Self-Charging Hybrid vehicle (Like the Camry) compare the Camry technology to the City Hybrid. Are they the same ?

In case they are similar, how do the specs differ (ICE Engine Power, EV Motor Power, EV Battery Capacity) ? What difference do these specs make on performance ?

Toyota has started giving a 8 Year Warranty on the Hybrid Battery for Camry. Will such a warranty be needed for the Honda City also ?

Given below a link that simplifies the Camry Hybrid functioning during startup, cruising or when you need more power.

https://www.toyotabharat.com/hybrid-technology/

[mohan41]

Originally Posted by ask77

https://Youtu.be/6glpZTRT6qE
This Honda presentation details the working of the hybrid system.

One noob question after going through this: Say the battery is not charged and the car is stationary on an uphill road and the car is fully loaded. Will the engine running at 2000rpm directly coupled to motor be able to drive the car uphill ?

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by mohan41

One noob question after going through this: Say the battery is not charged and the car is stationary on an uphill road and the car is fully loaded. Will the engine running at 2000rpm directly coupled to motor be able to drive the car uphill ?

The IC engine will start and will power the Motor Generator Unit to power the second motor driving the wheels and will also charge the battery. The 253Nm torque from the motor will take care of the load.

IC engine will drive the wheels directly only in overdrive - highway speeds for instance. All of this is managed by the onboard electronics and the driver got no control over it.

This Honda hybrid is quite different to the Toyota one. I had detailed the high-level working of this unit a few pages back!

[Palio_2005]

Hi. The date expected for the launch has come and gone. No news from Honda on this launch of the Hybrid version. Am looking at it to replace by gasoline Yaris as most of my drive is in Mumbai city with Yaris returning 6-7 kmpl.

I think the hybrid should at least give 15-17 kmpl in the slow moving Mumbai traffic

[for_cars1]

Originally Posted by mohan41

..the car is fully loaded. Will the engine running at 2000rpm directly coupled to motor be able to drive the car uphill ?

Originally Posted by deetjohn

...The 253Nm torque from the motor will take care of the load.
...

Also this 253 Nm from the electric motor is available right from 0 rpm, so it will literally pull like a locomotive engine up any steep slope effortlessly much better than any ICE engine can of the same rating (ICE engine operates in a narrow torque band unlike an electric motor).

In fact all Train/Locomotive diesel engines are essentially have a diesel engine which acts like a power generator to run an electric motor which actually pulls the train. Only an electric motor can generate so much torque from standstill to pull the entire train. The diesel engine's part is to only run the power generator.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by Palio_2005

I think the hybrid should at least give 15-17 kmpl in the slow moving Mumbai traffic

I think 20+ is going to be easy-peasy! And with the way it works, that FE is not really affected even if you drive it fast in urban traffic. Meaning heavy acceleration doesn't make it gulp fuel. The effect of FE on driving with a bit of enthusiasm is going to be minimal. As the control unit will always keep that IC engine at the optimum rpm for efficiency. That's where it becomes a little weird to drive as well.

Originally Posted by for_cars1

Also this 253 Nm from the electric motor is available right from 0 rpm, so it will literally pull like a locomotive engine up any steep slope effortlessly...

Yes, that's right! And that's where the weird part comes in. The engine note in this Honda won't have much correlation to the accelerator input or the speed of the car. I really hope its not like the idle speed of a diesel engine locomotive. That makes quite the ruckus. And noise is one of the biggest complaints from this Honda hybrid.

Really eager to drive this one!

[sbm]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

I

Yes, that's right! And that's where the weird part comes in. The engine note in this Honda won't have much correlation to the accelerator input or the speed of the car. I really hope its not like the idle speed of a diesel engine locomotive. That makes quite the ruckus. And noise is one of the biggest complaints from this Honda hybrid.
Really eager to drive this one!

Well, that is sad. The roar of the engine is what connects the driver to the car. Even as kids we used to mimic the sound of and changing gears. In pure electric vehicles atleast there is no sound at all so one can accommodate to the silent drive after some time but in hybrids, engine will keep making a constant sound. Let's see how we adapt to this.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by sbm

Well, that is sad. The roar of the engine is what connects the driver to the car. Even as kids we used to mimic the sound of and changing gears. In pure electric vehicles atleast there is no sound at all so one can accommodate to the silent drive after some time but in hybrids, engine will keep making a constant sound. Let's see how we adapt to this.

From what I know, this is how is it going to be on the City hybrid.

During sedate driving, the IC engine will be barely audible or felt. That's the reason why they went with a smooth 4 pot engine.

And when you accelerate, Honda has given it artificial shift points to not make it too weird for the driver. Think of it like a CVT with shift points, but with some rubber band effect. The rise and fall in rpm won't have an exact correlation with what the car is doing and will be odd at times. How odd is what I am curious to find out!

[Tgo]

As others have pointed out, Honda’s hybrid is very different from Toyota’s hybrid technology.

The fundamental difference is that the Toyota system has a CVT gearbox where the engine can take on the power delivery fully (all speeds and all gears).

The Honda system is setup in a way that the power from the engine is used only to charge the battery at less than highway speeds. It also powers the electric motor in parallel to the battery. The electric motor is what drives the wheels upto highway speeds. After that, the engine and the wheels get coupled via a single speed gearbox and the engine takes on cruising duties.

This video explains the Honda system very well.

https://youtu.be/-P_VChtMGK8

[vvrchandra]

Found this video on YouTube. It shows how the drive and the engine/motor sound is.

https://youtu.be/J0cLhnBm_yg

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by vvrchandra

Found this video on YouTube. It shows how the drive and the engine/motor sound is.

Ouch!
The engine sounds horrible!!

Nobody wants an iVTEC randomly screaming away to 6000rpm every now and then while cruising. The driving experience as shown in the video is annoyingly noisy and uncomfortable to watch.

This engine is apparently behaving as if it has an on-off switch. It is either quietly purring along, or straightaway redlining. There seems to be no in-between.

[Alterlife]

April is almost here! According to the article below, Honda India will have a new CEO on April 1st. I have my fingers crossed he announces the launch of the new variant on his first day!

(https://www.team-bhp.com/news/honda-...-president-ceo)

[for_cars1]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

....
This engine is apparently behaving as if it has an on-off switch. It is either quietly purring along, or straightaway redlining. There seems to be no in-between.

The ICE engine is always operating in its most energy efficient high rpm zone whenever is running. Good to hear the claimed fuel consumption of 3.x liter per 100km or 30kmpl.

The EV purring mode is going to be great for heavy/stop and go traffic conditions until the ICE high rpm ICE droning kicks in from time to time

Signs of the times, with the hybrids coming in, pure ICE cars should quickly get phased out with the arrival of more stringent emission norms.

He was literally driving it at the edge of its grip levels. The tyres were squealing so much.